Chapter Nine
TRUMAN ACCEDES TO PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY
President Harry Truman, however, ignored this advice and chose instead to support the Zionist
partition plan. Truman‘s political advisor, Clark Clifford, believed that the Jewish vote and
contributions were essential to winning the upcoming presidential election, and that supporting the
partition plan would garner that support. (Truman‘s opponent, Dewey, took similar stands for similar
reasons.)[197]
Truman‘s Secretary of State George Marshall, the renowned World War II General and author of
the Marshall Plan, was furious to see electoral considerations taking precedence over policies based
on national interest. He condemned what he called a “transparent dodge to win a few votes,” which
would make “[t]he great dignity of the office of President seriously diminished.”[198]
Marshall wrote that the counsel offered by Clifford “was based on domestic political
considerations, while the problem which confronted us was international. I said bluntly that if the
President were to follow Mr. Clifford‘s advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote
against the President...”[199]
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal also tried, unsuccessfully, to oppose the Zionists. He was
outraged that Truman‘s Mideast policy was based on what he called “squalid political purposes,”
asserting that “United States policy should be based on United States national interests and not on
domestic political considerations.”[200]
Forrestal represented the general Pentagon view when he said that “no group in this country
should be permitted to influence our policy to the point where it could endanger our national
security.”[201]
A report by the National Security Council warned that the Palestine turmoil was acutely
endangering the security of the United States. A CIA report stressed the strategic importance of the
Middle East and its oil resources.[202]
Similarly, George F. Kennan, the State Department‘s Director of Policy Planning, issued a top-
secret document on January 19, 1947 that outlined the enormous damage done to the U.S. by the
partition plan (“Report by the Policy Planning Staff on Position of the United States with Respect to
Palestine”).[203]
Kennan cautioned that “important U.S. oil concessions and air base rights” could be lost through
U.S. support for partition and warned that the USSR stood to gain by the partition plan.
Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt‘s grandson and a legendary intelligence agent, was
another who was deeply disturbed by events, noting:
“The process by which Zionist Jews have been able to promote American support for the partition
of Palestine demonstrates the vital need of a foreign policy based on national rather than partisan
interests…. Only when the national interests of the United States, in their highest terms, take
precedence over all other considerations, can a logical, farseeing foreign policy be evolved. No
American political leader has the right to compromise American interests to gain partisan
votes…”[204]
Kermit Roosevelt went on:
“The present course of world crisis will increasingly force upon Americans the realization that
their national interests and those of the proposed Jewish state in Palestine are going to conflict. It is to
be hoped that American Zionists and non-Zionists alike will come to grips with the realities of the
problem.”[205]
Truman wrote in his memoirs: “I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed
at the White House as I had in this instance.” There were now about a million dues-paying Zionists in
the U.S.[206]
Then, as now, in addition to unending pressure there was financial compensation, Truman
reportedly receiving a suitcase full of money from Zionists while on his train campaign around the
country.[207]
Personal influences on Truman
One person key in such Zionist financial connections to Truman was Abraham Feinberg, a wealthy
businessman who was later to play a similar role with President Johnson.[208]
While many Americans have been aware of Truman‘s come-from-behind win over Dewey, few
people know about the critical role of Feinberg and the Zionist lobby in financing Truman‘s victory.
After Feinberg financed Truman‘s famous whistle-stop campaign tour, Truman credited him with his
presidential win.[209] (When the CIA later discovered that Feinberg also helped to finance illegal
gun-running to Zionist groups, the Truman administration looked the other way.[210])
An individual inside the U.S. government who worked to influence policy was David K. Niles,
executive assistant first to FDR and then to Truman. Niles, according to author Alfred Lilienthal, was
“a member of a select group of confidential advisers with an often-quoted passion for anonymity.
Niles… though occasionally publicized as Mr. Truman’s Mystery Man, remained totally unknown to
the public.”[211]
Behind the scenes Niles was regularly briefed by the head of the Washington Office of the Zionist
Organization of America (ZOA).[212]
When it was discovered that top-secret information was being passed on to the Israeli government,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Omar Bradley told Truman he had to choose between
Bradley and Niles. Not long after, Niles resigned and went on a visit to Israel.[213]
Another who helped influence Truman was his old Kansas City friend and business partner, Eddie
Jacobson, active in B’nai B’rith and “a passionate believer in Jewish nationalism,” who was able to
procure Zionist access to the President at key times.[214] Truman called Jacobson‘s input of
“decisive importance.”[215]
Still another was Sam Rosenman, a political advisor to Truman, who screened State Department
memos sent to Truman. A longtime diplomat reports that one of the department’s memoranda was
returned, unopened, with a notation, “President Truman already knows your views and doesn’t need
this.”[216]
Evan M. Wilson, a career diplomat who had been U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, later wrote
that Truman had been largely motivated by “domestic political considerations.”[217] At least one of
Truman‘s key policy speeches was drafted primarily by the Washington representative of the Jewish
Agency.[218]
Under Secretary of State James E. Webb in a dispatch to Secretary of State Dean Acheson noted
the obvious: “Past record suggests Israel has had more influence with U.S. than has U.S. with
Israel.”[219]
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