INTERVIEW WITH SID WEINER ERNEST STIEFEL, INTERVIEWER

June 13,2001

ES: This is an interview with Sid Weiner at his beautiful home on Mercer Island. We're going to talk about two things. Number one, we're going to talk about his activities at Boeing and number two, his activities with regard to the rescue ofEthiopian Jews. My name is Ernie Stiefel and I am interviewing Mr. Weiner.

Let's first start with Boeing. Mr. Weiner, how long have you been with Boeing? When did you start? What activities did you have? SW: I started Boeing on February the 2"^, 1942. The day after Pearl Harbor, which was December the 7^, 1941, my ex-roommate from Washington State College and I went down to join the Air Corps as navigators, but we both failed the eye examination. He decided to enlist in the Ajmy and I had just heard about Boeing that made airplanes in Seattle. I was living in Spokane where I grew up and knew absolutely nothing about airplanes. I had majored in civil engineering at Washington State College, which is Washington State University now, and was interested in building roads and buildings, which I have never done up to this point. So, I put in an application—was working after college for a few months at the Washington Water Power Company in Spokane as a research engineer. One of my fnends from Spokane, Manuel Shank and his brother Willie Shank, and I drove over to Seattle after I was accepted at Boeing at a fantastic monthly salary at $130. I took my pre-hiring physical, was accepted of course, and for about the first year did some basic engineering work that I found to be not very satisfying, quite boring. Margaret Kasper, my wife, and I, met in Spokane when we were both involved in the BBG groups. We had planned to get married in June of '43, but the Boeing Company asked me to go to Wichita in May, so we married on May 16^, 1943, the day that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising ended, which we didn't know until later. We went the next day for Wichita, Kansas, where the B-29's were being built. I worked in engineering tests there, preparing for the rollout ofthe first B-29. From that point till the end of the war in August of 1945,1 was fortunate enough to be assigned to a consulting organization for the Air Corps and became an expert on the B-17 and spent the rest of that effort prior to the end of the war with the Air Corps in the field at many different bases in the United States. I talked to every B-17 crew going overseas for about a year. We worked seven days a week, many hours of every day but it was very exciting and interesting and sad in some respects because there were numerous accidents, a lot ofthem fatal. At one base that I was at, in a period of three months, there were fourteen major accidents and seventy crew members killed. When the war ended, I returned to Seattle and worked on the Stratocruiser program for a couple years. That was a commercial airplane that was not very successful and one thing that taught Boeing was how not to work with the airline customers. We had a poor product. We didn't try to improve it

1 Interview with Sid Weiner - because it couldn't make any money and, as a result, most of the airlines were pretty unsatisfied and unhappy with the way that Boeing was handling the project.

In February of 1948, I was asked to go to Dayton [Ohio]. At that time all the flight testing for the United States Air Force was done at Wright Field. By the way the last ofthe Wright Brothers died in 1948. Chuck Yeager, who was the first to break the sound barrier, I think in November of '47, was at Dayton at that time, as were all the top test pilots of the Air Force. I was the only Boeing person in charge of helping the Air Force test the B-50 which was the future airplane of the B-29 and was probably one of the worst products Boeing ever made. We made hundreds ofthem and the airplane had a horrible record. Also at that time, the C-97 was being tested there and the XB-47, the first jet bomber made by Boeing, was there. It was again a very interesting period for me because I got into all kinds of variations of effort in support of flight test. At that time and later, the Air Force was changing its major testing ground from Wright Field to Edwards Air Force Base in California. I knew Captain Edwards [in Dayton]. The[ new] field in California was named after him. He was killed in the last test flight of the B-49 Flying Wing.

