Sparking interest

A recent immigrant draws on his experience in national security to host seminars on global events and their impact on Israel.

By PATRICIA CARMEL
Norman Bailey (far right), at one of his group discussions (photo credit: Courtesy)
Norman Bailey (far right), at one of his group discussions
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Every other Tuesday evening, a group of people gather at a home in Zichron Ya’acov to participate in an informal seminar on global events and their impact on Israel. At 7:30 sharp, all eyes turn towards Dr. Norman Bailey as he readies himself to present the evening’s topics.
The Bailey Seminars have been in progress for almost a year. Rather than deliver monologues on current events, Bailey welcomes active participation from the group, who are free to interject their views, questions and, at times, anxieties. This week’s opening topic is the significance of the presence of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Syria and possible scenarios on how the civil war in that war-torn country will play out.
In his measured and deliberate manner, Bailey addresses every angle of a topic, offering perspectives and analysis with the authority of one who has walked the corridors of power and served on the US National Security Council and was director of national intelligence (ODNI).
Born in Chicago in 1931, Bailey made aliya in 2011 with his wife, Barbara Billauer, a multifaceted expert in law and science, as well as an authority on interior design.
“I was scheduled to lecture at the Israeli National Defense College and was also offered a research position at the University of Haifa. After intense research, Barbara reached the conclusion that Zichron would suit us best,” he says. “It was certainly the right decision. Zichron is like an oasis within an oasis. It reminds me of that village in Fiddler on the Roof, Anatevka – we’ve got Moshe the watchmaker, Sima the baker; we’ve got all the characters except for Yentl the matchmaker.”
Growing up in Evanston, Illinois, Bailey was deeply influenced by his father, an internationally known neurosurgeon and psychiatrist. After he graduated high school with a perfect 4.0 average, his father took him to Europe and introduced him to the beauty and history of art. On their return to America, Bailey attended Oberlin College in Ohio, the first college in the US to admit women and blacks. Following graduation, he spent the summer in Mexico, perfecting his Spanish, followed by graduate school at the School of International Affairs at Columbia University in New York.
“My plan was to get the degree then take the foreign service examination and join the US diplomatic service but, completely to my surprise, I was drafted into the army. I’d thought I’d managed to avoid the draft by beginning a PhD and joining a reserve army unit in strategic intelligence, but that’s not the way it worked out.”
Bailey’s army service set him in the direction his life was to take. “I was sent to join a joint operational planning unit in London attached to the army attaché’s office. I wore civilian clothes and lived in my own apartment – this was simply army heaven. Half a year later, I was shipped off to France, where I completed my two years service at NATO headquarters, spending every weekend in Paris. This was when de Gaulle was in the process of taking over and it was tremendously exciting.”
After he was demobilized, Bailey completed his doctorate in international relations, specializing in Latin America, and then joined Mobil International Oil Company as an economist in the International Economics Department, an experience that was to stand him in good stead, particularly as extensive travel in Canada and Mexico allowed him to perfect his command of Spanish and French. Three years later, he began an independent consulting business advising companies on international investments, combining development of the business with lecturing on economics at Queen’s College at the City University of New York. Later, he accepted an offer from one of his clients to join an investment banking firm as a partner. A study of African colonies of Portugal for the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Washington DC presented an opportunity to add Portuguese to his foreign language skills.
His first marriage ended in divorce. By the early 1970s, he was married to his second wife, with whom he had four children. In 1974, he was asked by the US government to move his family to Portugal in the wake of the overthrow of the dictatorship in Portugal. It is here that Bailey’s account becomes cryptic, glossing over a number of details.
“NATO was worried about communist infiltration following the revolution and because of my command of Portuguese, my experience in Portuguese Africa and the fact that I had also maintained my contacts in the intelligence community, I was given a job that was within my area of expertise.”
Bailey and his family returned to the States in 1980, whereupon he was invited to join the Ronald Reagan campaign. Following Reagan’s successful bid for the presidency, Bailey was invited to join the National Security Council as the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director of International Economic Affairs.
“I had top-secret security clearance and everything I worked on in that capacity was fascinating,” Bailey recalls. “I was responsible for a whole range of American international economic policies, including the economic plan that contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union and the winning of the Cold War.
