In his memoirs, Bernard Lewis, the late, great historian of the Middle East (and my mentor), wrote this:

I had occasional encounters with the historic process through meetings which made policy. Over the years, in my innumerable visits to the Middle East I had meetings with kings, presidents, prime ministers, other high officials, as well as with ambassadors of different states. We talked of various things, and from time to time I gave my opinions—sometimes in response to a request, sometimes not.

In a new lecture (delivered at Tel Aviv University), I put flesh to the bare bones of this statement. I name some of those kings, presidents, prime ministers, and other high officials; reconstruct a few of Lewis’s interactions with them and put them in context; and, finally, ask whether they made any difference.

Some of the central players in the story: Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, American politician Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Mohammed Reza Shah of Iran, Turkish president Turgut Özal, former Jordanian crown prince Hassan, U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney and president George Bush, Libyan dictator Mu‘ammar Qadhafi, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I also treat the much-discussed matter of Lewis and the Iraq war. To watch the lecture, click here or watch below (one hour, illustrated).

As I said in the lecture, this is a work in progress. If you have any information that fills a gap in my presentation, please send it along.