That was a very exciting time and in October of 1949, Boeing asked me to become their first representative at Strategic Air Command (SAC) Headquarters in Omaha. The Strategic Air Command was led by [General] Curtis LeMay, who was primarily responsible for success of the war in Europe and also the final war against Japan in the Far East. For some reason, he took a liking to me and we developed a tremendous relationship. He was undoubtedly one ofthe brightest military people in the history of this country and probably in the world. I had a tremendous amount of flying time with SAC going all over the world—^they had bases in all parts of the world. I helped again in working seven days a week, around the clock, for long, long periods of time, but it was very exciting. What was unusual is that General LeMay had the responsibility for implementing the United States War Plan, which was the first and probably only time the Air Force had that kind of responsibility. He was a tremendous military strategist and took pains in making sure that his crew members got the best opportunity for safety and all other kinds ofaccommodations during their careers.

I spent the period from '49 to about '52 [in Omaha] and came back to Boeing. At that time I had no aerodynamic training. Boeing selected three people to get the MIT Masters Course in aerodjmamics given by the top aerodynamicists at Boeing. I was the third person selected—^the first was Herb dayman, who was also Jewish. That was a tremendous opportunity for me to find out some of the things I needed to know in order to advance at Boeing. From that point I went back to Washington, D.C., and I was there for a couple years representing Boeing with all of the areas in that region, including the Military Airlift Command. Then after staying in Washington for that time period, which was again very interesting but a marked difference in efficiency that I had foimd in SAC in Omaha, I returned to Strategic Air Command Headquarters for another year. General LeMay was still there but leaving to become the Air Force ChiefofStaff, ftie position he occupied under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Interview with Sid Weiner - After that year, which was not quite as stressful as the previous assignment, I returned to Boeing Seattle, I had been away with my family, which now included three children and my wife and my mother-in-law, and wanted to settle down for at least a bit. [I] became a part of the 707 Commercial Engineering Program that was originated by Maynard Pennell, who was one ofthe great engineers at Boeing and who was my mentor for many years. Just a tremendous person with great talents and human in all aspects. I started in a new group called Customer Engineering which was formed by Maynard Pennell to make sure that our commercial jets met the requirements ofthe airlines. And so over the next about six years, I worked on that project, negotiated the technical aspects of contracts with many airlines, including American, Pan American, TWA, Braniff, Continental, Western, , the Irish Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, and many others. In about the middle of 1961, the Boeing Company started the Supersonic Transport Program and they asked me to head the Customer Engineering organization in that project, which included responsibility for all communication and contacts with the airlines, the U.S. government that was also involved, and the responsibility for building the full size mockup and other materials that was used to advise the airlines ofwhat we were doing. I stayed on that project from *61 to about '68. I resigned from that position. I felt that some ofthe top management misunderstood the abilities ofthe commercial airline people in determining what they needed to have a successful Supersonic Program. Soon after that project was cancelled, and to this day it has not been reestablished.

I then worked on some classified, unmanned vehicles for the military at Boeing. I had given a briefing [on the US supersonic] at the request of at their annual aerospace meeting in 1965, that was my first trip to Israel, and met Moshe Arens, who at that time, was head of engineering for Israel Aircraft Industries. He asked me to come over and help them build a commercial airplane. At first I gave it little thought, but about that time, with all the chaos associated with the tremendous layoffs in the late '60s, Margaret and I and our youngest child Robin went to Israel in 1970 and I managed an airplane program called the Arava for Israel for a couple years. Up till about that time we hadn't had much interest in Israel. I did the negotiating for the El Al's first purchase of 707's and became, like all the other Boeing people, much impressed with the El Al contingent. They were as good as any that we had ever worked with. Our first trip to Israel impressed us so much that it changed really our whole attitude and our way oflife and since that point to this, one ofthe biggest thoughts in life and our efforts has been to help Israel in any way we can. I came back to Boeing in '72 and spent a year working on a study ofdeveloping business between Israel and Boeing, but I had been forewarned by my boss at that time that one ofthe Boeing vice presidents, Jim Prince, would make sure that the outcome was unsuccessful and that proved to be true. Although every time I tried to give it [the presentation] to a top official I was stopped by Jim Prince and his people and so at the end ofabout a year I gave up. I had taken a Boeing vice president to the Ford Motor Company, Coca Cola and ADL to show them that the effect of the economic blockade was nil, and that they could do business with Israel and the Arabs. To this day I feel sorry that didn't go forward because I think it would have been a great boost not only to Israel's position, but also to the Boeing business.

