13-06-2010, 12:14 AM
Helen Reyes Wrote:PS It's intereting that Truman subverted the UN plan by recognising Ben-Gurion's UDI, just as the UN was getting started as an international forum, under the auspices of the US and the other victors of WWII. Of course the "United Nations" was the name of the military alliance in WWII that defeated the Axis powers, including the Big Three but many others, such as free China. It was founded as a military organisation and became the post-war League of Nations. And just as the US sabotaged the LoN, so did they ruin the UN at its inception. Any thoughts on that?
I guess Truman did indermine the UN at the outset by recognising BG's declaration of independence so quickly. According to Clark Clifford, the US recognised Israel five minutes after BG's declaration, beating the Soviets by seven minutes.
Imo, Truman was pressured into it by the Zionists who had bailed out his struggling campaign in 1948 with a large injection of cash, co-ordinated by that ever reliable fundraiser, Abe Feinberg. There was quite a strong Zionist presence around Truman at that time.
If you read his interview in the Truman library oral histories, there's no doubt Israel was the closest thing to Feinberg's heart. Clark Clifford said recognising Israel was the right thing to do without explaining why exactly, and James Forrestal was opposed to the creation of Israel and he got thrown out of a tall building for his trouble, after being replaced as Secretary of Defense by a strong supporter of Israel. Part of Clifford's interview:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/oral_his.htm
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HESS: I'll tell you what I have in mind, and that is Israel.
CLIFFORD: Yes, I think that there could be rare exceptions, but ordinarily these matters were thoroughly discussed and various recommendations would be made. The recommendations usually followed conversations that were held, and there might be modifications occasionally suggested. It seems to me that the relationship was such that these things were talked out pretty well before the formal recommendation came over. Now, an exception to that is Israel, and whenever you want me to I will tell you about that.
HESS: How about right now.
CLIFFORD: All right. In early 1948 (maybe toward early spring), a question arose as to whether the United States would recognize the new nation
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of Israel. Up to that time it was a protectorate. It had been called Palestine. They were going to announce their entry as an independent nationhood on a certain Saturday in March or April. I think they were going to do it about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Early that week, say on about a Monday, the President spoke to me and said, "I want to have a conference on this problem of Israel. I would like you to prepare yourself and you be the lawyer for the position that we should recognize Israel." He said, "I am inclined to believe that General Marshall is probably opposed to it, but," he said, "you get ready and we'll set up a meeting for Tuesday morning."
All right, 10, 11 o'clock Tuesday morning, over comes General Marshall and Bob Lovett and their Middle Eastern expert (the name gets away from me); it could have been Loy Henderson, but I'm
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not sure. I appeared on behalf of the one side and I believe that David Niles appeared too. He was the White House assistant in charge . . .
HESS: In charge of minority affairs.
CLIFFORD: . . . of minority affairs, right. And I retained my longhand notes. I got them up just as though I was going to make an argument to a jury. I've done it I don't know how many hundreds of times in my career. I got up those longhand notes and fortunately I saved them; they are now with my Truman Papers out in Independence. President Truman called on General Marshall first, and General Marshall presented the case in opposition to our recognizing Israel. In general, the argument was that there were twenty or thirty million Arabs as compared to a million and a half Israelis and the Israelis were going to end up by being pushed into the
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Mediterranean. Further, General Marshall spoke of the natural resources that existed, the oil in the area, our relationship with the Arabs, our ability to keep peace, and so forth and so on. And he spoke maybe ten or twelve minutes. Then it was my turn and I spoke. I had my material assembled, with an introduction and a body to the argument, and a . . .
HESS: Just like a good lawyer.
CLIFFORD: Well, it was the way I had been trained to do, and ended up with a ringing peroration.
Well, it infuriated General Marshall. He said something to the effect that he had been proceeding on the assumption that he was Secretary of State and that this was his area of responsibility; he didn't understand why Clifford was even there at the meeting. And President Truman rather tartly said that Clifford was
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there because President Truman had asked him to come there.
That didn't deter General Marshall at all. He said that this was an important, serious question of policy and that he rather assumed that I was there because there was some political facet to it. He argued that it should not be decided on a political basis, but should be decided upon the merits. And certainly from his standpoint he didn't need any assistance from Clifford in reaching his own judgment on the matter.
