Liberals were incensed. Henry Wallace called Truman’s loyalty board “a campaign of terror unequaled in our history, reminiscent of the early days of Adolf Hitler.” Recalled Truman’s first press secretary, Jonathan Daniels: “Not even liberty seemed simple.”
At the time, Truman was also overseeing the most momentous reorganization of the military and intelligence establishments in the country’s history. The National Security Act of 1947, which Truman signed on July 26 of that year, created the new Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and the Air Force as its own branch of the military. The War and Navy Departments merged to create a single Department of Defense under one defense secretary. Truman appointed the former secretary of the navy, James Forrestal, as the first secretary of defense. The push to implement this military reorganization put so much pressure on Forrestal, he began showing signs of mental distress. (Forrestal would ultimately commit suicide, jumping from the sixteenth-floor window of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1949.)
No problem, however, caused more of a headache for Truman in 1947 than the question of a Jewish homeland.
In the fall of 1947 the pressure on Truman to support a state for the Jews in Palestine had only increased, as had opposition from the US State Department. On October 3, 1947, Truman received a letter from one of his closest friends, Eddie Jacobson. It had been Eddie, “my Jewish friend,” with whom Truman had opened his failed haberdashery, Truman & Jacobson, two decades earlier. Jacobson’s letter was written on stationery from his new store, Eddie Jacobson’s Westport Menswear in Kansas City.
“I think I am one of the few who actually knows and realizes what terrific heavy burdens you are carrying on your shoulders during these hectic days,” Jacobson wrote. “I should, therefore, be the last man to add to them; but I feel you will forgive me for doing so, because tens of thousands of lives depend on words from your mouth and heart. Harry, my people need help and I am appealing to you to help them.”
As Truman read this letter, the United Nations General Assembly was in the process of debating a solution for the Palestine conundrum, in Paris. Already Jews were immigrating to Palestine and smuggling in weapons, empowered by prophecies that they would return to the land they believed God had decreed as their own. Ultimately, on November 29, 1947, the UN adopted a resolution to partition Palestine into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. Subsequently, the British announced that they would end their mandate over the region, to take effect at midnight on May 14, 1948—which meant that twenty-six years of British rule over Palestine was about to end.
Now there was a deadline. If the British pulled out with no internationally supported policy to keep the peace, war would result—possibly world war, if the Soviets jumped in.
The United Nations’ partition plan failed to assuage either the Jews or the Arabs. Each side thought it was getting less than it deserved. Public opinion in the United States supported the UN’s partition plan; 65 percent of Americans favored it, according to a Gallup poll, compared with 10 percent who did not (the rest had no opinion).
Truman made up his mind: He would support the founding of a Jewish state. But in order to do so, he had to figure out a way to get his own State Department—and particularly the department’s boss, George Marshall—on board. Truman summoned the young rising star of his administration, Clark Clifford. At forty-one, Clifford was in his third year working at the White House, and prior to coming to Washington, he had been a successful trial lawyer in Truman’s home state of Missouri. When Clifford arrived in Truman’s office, he could tell right away the president was troubled. Clifford took a seat in front of Truman’s desk and listened closely.
“Clark, I am impressed with General Marshall’s argument that we should not recognize the new [Jewish] state so fast,” Truman said. Marshall was going to continue to take a “very strong position,” the president believed. “When he does, I would like you to make the case in favor of recognition of the new state.” Truman paused, and Clifford felt the gravity of the moment. “You know how I feel,” Truman said. “I want you to present it just as though you were making an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States. Consider it carefully, Clark, organize it logically. I want you to be as persuasive as you possibly can be.”
The 1948 election was a year away. From the time Truman had become an accidental president, on April 12, 1945, he told his staff he’d never wanted the job, that he was ready to move out of the “Great White Jail.” But now his mind was made up. There was too much at stake not to run.
On November 12, he met in the White House with his secretary of defense, James Forrestal, and revealed his inner thinking on the upcoming national election. Truman told Forrestal how much he worried about his family, how difficult their lives had become because of his job. But he had no choice. He had to run.
“There is no question in my judgment as to the complete sincerity of the President,” Forrestal recorded in his diary, “that the only thing that holds him to this grinding job is a sense of obligation to the country and, secondarily, to his party.”
Truman had no illusions about what it would take to launch his national campaign. All the odds were against him. The only way he could win would be to create a campaign strategy so unexpected, it would take the opposition by storm. There had always been rules in electioneering—some established by law, others by tradition. The only way to win would be by breaking the right ones