Interview with Sid Weiner - After that I became head ofproduction for a new two-engine cargo plane that was being designed in competition with another company. We built two airplanes and then the Air Force canceled that program. I worked on die AWAC [Advanced Warning and Control] Program, and at one point advised the Boeing president during the day, I worked like hell to make the AWAC the best project possible, but at night I would work like hell to make sure that Saudi Arabia wasn't permitted to buy them. I guess I was pretty lucky that I didn't get fired over that. Then I then went in to hydrofoil testing, which was a lot of fun and again hard, very hard work. I was in charge of testing both the commercial and military hydrofoils. The commercial was a very sub-quality product. The military was excellent. I spent a year in Oxnard, California, running the test program for the Navy, and worked without a day off for the year ofthe project. There were only six ships being built, when the other five production ships were being built, they asked me to run the testing on those. I didn't look forward to working those kinds ofhours again and felt that it would be detrimental to my health, so once we got the first production ship running in Puget Sound I told the head ofthe project that I would retire in two weeks. I gave them notice on July the 22^^ in 1981, and actually took sick leave until October when I retired. During my thirty-eight years at Boeing, I must say that the official position of the Boeing Company towards all people, was based on aptitude and skills. There was no anti-Semitism as official position. Ofcourse, there were individuals within the company that didn't like Jews or blacks or other kinds of minorities. But in my career there were very, very few instances of any kind of prejudice. That was due primarily to people like Maynard Pennell, and again, Ed Wells, who was a top engineer of the Boeing Company in its entire history, and who was also a mentor of mine. We spent a lot oftime together talking about a lot ofthings. He was a genius in all kinds of technical items and was very, very human and compassionate in his approach to people. There were lots of Jews at Boeing. There were many that were closet Jews. I was so open about my religion they'd come and say, "Hey, I'm Jewish, but I don't want people to know," and for various sundry reasons, I guess. Some of which I could never understand. George Snyder, who was hired as one ofthe first Jewish engineers in 1931, was the first Jewish vice president at Boeing. There were others, most of whom did not mention their religion during their working career, but after retirement all of a sudden became Jewish. I will not even mention those. There was one ex-Israeli who deserted the during the War ofIndependence, came to the United States, got his education, became a very well known and respected vice president on the military side ofthe company. I contacted him a couple oftimes for Federation and other reasons. He wasn't the least bit interested in responding to my appeal. I never got an opportunity to meet him, but we talked and corresponded by letter several times.

George Snyder came to Israel while I was there and spent a year and did a remarkable job in helping Israel in a lot of ways that have made them [Israel Aircraft Industries] a much better competitive company. He started the exchange of bringing Israeli engineers to Boeing for a period ofa year or two and cross-training them. As ofa recent study, 40 percent of the people that came, there were probably 120 to 140, 40 percent of those held key positions in Israel aircraft at the time. Some of the Jewish engineers [at Boeing] were four presidents of Herzl-Ner Tamid, my brother Lewis

Interview with Sid Weiner - Weiner, Sid Meltzer, Julius Skolnick and Irving Hirsch. There were lots of others like Phil Flash, Sid Cohen, Ben Cohen, one ofthe top aerodynamicists, Ezra Posner, who was probably the first Jewish engineer hired, Lewis Goldman, Sid Gravits, Sam Shapiro,Herb dayman, Bruce Florsheim, Pat Miller, Shmuel Elad, Ellis Corets, Bob Zimmerman and many, many others. A lot of the Jews have made tremendous contributions to the U.S. and to the aviation industry by working and spending their careers at Boeing.

ES: Thank you very much. One individual who also worked for Boeing and Boeing loaned to the Jewish Federation for a year and a quarter to run the General Assembly is A1 Maimon. Tell me a little bit about A1 Maimon.

