Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume 1 (58 page)

What, if any, progress had he made on the Democratic side? He had encountered, he wrote, a realisation “of the importance and danger of the situation”, but a “consciousness” that a substantial part of Democratic campaign funds “came from Zionist sources inclined to ask in return for a lien upon this part of our national policy.”

In legal terminology a “lien” is a right to retain possession of another’s property until a debt is paid. Forrestal’s meaning—it could hardly have been more explicit—was that in return for campaign funds, the Zionists expected to call the policy shots for the Middle East.

Having reviewed his own efforts to date, Forrestal then suggested that the Secretary of State should talk to the President about the matter, with a view to Marshall himself taking on the task of advancing negotiations between Republican and Democrat leaders.

In the end section of his paper, Forrestal anticipated the Zionist pressure to which the Truman administration would be subjected in the very probable event (which came to pass as we saw in the previous chapter) of the UN being unable to implement the partition recommendation. The purpose then of Zionist pressure would be to force the U.S. to implement the partition plan unilaterally. And that, Forrestal stated, was a question he had discussed “with a number of people of the Jewish faith, who hold the view that the present zeal of the Zionists can have most dangerous consequences, not merely in their divisive effects in American life, but in the long run on the position of Jews throughout the world.”

Forrestal wanted Marshall to be in no doubt that there were some American Jews, and perhaps many, who, despite their emotions of the moment, were unspeakably frightened by the possible consequences, sooner or later, of Zionism having its way.

When Forrestal and Lovett met later that day, the Undersecretary of State read the paper and said he “agreed in general with the conclusions.” He then produced a paper from his own Department’s Policy Planning Staff. It concluded that the partition plan was “not workable” and that the U.S. was under no commitment to support the plan if it could not be made to work without resort to force; that it was against the American interest to supply arms to the Jews “while we were embargoing arms to the Arabs”, or to accept unilateral responsibility for carrying out the UN recommendation; and that the U.S. should take steps as soon as possible to secure withdrawal of the partition proposal. (As we have seen this, the Keenan paper, was one of the two assessments which prompted Marshall to send his “URGENT AND SECRET” cable to President Truman; and, in due course, was to lead to Ambassador Austin announcing the reversal of U.S. policy and introducing the resolution for the Holy Land to become a UN trusteeship).

Forrestal told Lovett that he had originally proposed himself to the President as the one to take on the task of lifting the Palestine problem out of U.S. domestic politics because somebody with executive responsibility had to do it. But he had come to the conclusion, he said, that it was “neither appropriate nor proper” for the Secretary of Defence to be conducting the negotiations, and that they should continue “under the aegis of the Secretary of State.” Forrestal then said it was his view that “the Secretary of State cannot avoid grasping the nettle of this issue firmly because it is too deeply charged with grave danger to this country to allow it to remain in the realm of domestic politics.”

Less than two weeks later Forrestal had the first indications that there were some in the Democratic Party who were seeing him as a liability in election terms.

On 3 February Forrestal agreed to receive Franklin D. Roosevelt Junior. You didn’t say “No” to a request for a meeting from the son of the illustrious father, even if you didn’t have too much respect for the son.

Drawing off the work of two other writers, Joseph Lash and Richard Crossman, Lilienthal offered fascinating insight into the private differences in the Roosevelt family over Zionism.

As I have previously noted, President Roosevelt, privately, was not in favour of Jewish statehood; and within the confines of the White House he was quite open in his criticism of Zionism. Initially Eleanor shared her husband’s view that trusteeship was the answer. But she became a rabid supporter of Israel. The question is—why?

Crossman did not exempt Eleanor from his famed observation that “everyone shares a
soupçon
of anti-Semitic prejudice.”
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And Lash told of how Eleanor, in a letter to Sara, her mother-in-law, complained that she had attended a party given by Admiral William Harris for Bernard M. Baruch, which was attended by “mostly Jews” and “which I’d rather be hung than seen at.”
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Two days later she wrote, “The Jew party (was) appalling. I never wish to hear money, jewels... and sables mentioned again.”
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Lilienthal added this: “The persistent strivings of Mrs. Roosevelt, particularly as former First Lady, to advance the Israeli cause could have stemmed from an unconscious atonement for her secret feelings of earlier years.
So many other persons of her social class and era likewise jumped from a near-anti-Semitic stance to a virulent pro-Israel position
.”
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(Emphasis added).

The discussion between Forrestal and Roosevelt Junior quickly became a confrontation and the following was Forrestal’s summary account of it.

Visit today from Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., who came in with a strong advocacy of the Jewish state in Palestine, that we should support the United Nations ‘decision’, and in general a broad, across-the-board statement of the Zionist position.
I pointed out that the United Nations as yet had taken no ‘decision’, that it was only a recommendation of the General Assembly, that any implementation of this ‘decision’ by the United States would probably result in the need for partial mobilisation, and that I thought the methods that had been used by people outside of the Executive branch of the government to bring coercion and duress on other nations in the General Assembly bordered closely on scandal.
He professed ignorance on this latter point and returned to his general exposition of the case of the Zionists.

He made no threats but made it very clear that the zealots in this cause had the conviction of trying to upset the government policy on Palestine. I replied that I had no power to make policy but that
I would be derelict in my duty if I did not point out what I thought would be the consequences of any particular policy which would endanger the security of this country.
I said that I was merely directing my efforts to lifting the question out of politics, that is, to have the two parties agree they would not compete for votes on this issue.