“Reagan was a fascinating man. He was also one of the finest individuals I’ve ever met. He had principles and a sense of humor and, unlike some politicians, he wasn’t full of himself. He had a deep understanding of economics, having studied international politics and economics at the same time he was starring in films. When he became president, most people thought he was a mindless actor, but the truth was he came into office with a specific set of goals and one of them was his determination to destroy the Soviet bloc.”
It was during this period that Bailey first became involved with Israel. “I approved the Free Trade Agreement between the US and Israel. From me, the agreement went to the president for approval – if I’d not approved it, it wouldn’t have continued onward to Reagan.
“Reagan was very pro-Israel. When the National Security Advisor, Dick Allen, informed him that Israel had destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, there was a long pause and then the president said, “Well, boys will be boys.”
Bailey returned to his consulting business and teaching in 1984. In 1994, tragedy struck when his wife was killed in an auto accident. Many years later, he met Barbara, who became his third wife. Barbara is a lawyer who specialized in defending doctors and hospitals from malpractice suits. She also has advanced degrees in both law and science. “It was because of Barbara that I became observant. We keep a kosher home, go to shul, etc.”
In the 1990s, Bailey returned to his government activities under George W. Bush. “The intelligence failures prior to 9/11 led to the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, whose mandate was to coordinate all government intelligence agencies under a single umbrella. An old friend of mind, John Negroponte, asked me to join his top staff for a specific job with regard to Latin America.”
The Baileys had visited Israel a few times and a few years ago decided the time was right to make aliya. “Things were so very unpleasant in the States. Everyone was so downbeat and pessimistic, you couldn’t help wanting to cry at the end of conversations. The middle class is getting slaughtered there, people are losing their jobs and in some cases their homes, and the country is drowning in debt that’s going to have to be paid off by future generations. This situation is the result of bad policies from both the Bush and the Obama administrations – they’ve driven the country into the ground. Israel, on the other hand, is amazing, especially for a tiny country surrounded by enemies. Israeli society is so dynamic; everyone believes that tomorrow will be better than today. It’s sad but nobody in the States believes that anymore.”
Bailey believes that the economic policies introduced by Binyamin Netanyahu when he was finance minister put the country on the right path. “He turned this country around economically. In economics, every benefit has a cost, and sometimes the benefits outweigh the costs but there’s still a price to pay. But now it’s time to support the lower middle class in Israel by helping them use their own abilities to rise, not by giving them handouts. There’s no question in my mind that the defense establishment will have to there, but it becomes a choice between defending the country and having a country worth defending. I hope that [Finance Minister Yair] Lapid, who picked excellent people, will do the job right.
“The Israeli economy is capital intensive, and we need more emphasis on education on one hand and productive assets on the other. Israel has a very good educational system at the higher levels. The Technion is among the top five or six technological schools in the world and Israeli hi-tech companies offer their employees a salary package that includes stock options. I hope to be working on a project with the Arab-Israeli community to get them involved in the hi-tech world because I believe that helping them succeed is extremely important.”
Bailey had begun a lecturing position at the Israeli National Defense College and a research project at the Center for National Security Studies at the University of Haifa last year when another tragedy struck in the form of a ruptured aorta, a condition that is fatal within the first few hours in 95% of cases. “Barbara kept telling the doctors that their diagnosis was incorrect but they didn’t pay her any attention. It was only after she contacted an old cardiologist friend that they performed the correct test. I was then sent to [Sheba Medical Center at] Tel Hashomer and went directly from the ambulance into surgery. I owe my life to Barbara and to the surgeon who performed the operation; he was a genius, despite having the bedside manner of Genghis Khan.”
One year after this ordeal, Bailey is sufficiently recovered to assume the role of editor of the research project at the University of Haifa, which had been put on hold during his illness.
“The study involves one of the most difficult dilemmas any democratic government has to face and that is how much of our national resources do we dedicate to security and defense at the expense of everything else. If that’s not a tough decision, I don’t know what is.” The project includes three case studies: the US, the UK and Israel.
Bailey still gets reports from his former colleagues from all over the world, the contents of which he shares with the group in Zichron. “They don’t send me any information that is classified,” Bailey affirms. “I wouldn’t want them to. But they do send me their views and these are based on information that is available to them.”
Miriam Wrobel has attended the Bailey Seminars since they began last summer. “It’s true I can read most of what we discuss at the sessions in the newspapers,” she said. “But Norman gives us the whole picture and analyses the situation in a way that helps me learn something I didn’t know before. I really enjoy the sessions.”
The Bailey Seminars take place every other Tuesday at 7.30 p.m. in Zichron Ya’acov. To participate, email normanabailey@aol.com


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