That's a rather mild report of what took place. The President then hastened to mollify General Marshall by saying he wanted a thorough discussion and that he just felt that it was wise to hear both sides. He added that he had been greatly impressed by General Marshall's presentation, and the General need not concern
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himself because as far as President Truman was concerned we would not recognize Israel.
Now, that was not the way President Truman wanted it to turn out, but I think he felt that it was very likely the best way to get out of a very bad situation at the time. He was a great admirer of General Marshall's and so forth.
They then all left. I gathered up my papers and he said, "I'm sorry, Clark, how this turned out. I didn't have any idea it would turn out this way."
I remember saying, "Mr. President, this isn't the first case I've lost, nor will it be the last."
Later that day Bob Lovett called and said that he was awfully uneasy about the decision and about the attitude of the State Department. He asked, "What do you think we had ought to do?"
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Well, I said, "There isn't anything I can do at this end. The thing for you to do is persuade General Marshall that he's wrong. But, Bob, I'll tell you, he's just as wrong as he can be. This would be a terrible mistake."
My recollection is that I reported that to President Truman and I got the feeling from President Truman that he felt that Marshall just needed a little time. And sure enough, he was right on that because on Thursday Lovett called me and said he thought General Marshall was coming around. By Friday General Marshall had come around and the President was perfectly content with having it work out that way. The President felt very strongly about Israel; he believed in it. I think he just wanted to give General Marshall some time to come around.
I remember Bob Lovett called me Saturday morning and invited me to luncheon at the
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F Street Club. We sat there after the luncheon and wrote out the release that would be given out. Then I hurried back to the White House, phoned the representative of Palestine (he was still called at that time), and said, "Get your request at once to the State Department." I told him the manner in which it must be handled. It was now going to break all right.
He got that done right away and sent a copy of it to the White House. The State Department responded and sent the request over. The President said, "Yes," and at 4 o'clock that afternoon (I remember it was terribly dramatic and exciting) Israel announced its creation as an independent nation. About five minutes after 4 it was recognized by the United States, and about twelve minutes after 4 it was recognized by the Soviet Union. We had wanted to recognize Israel before the Soviet Union did.
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So, that's a rather interesting story. I think Jonathan Daniels goes into some detail on that in his book, but I can't remember.
HESS: The subject has been covered in various books.
What were your reasons for seeing that the recognition of Israel was necessary?
CLIFFORD: Well, they are in all--they are in detail so that you could apply when you look at those notes, generally . . .
HESS: Were political considerations a factor?
CLIFFORD: Political considerations were not a factor, and that's why I think both President Truman and I were pretty incensed at the position that General Marshall had taken.
The fact is there had to be a settlement of the whole Jewish problem. It has exacerbated that part of the world and major powers for
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years, going back as far as the Balfour Declaration, which occurred in the very beginning of the Twentieth Century. It had to be settled. These people were entitled to have their own nation, and they were entitled to the support of the major powers.
That was it mainly. The President, I think, felt all along that he had a commitment in this regard. He had had talks with Mr. [Dr. Chaim] Weizmann and with a number of other prominent Jewish leaders. It was very clear at the time that this was the decent and honorable course of action.
Now, the military approach to the question, which I think General Marshall reflected, was exactly the opposite. The oil in the Middle East was a very important military factor. Maybe by that time the Soviet Union was poking around over there, and I think the military was concerned
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that in the Middle East the Soviets would end up with all the Arab nations as allies, while we ended up with this poor pitiful little country, Israel. That's about the way that the arguments went.
HESS: Do you recall that Eddie Jacobson was very influential in the President's thinking on the Israeli matter?
CLIFFORD: I had heard that, but I don't know. I knew Jacobson, since he occasionally would be on the boat with us. I'm sure he felt strongly about it, and I suppose he talked to the President, but he just didn't happen to hold any discussion in my presence.
HESS: You mentioned David Niles. Did he speak with force in this particular meeting?
CLIFFORD: He was not called on, as I remember. I
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think that he was there to be present and hear all the arguments. He may have taken part in the discussion, but I don't recall his presenting any argument, in opposition to that submitted by Marshall.