A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel by Allis Radosh & Ronald Radosh

Author:Allis Radosh & Ronald Radosh [Radosh, Allis & Radosh, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, Israel & Palestine, General, Modern, 20th Century, Political Science, International Relations, Diplomacy
ISBN: 9780060594640
Google: B3SmdKOSPQEC
Amazon: 0060594640
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2009-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

While Truman remains a potential supporter of our cause—for party reasons—the State Department, and especially Henderson, are apparently doing their best to counter-balance this by overemphasizing, as usual, the Arab angle. This was proved recently on an occasion where Loy Henderson presented the State Department’s views on Palestine. Speaking before a small body…Henderson’s anti-Zionist views were expressed in no ambiguous terms when he spoke on American policy in the Middle East.

As Epstein saw things, the problem was that Marshall was new to the job of secretary of state and was being briefed by Henderson, whose role had increased in importance since Acheson had left the department and been replaced by Robert Lovett. To compound the problem, Marshall got reports and data from both the War and Navy Departments, whose spokesman agreed with the British and the American oil companies. Felix Frankfurter, whom he had recently seen, had advised Epstein not to press Marshall for an immediate statement but instead to concentrate on trying to achieve the best decision possible when a future policy statement was issued. Epstein had just learned, moreover, of how Truman and Marshall “were able to check the efforts of some of our friends” in the Senate and House who had been prepared to present a statement on behalf of partition to UNSCOP. Nevertheless, Epstein was hopeful that State had not made up its mind and was not necessarily motivated to argue against partition.31

Meeting with a group of Democratic members of Congress, Secretary Marshall assured them that the United States had not changed its established Palestine policy, including unlimited Jewish immigration and the eventual creation of a Jewish commonwealth; it just did not want to prejudice the U.N. investigation. The New York Times reported the story under the headline “Marshall Reaffirms Policy on Palestine.” Senator James E. Murray (D.–Montana) led the group, arguing that the United States had to take the leadership or the United Nations would not take a stand. For the time being, although they favored a restatement of U.S. policy, the group agreed to allow time for Marshall to develop his own restatement.32

Less than one week later, the congressmen went public with a statement against the slow progress. Senator Owen Brewster (R.–Maine) and Senator Murray charged that the State Department was not acting constructively. Speaking before the convention of the Zionist Organization of America, they accused State of not carrying out the announced U.S. policy toward Palestine. “If American policy has any sense left,” Senator Brewster said, it would see to it that “a substantial portion of Palestine at the very least is now made into a Jewish commonwealth.” As to Secretary Marshall’s argument that it was premature to formulate a new, firm policy, Brewster charged, “the Secretary is twenty-five years behind the times.” Invoking the Truman Doctrine, he noted that the United States had openly bypassed the United Nations to take unilateral action on Greece and Turkey. If the United States permitted the United Nations to stymie taking action, he predicted, the United

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