Boston, MA – 1976 Shared Experiences Connect Romney and Netanyahu

Boston, MA – The two young men had woefully little in common: one was a wealthy Mormon from Michigan, the other a middle-class Jew from Israel.

But in 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm’s weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world.

That shared experience decades ago led to a warm friendship, little known to outsiders, that is now rich with political intrigue: Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is making the case for military action against Iran; and Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, is attacking the Obama administration for not supporting Netanyahu more robustly.

The relationship between Netanyahu and Romney — nurtured over meals in Boston, New York and Jerusalem; strengthened by a network of mutual friends; and heightened by their conservative ideologies — has resulted in an unusually frank exchange of advice and insights on topics like politics, economics and the Middle East.

When Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, Netanyahu offered him firsthand pointers on how to shrink the size of government. When Netanyahu wanted to encourage pension funds to divest from businesses tied to Iran, Romney counseled him on which U.S. officials to meet with. And when Romney first ran for president, Netanyahu presciently asked him whether he thought Newt Gingrich would ever jump into the race.

Only a few weeks ago, on Super Tuesday, Netanyahu delivered a personal briefing by telephone to Romney about the situation in Iran.

“We can almost speak in shorthand,” Romney said in an interview. “We share common experiences and have a perspective and underpinning which is similar.”

Netanyahu attributed their “easy communication” to what he called Boston Consulting Group’s “intellectually rigorous boot camp.”

“So despite our very different backgrounds,” he said through an aide, “my sense is that we employ similar methods in analyzing problems and coming up with solutions for them.”