President Truman's Palestine Policy - 1945

WARNING: Do not break the law before, during, or after reading anything I mention.


An excerpt from my article on the Recognition of Israel.

     On Thursday, August 16, 1945, shortly after returning from Potsdam, Germany, United States President Harry Truman gathered the White House press corps in his office for a mid-morning news conference. The president was in a chipper mood. He jokingly told the eager reporters "you hadn't all had a chance to look me in the face or ask me any impertinent questions." Laughter from the news corps broke out, as the president wryly smiled, then further aroused his attentive audience's humor by adding that there was nothing "that you would break your arms to get out of the door for this morning." As the festive greeting and hardy laughs eased down, more serious business began. After a few questions concerning the future of the Manhattan project, V-J Day, and General Douglas MacArthur's surrender terms with the Japanese, a reporter asked if there was "[a]nything about the Jewish national state discussed at Potsdam?" Truman candidly disclosed that he "discussed the matter with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Attlee, and [was] still discussing it." A follow-up question beckoned from another Washington scribbler, "not with Stalin?" The president casually replied, "No, there was nothing he could do about it." Truman isolated Stalin and the Soviet Union by downplaying their significance as an important influence in the Near East. Great Britain was the nation necessary to secure a peaceful path in a strategic region. President Truman adeptly handled a variety of other questions peppered to him by the ravenous press corps.

     Toward the end of the press conference, an inquisitive reporter could not leave until the president could at least elaborate a bit more about a Jewish national state. The correspondent wanted to pin the president down on a direct policy position, and further asked "[w]hat was the American view on Palestine at Berlin?" Truman realistically asserted that American foreign policy toward Palestine was primarily concerned with letting "as many Jews into Palestine as it is possible to let into that country." President Truman, and several other administration officials, were seriously concerned about exacerbating the humanitarian situation with uninhibited mass migration into Palestine. The President also announced that the situation would "have to be worked out diplomatically with the British and the Arabs." "[I]f a state can be set up there," the president cautiously advanced, "they may be able to set it up on a peaceful basis." Optimism about a peaceful settlement of a Jewish state in Palestine was sincere and pragmatic. Truman recognized and appreciated the innumerable unforeseen ramifications surrounding such a noble endeavor, while delicately maneuvering through the seemingly innocuous and "impertinent" questions. President Truman's diplomatic willingness to publically back the possibility of a Jewish national state, with certain conditions, was an act of national clarity on policy, and, given cold war constructs, security. The Chief Diplomat maintained that the United States had "no desire to send 500,000 American soldiers there to make peace in Palestine." Truman, acting in his constitutional authority as Chief Diplomat, altered U.S. policy toward Palestine during that seemingly innocuous media session. The President utilized an informal press conference to delineate policy parameters regarding Palestine. From the earliest stages of the Truman administration, Jewish immigration, a future Jewish state, and cold war intrigues were important issues driving the president's policy considerations, not political expediency.

Warren R. Reid, Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman 1945 (Washington, D.C., 1961), 224-26, 228.