Harry Truman and the cause of Jewish statehood

Published: JUNE 14, 2020 00:41

ISRAEL’S FIRST president Chaim Weizmann presents US president Harry Truman with a Torah in 1948. (photo credit: COURTESY HARRY S. TRUMAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM) — ISRAEL’S FIRST president Chaim Weizmann presents US president Harry Truman with a Torah in 1948.

(photo credit: COURTESY HARRY S. TRUMAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM)

Truman acted on behalf of the Jews in the creation of the State of Israel decisively at critical moments when his action made all the difference.

Eli Kavon in his May 31 column, “President Truman was not a saint,” laments the fact that Harry S. Truman was not a saint in his complaints against Jews pressuring him on the question of Palestine.

Truman was a politician, and since when does anyone expect a politician to conduct himself like a saint? The main point is that he acted on behalf of the Jews in the creation of the State of Israel decisively at critical moments when his action made all the difference.

The story began with his demand after the Second World War for the British government to allow 100,000 Jewish refugees in the camps in Europe to enter Palestine. This did not spring doors open, but it became a basic plank in the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, which recommended the immediate entry of the 100,000 Jews. It also seems that Truman personally worked hard to obtain a majority for the UN Partition Plan in the 1947 General Assembly.

Above all, however, his recognition of Israel, 11 minutes after it was proclaimed in Tel Aviv, was a very fateful turning point in the survival of the Jewish state. He did this even against the strong advice of his secretary of state, George Marshall, who charged that it was all politics, and threatened not to vote for Truman in the forthcoming presidential elections. Truman regarded Marshall as the greatest living American, yet he defied him on this critical issue because he had promised Chaim Weizmann that he would immediately recognize the Jewish state if it proclaimed its independence.

The background to this promise to Weizmann is not well known, and should be repeated here. In January 1948, the State Department had reached a decision to abandon partition, for which it had fought in November 1947. The Jewish Agency got wind of the State Department’s move, and realized there was only one person who could move Truman to counter the State Department scheme, namely, Weizmann.

However, every attempt to get Truman to agree to meet with Weizmann was met with a flat refusal. Truman was hopping mad at the American Jews for supporting the Republicans and charging Truman with deserting partition. This applied especially to Abba Hillel Silver, who supported senator Robert Taft as the Republican candidate for the presidency. (Both Silver and Taft were from Ohio.)

It was at this moment that the Jewish Agency contacted Truman’s old Jewish partner, Eddie Jacobson, who had free entry into the White House. The agency asked Jacobson to travel immediately by the midnight train from Missouri to see Truman. Jacobson agreed, and upon arrival in Washington the next morning went straight to the White House.

Nonetheless, when he raised the issue of Truman’s meeting with Weizmann, the president exploded with language that would make a sailor blush. The whole story is not essential here, but Jacobson described Weizmann as the greatest Jew that ever lived, and compared him to Truman’s favorite president, Andrew Jackson. In the end, Truman agreed to have Weizmann come in through the back door of the White House.

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TRUMAN AND WEIZMANN met on March 18. The president was enormously impressed with Weizmann, and promised him that if the Jews proclaimed a state when the British left Palestine on May 14, he would recognize it immediately.

On the very next day, however, the State Department announced that, due to the threat of conflict, the US was withdrawing its support of partition in favor of a UN trusteeship for Palestine. Truman was devastated. In his diary he described how he felt about the State Department’s act: He had promised Weizmann recognition of the Jewish state, but the State Department had double-crossed him. He had seen the State Department’s draft document in advance, but had instructed them not to act without getting his express approval.

Truman’s hands were tied. While he could not denounce the State Department’s act, he waited, however, until the right moment arrived. On May 14 (a Friday afternoon), David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of Israel, and 11 minutes later Truman proclaimed US recognition of the new state.

My subsequent professor at Columbia University, Prof. Philip Jessup – acting then as the US ambassador to the UN – was at the rostrum, promoting the UN trusteeship project, when the ticker-tape revealed Truman’s act of recognition. The State Department officials were astonished, together with many others throughout the world. However, as Truman wrote in his political memoirs: “They should not have been surprised after what they did to me.”

This is why Jews generally, and Israelis in particular, respect the memory of that man who contributed so much to the cause of Jewish statehood.

The writer is the James G. McDonald professor emeritus of American History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.