A popular USO port in the Israeli city of Haifa was the center of a bitter dispute over U.S. funding for overseas operations in the late 1980s.

Chuck Hagel, the one-time Republican Senator from Nebraska who President Barack Obama may nominate as the next secretary of defense, led the controversial charge to shutter the port during his tenure with the organization.

The Saga of Hagel and Haifa
BY: Adam Kredo
January 3, 2013 4:51 pm

A popular USO port in the Israeli city of Haifa was the center of a bitter dispute over U.S. funding for overseas operations in the late 1980s.

Chuck Hagel, the one-time Republican Senator from Nebraska who President Barack Obama may nominate as the next secretary of defense, led the controversial charge to shutter the port during his tenure with the organization.

Hagel, who served as president and CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990, expressed intense opposition to the USO Haifa Center during a tumultuous 1989 meeting with Jewish leaders, according to multiple sources involved in the fight to keep the post open.

“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,” said Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational.

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