SW: Well, I can only tell you very little because I never had opportunity to work with him. I'm sure that he was a very capable individual and also was a proud Jew at the Boeing Company. As I look back, I used to put a sign in my office "Closed for Rosh Hashanah," "Closed for Yom Kippur." When I look back on it, I made probably a bigger issue ofmy religion than I should of. A1 Maimon probably was more modest in his approach.

ES: Ofcourse, A1 Maimon is a nephew ofRabbi Solomon Maimon.

SW: Right.

ES: He is now retired. I know him fairly well. Tell me a little bit more what you know about the test 747 which was dedicated at Paine Field, I believe, in 1971. Bud Asia was president of the Federation. After a Federation meeting the Board of the Federation, whoever wanted to go, was taken by bus to and from Paine Field.

SW: I don't know much about that. That's a period that I was working in Israel. That 747 was designed with a body cross-section primarily [sized] to carry cargo because the thought was that the Supersonic Transport would become the major carrier for people. But when that failed, the design had already been set so the passengers benefit by having a larger cross-section and getting a little more space. The 747, like all ofthe later jets, are probably safer to fly in than to be in your own bathtub.

ES: I certainly appreciate you telling me about Boeing, and especially about Jews at Boeing. It certainly has been a good employer in Seattle. And you have documented a vital commercial part ofSeattle and the Jewish community.

Now, I would like to change subjects a bit. After you retired, you were extremely active in Ethiopian Jewry. I remember you had an office at the Federation building. You spent a lot oftime there. How did you get into this to begin with? [End ofside 1]

SW: My niece, Beth Halpem's husband, Elie Halpem, is an attorney in Olympia. He's the finest person I've ever known and, I believe, is a real tzadik. His brother, Bill, graduated from the University ofMinnesota with honors at the age ofnineteen and went to to help the Ethiopian Jews. I had been in Ethiopia my first trip in '64 when we negotiated with Haile Selassie's grandson to buy their first commercial jets. To think of Jews being there to me seemed ridiculous. But Bill kept calling Elie and myself and

Interview with Sid Weiner - telling us that there were Jews there and they needed to be rescued. About the time that he was getting our attention, he was killed there [in 1982] at the age ofthirty-one. After having been expelled from Ethiopia a couple times for his activities, we had never ever been able to find the details of his death. As a memorial to Bill, Blie and I decided that we would start an organization to rescue Ethiopian Jews. At the start we knew absolutely nothing about our subject. We did know that Bill left a legacy of a couple contacts in Ethiopia and he had some ideas about rescue. I had some good contacts in Israel as a result of my two years there as head of the ARAVA Program. So we started an organization called Save All Ethiopian Jews—^Now (SAEJ). This was the only all volunteer organization in the world dedicated to the rescue of Ethiopian Jews and their movement to Israel. At the beginning, Sol Goldberg and his daughter, Samantha Ripley, were also principals in helping us. They dropped out after a couple years for several different reasons, but Elie and I continued this with the help of a very few other people like Dr. Charles Kaplan that spent many, many hours helping us. But Elie Halpem devised four means of rescuing Jews covertly. This all had to be done without the knowledge of the government in Ethiopia which was now not only Communist but Stalin-like in their approach to people, killing hundreds ofthousands ofpeople for all the reasons that Stalin killed—^any opposition could end in death. In early 1983, we got tax exempt status for the organization and Elie and my wife, Margaret, and I made our first trip to Ethiopia for this purpose. We stayed in a hotel; we had contact, name of one person. His name was Gedalia Uria who had been imprisoned for a couple years. When we saw him, they had broken both his legs and pulled his nails out and he could hardly walk but he was still very, very negative. Gedalia was one of the fifteen people that Haile Selassie sent to Israel in 1957 to learn Hebrew so they could teach the [Ethiopian] Jews Hebrew. Haile Selassie was a non-beloved monarch that liked to have all the Jews become Coptic Christians. The Communists were interested in having them just become Commimists and supporting that regime.

