Israel

Israel appears in the book chiefly at the moment of its establishment and in the consequential decision by Harry S. Truman to recognize it. The declaration in Jerusalem was followed eleven minutes later by an American announcement of de facto recognition. The episode made Israel the focus of a dramatic assertion of presidential authority, but the book also stresses the limits and contradictions of the policy that followed.

Declaration and Recognition

The declaration was timed for midnight in Jerusalem, which was 6:00 p.m. in Washington. The new Jewish state was described as the first Jewish state in nearly two thousand years. At the White House, the practical arrangements for recognition were still unfolding: Clark Clifford hurriedly contacted Elihu Epstein of the Jewish Agency in Washington to say recognition would occur that day and to ask for the necessary papers. When Epstein asked what was needed, Clifford could not specify. The State Department was then contacted, and the papers eventually arrived with the new country’s name left blank because it was still unknown.

That uncertainty gives the announcement its distinctive immediacy. The state was declared on schedule; eleven minutes later, Charlie Ross announced that the United States had granted de facto recognition of Israel. The recognition was not the culmination of a settled, smoothly executed process. The blank in the paperwork and the hurried calls show officials trying to give formal shape to a decision while the new country’s name had not yet been supplied. In the book’s telling, the rapid sequence made the United States’ act of recognition both a diplomatic decision and a public event.

Surprise and Public Response

The announcement caught much of the American delegation at the United Nations off guard. Some delegates laughed because they assumed it was a joke. Ambassador Austin, the only member of the delegation notified in advance—and then only at the last moment—was so upset that he went home without informing the others. At the State Department, George Marshall sent Dean Rusk to New York by plane to prevent the delegation from resigning. The episode therefore registered not only as a decision about Israel but also as a visible rupture between the White House’s action and the officials expected to represent American policy abroad.

The response beyond government was markedly different. In Brooklyn and the Bronx, people danced in the streets, and the Polo Grounds held a large rally in support of Israel. Thanksgiving services took place in synagogues around the country. At the Jewish Agency’s Washington headquarters, a pale-blue-and-white flag bearing a Star of David was unfurled. These celebrations formed a public counterpart to the confusion among diplomats: recognition was received as a moment of national significance even as its execution drew criticism from experienced foreign-policy observers. Time magazine called the handling a “comic opera performance,” while an editorial in the Washington Star acknowledged the previous mishandling of Palestine policy but argued that the swift decision to recognize the new state overshadowed it.

A Symbolic Decision and Its Limits

The book distinguishes the symbolic force of Truman’s action from the narrower commitments that followed. The United States granted de facto recognition; the Soviet Union subsequently gave Israel the more formal de jure recognition. In the months that followed, while Israel was under attack by Arab armies, Truman refused to lift the American embargo on arms shipments to Israel. At the United Nations, the United States supported mediation and compromise through the summer and fall, a policy Israel opposed. Recognition therefore did not mean that the United States adopted every position sought by the new state. The relationship began with a striking public gesture but continued amid disagreement over arms and the terms of a settlement.

Even with those qualifications, the book presents recognition as a decision whose symbolic importance exceeded its immediate practical scope. Truman had granted the world’s first recognition of the new Jewish nation, and the action brought him expressions of gratitude that moved him at the time and stayed with him for years. When Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog visited the White House, he told Truman, “God put you in your mother’s womb so you would be the instrument to bring the rebirth of Israel after two thousand years.” David Niles recalled that tears ran down Truman’s cheeks as he heard the words. The scene links the state’s emergence to a personal response from the President, without erasing the competing policy disputes surrounding the recognition.

Presidential Authority and the Aftermath

The decision also belonged to a larger conflict over who made American foreign policy. Truman wrote that career officials could regard themselves as the people who truly ran government and treat elected officials as temporary occupants. He rejected the idea of creating a separate foreign-policy channel of his own, as Franklin D. Roosevelt had done with direct communications to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Instead, Truman argued that the State Department should conduct foreign-policy operations while the President remained responsible for making policy. Israel’s recognition became a forceful instance of that distinction: the White House acted swiftly despite the misgivings and surprise within the diplomatic apparatus.

The consequences extended to personnel as well as procedure. Loy Henderson was removed from his position and reassigned as ambassador to India, away from Washington and Middle Eastern policy. Yet Henderson remained an admirer of Truman, later judging that the State Department’s morale and effectiveness had been high during Truman’s presidency, particularly when the President was willing to make difficult decisions and accept their consequences. In this account, Israel is not simply the setting for a recognition announcement. Its establishment becomes the point at which public celebration, diplomatic disorder, policy limits, and presidential responsibility meet—and at which the significance of recognition survives the controversy over how it was carried out.