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The breakthrough occurred at the beginning of the week with the defection of one of the sale's most vocal opponents, Republican Roger Jepsen of Iowa, a New Right conservative who had cited biblical arguments on Israel's behalf. "This sale must be stopped," he told a cheering audience of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in May. The White House knew that he was weakening, and turned up the heat. Reagan reminded Jepsen that he had personally helped him win his seat in 1978. But the President also sent him to the funeral of Israel's Moshe Dayan, at which Prime Minister Menachem Begin applied some effective counterpressure. The strain showed on Jepsen. At a meeting of Republican Senators a week before the vote, he broke into tears when discussing the conflicting pressures on him.
The determining factor in his decision, Jepsen said, was the type of presidential persuasion that is the hardest to counter: in a private meeting with Reagan he had been given some "highly classified" information that lessened his fears about the sale's danger to Israel's security. After spending "all weekend" talking with his strongly pro-Israeli wife, Jepsen went to the Senate and stunned opponents with his defection. Said he: "A vote for the sale is a vote for my President and his successful conduct of foreign policy." Along with Jepsen came his conservative Iowa colleague Grassley, who met with the President on Monday. Said he: "I saw the prospect of what a defeat for Reagan would do for peace in the Middle East."
The White House wanted an open commitment from Republican William Cohen of Maine, another co-sponsor of the resolution to reject the sale. Cohen is a friend of Presidential Adviser Michael Deaver, and they discussed the issue at length. He also met twice with the President. In their second session, he said that he was afraid Israel would become a scapegoat if the sale were rejected, and that the embers of anti-Semitism would be fanned. But Cohen also told Reagan he feared "another holocaust" if Israel's hostile neighbors were further armed. On the latter point, Reagan was reassuring. He leaned toward the freshman Republican and vowed: "I can pledge to you as I did to Begin that I will guarantee that Israel's quantitative and qualitative military edge will be maintained." Most reluctantly, Cohen narrowly came over to Reagan's side. Announcing his decision, he complained that the Administration had "first mishandled and then manhandled" the sale, which he described as the lesser of two evils. When Cohen later told colleagues in the Senate dining room that he was only trying to help Israel, everyone laughed. Said one Senator: "Come on, Bill. Just say you sold out. But don't give me that stuff about saving Israel."