We were there on that trip for about two weeks. Twenty-four hours a day there was a line of Jews outside our rooms that we interviewed. We came back with a list of several thousand names. While we were there, Elie and Margaret and I went to military court and adopted a family. Women in Ethiopia were nothing. You could adopt a wife and children, but not the father. So we adopted, I think, Gedalia's family without Gedalia, his wife and, I think, four children. We may have added a couple others. Elie adopted Zimna Berhani's family. Zimna was one ofthe most responsible people for the rescue ofEthiopian Jews. We were able to get those people out by sending them to the United States and then to Israel. We went to the American Embassy in Ethiopia; [for assistance]; the critical thing was getting a passport and a visa for a country. The Americans permitted us to have all the visas we needed to rescue the Ethiopian Jews on the condition that the people all go to New York for no longer than twenty-four hours to close out the visa and then go to Israel. All the people that we brought out had to go through this very complex travel pattern. We were only able to bring out several families by adoption because the Ethiopian government suddenly stopped that process because, I believe, Sweden was bringing children out for some immoral purpose. So they closed that avenue.

Interview with Sid Weiner - But we knew three others—one was to make offthat people were coming here for jobs, for a limited time of maybe from one year to three years; or for children to attend any level school, kindergarten, grade school, high school, or also college. So we developed all kinds of schools. I had one, the Mercer Island School was located here. We had them all over the state. People in Spokane helped us—Gene Huppin and others. We sent letters advising the students that they had been accepted and that we would train them in English. All they needed was the passport and the visas that were made available by the U.S. We had two presidents. President Reagan, President Bush, their Secretaries of State George Schultz and Jim Baker, who supported this effort in every way. As a result of this, we rescued very close to 1,000 Ethiopian Jews. We did this by daily coordination with Israel and with the people in Ethiopia. Because ofthe time difference it was really very difficult at times. Elie Halpem especially, for the first few years, just ignored his [law] practice and spent all his time on the rescue effort. We worked with the other North American organizations, the North American Association for Ethiopian Jews, the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jews in New York, and the Canadian Association for Ethiopian Jews in Canada. We not only coordinated our efforts with them, but we also prepared a lot ofthe documentation for the other organizations. The procedures were probably the most complex and involvedofany that had ever been used to rescue people. It took months and we also got some forty businesses in this state that allowed us to use their stationery. We used fictitious names that wrote letters for jobs. At one time Elie Halpem and I went to talk to T. Wilson, president of Boeing, and asked him to help us. We wanted to bring 700 out at one time, making out they're going to work at Boeing, but he said he'd have to bring in a couple more people to review that; we couldn't do that. Israel didn't want that number of people to loiow what was going on. So that didn't develop.

Margaret and I attended the arrival [in Israel] of several flights from Sudan in and went through the whole early processing. It was imbelievable. In that period where Jews walked out from their little communities normally in Northern Ethiopia to Sudan, and then all ofa sudden were taken out on a flight a day, but the trip [to Sudan] took two or three weeks and covered horrendous obstacles and bandits. There were wild animals, and about 35 to 40 percent of the people that used that avenue of escape died or were killed before they were rescued. So when we went through the processing at their arrival [in Israel], it was like looking at people that just came out ofa concentration camp during the Holocaust. After Operation Solomon in the early '90s, Israel had a family reunion program with Ethiopia that allowed the people to be brought out at a much faster rate and with a lot less processing than our efforts took, we decided to get out of the rescue business and we took the remaining money and asked the [Seattle] Federation—I think we had some $36,000—if they would put that in their endowment and manage it. We'd work out a program for providing college scholarships to certain Ethiopians in Israel. We have been doing that ever since [1991], raising funds for the scholarships. At the present time we are the third largest provider for scholarships for Ethiopians. This year we generate 30 $1,000 scholarships but the Jewish agency more than doubles our efforts so that this year we will generate very close to 100 $1,000 scholarships for . We plan to continue that effort for the foreseeable future and hope that the Israeli government will find a way ofproviding the

Interview with Sid Weiner - support that's needed to integrate the Ethiopian Jews because this is the most difficult integration in Israel's history. It takesmoretimeand moremoney, and although Israel is doingan excellentjob, it requires more concentrated effort, more one-on-one effort. The Ethiopians are very intelligent, industrious people, but they're coming from a culture that has not been one in which education was important. About 85 percent of them [Ethiopians] were illiterate and one that trails their culture and Israel's' by about 2,000 years. I am optimistic in this standpoint and know that like all the other immigrants, the Ethiopians too will find their place and make successful integration and that's all associated with proper education.