He said this was impossible; that the nation was too far committed and that, furthermore, the Democratic Party would be bound to lose and the Republicans gain by such an agreement.

I said I was forced to repeat to him what I had said to Senator McGrath in response to the latter’s observation that
our failure to go along with the Zionists might lose the states of New York, Pennsylvania and California, and that I thought it was about time that somebody should pay some consideration as to whether we might not lose the United States
.
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(Emphasis added).

Roosevelt Junior’s real message was that the campaign to lift Palestine out of U.S. domestic politics had to be stopped in order to prevent serious damage to the Democratic Party’s election prospects.

Question: Was it a message from a maverick or was the politically lightweight son of the late President reflecting the view of others with real influence?

Forrestal did not have to wait more than an hour or two for the answer. It came with lunch the same day.

It was one of those occasions when what was said had profound significance because of who said it.

“Had lunch”, Forrestal noted, “with B.M. Baruch.”
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Now 78, the same Bernard Mannes Baruch we met in Chapter Seven was a living legend in the eyes of those insiders who knew about real power—economic, political and military—and how to exercise it, especially for the benefit of vested interests.

As the Chairman of the War Industries Board on President Wilson’s watch, this man of infinite discretion had established himself as the leading authority on mobilising the financial and industrial resources of the United States for war.

When President Roosevelt realised that he would not be able to keep America neutral, he, too, had turned to Baruch (as well as Forrestal) for assistance in the task of mobilising the necessary financial and industrial resources for war. Baruch did not hold an administrative post in Roosevelt’s administration, but as an adviser to the President his inputs would have been substantial. Perhaps even critical given that the vested interests of American finance and big business had been hostile to Roosevelt because of the way he had clobbered them with his New Deal measures.

The Jewish American gentleman who, in a sense, had done most to make two world wars possible was, by definition, a man with influence far greater than that of any elder statesman in the conventional meaning of the term.

After World War II Baruch was given the responsibility for formulating U.S. policy at the UN with regard to the control of atomic energy. In that capacity his working relationship with the first U.S. Secretary of Defence would obviously have been a close one.

It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the conversation over lunch was conducted in a civilised manner. Baruch had only one item on his agenda—Forrestal’s campaign to take the Palestine problem out of domestic politics. Forrestal’s brief but tantalising diary note of the conversation (as edited by Millis for his employer) included the following (my emphasis added):

He took the line of advising me
not to be active in this particular matter
and that I was already identified, to a degree that was
not in my own interests
, with opposition to the United Nations policy on Palestine. He said he himself did not approve of the Zionists’ actions, but in the next breath he said that
the Democratic Party could only lose by trying to get our government’s policy reversed
.
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As Baruch knew, partition was not what he stated it to be—UN “policy”. It was, as Forrestal had pointed out to Roosevelt Junior, only a rigged recommendation of the General Assembly. It would not become UN policy until the Security Council was satisfied that partition could be implemented. Only the Zionists were asserting that partition was already UN policy. Despite his protestation to the contrary, Baruch had come out fighting for them. And obviously with the deniable support of the Democratic Party’s top management.

By telling Forrestal that it was not in “his own interests” to pursue the matter of lifting Palestine out of U.S. domestic politics, Baruch could have meant by implication (if he did not say so openly) only one of two things, and perhaps both. One was that the Zionists had enough influence in Congress to deny him the legislative and fiscal support he needed to make a success of managing the newly created Department of Defence. The other was that the Zionists had enough influence with the Democratic Party to have Forrestal removed from office.

The bottom-line of Baruch’s “advice” to Forrestal could not have been more clear—the election prospects of the Democratic Party had to given priority, and that meant abandoning the campaign to lift Palestine out of U.S. domestic politics.

Given Baruch’s stature, prestige and influence, Forrestal was being subjected to the maximum possible pressure by civilised means.

It was all to do with the fact that Forrestal had President Truman’s blessing for his initiative. The known record of subsequent events as they happened suggest Baruch believed that if Forrestal could be persuaded to accept the idea that his campaign was not in the Democratic Party’s interest, Marshall, probably, would not take a different view, and that even if he did, the President could be prevailed upon to refrain from giving Marshall his blessing to continue the negotiations with the leaders of the parties. It followed that if Forrestal could be neutralised, the campaign to take the Palestine problem out of U.S. domestic politics would be terminated.

One of the greatest and most tragic ironies in the whole story of the creation of the Arab–Israeli conflict is that on the same day, 3 February 1948, Forrestal received word that the Republican Party was ready to have negotiations with the Democratic Party to take the Palestine problem out of U.S. domestic politics.

Back in his office Forrestal took a telephone call from Winthrop Aldrich, chairman of the Chase National Bank in New York. At Forrestal’s request Aldrich had been continuing the dialogue the Secretary of Defence had started with Governor Dewey at the Gridiron Dinner.

Aldrich now reported that Dewey thought Forrestal was “doing just right”; was “in entire sympathy” with his campaign; and would “co-operate in any way for the best interests of the country.”
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And that was not all. Dewey had suggested, Aldrich told Forrestal, that discussions of co-operation should be handled by Marshall and John Foster Dulles. (At the time Dulles was one of the most brilliant and successful lawyers in the U.S., specialising in international law. Under President Eisenhower after Truman he would emerge as the most powerful and controversial Secretary of State, controversial because of his anti- Communist zeal. He believed in pushing the Russians to the brink. He once declared, “If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.”
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