ES: Thank you very much. You were also involved in raising funds from which I remember was Operation Moses, which at one time was the second line of the Federation's Campaign. I forget now how much money was raised because I was not that much involved. I was involved in the Russian rescue and was on that committee. Tell us a little bit about the Seattle efforts to raise money for Operation Moses.

SW: It really resulted in Operation Exodus. It started out rescuing Ethiopian Jews and then was expanded to include Soviet Jewry also. Seattle raised in two years, I think, a little over $5 million in this effort. A few of us went around and talked to every board of every temple and in this area, and were surprised,pleasantly surprisedin most cases at the response. Temple De Hirsch and the Herzl-Ner Tamid Synagogue were exemplary in providing tremendous support that resulted in much more coming in than we had anticipated. The Federation has been supportive of the rescue effort from day one. They have provided funds when we needed it. In every single case they have given us their loyal support. When we initially needed some money to get the SAEJ going, we went to, of course, Sam Stroum. We had a briefing prepared and I remember Elie Halpem and I sat with Sam on a sofa in his office. Going through the briefing we turned about two pages and he said, "How much money do you need?" We told him, and he gave us a check for it. And not only that, but he called other people who also then supported us. Sam and Althea has supplied significant amounts of money for the scholarship fund. The Federation allowed us to have an office, as you mentioned, Ernie, and we used that for several years because it was central and allowed us to do our job much more efficiently than we had previously been doing from home. Rabbi Anson Laytner, Ann Teleeky who was a [Jewish Federation] employee that did a lot ofwork for us in the Ethiopian program, were really strong supporters. Michael Novick and Barry Goren continue to support to this very day. We yearly ask [the Jewish Federation] for money to support the scholarship funds and we're waiting to see whether they'll be able to give us any money this year. We have a program hoping that we could raise a million dollars and then by 5 percent we'd be able to give 50 $1,000 scholarships per year. That would be for all time to the point it was no longer needed. I just heard that Israel is going to provide extra support for education and economic support to Ethiopians up to the age of thirty-five. If this happens, I think this will eliminate most existing problems. I hope that turns out to be true.

Interview with Sid Weiner ES: Thank you very much. Fve got one question. I'm aware ofthe fact that the Federation raised on Operation Exodus a little over $5 million. I was on the committee which distributed the money. Jeannie Rosen was the chair. The committee disbanded when there was no more money. There is very little left right now to collect. Wasn't there before the Exodus also a separate line for Operation Moses where not as much money was collected, but that was—

SW: I'm not familiar with that.

ES: Well, then I think this is something we ought to check with the Federation, because I remember that somewhat prior there was a separate line.

SW: I think you're right and, in fact, I was a chair for Operation Exodus for a couple years. And before that, I think, we had Operation Moses campaign that lasted a very short time.

ES: That's true. It was a short campaign. I think it was one year, and I don't know if they raised that much money.

SW: Yeah. Yeah.

ES: Exodus money was used for two purposes, I think, there's three. Number one, pay money to the Jewish Family Service for acculturation of Jews from Russia. Of course, the State Department furnished some funds. Also for tuition of Russian students and English as a second language. There was a question as to how long do Russian students need support. That was finally settled, I think, it was three years. But I don't believe that any ofthe money for Exodus, which was mainly used here except some money had to be sent to the other cities which did not have as much success. But any ofthat money was used for Ethiopian Jews was also used for Russian Jews. The Ethiopian collection was somewhat earlier. I do appreciate your mentioning these two very important things. Jews at Boeing played an important part. And the rescue of Ethiopian Jews is miraculous. So thank you very much. This will conclude this interview.

END OF INTERVIEW

Interview with Sid Weiner