Eleanor (19 page)

To President Truman she was even sharper in her criticism of Forrestal:

P.S. James told me of Mr. Forrestal’s feeling that no American should be allowed to volunteer in an International Police Force. I think Mr. Forrestal is entirely wrong. I was shocked at the suggestion that any American volunteering to fight in Palestine would lose his citizenship, and I could not understand why that was not invoked when Americans went to Canada and enlisted in the Canadian forces before the war.

It seems to me that if the UN calls for an International Police Force, it might very well say that the quotas should be equal from all nations, big and little, and then we should call for volunteers within our nation. To say that just because Russia might have some soldiers in Palestine on an equal basis with us and all the other nations involved, we would have to mobilize fifty percent for war seems to me complete nonsense and I think it would seem so to most of the people of the United States.
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How strongly she felt was made clear a few days later when she joined Sumner Welles, Herbert H. Lehman, and Sen. Elbert D. Thomas in sponsorship of a four-point plan proposed by the American Association for the United Nations to enforce the UN Palestine resolution. Mrs. Roosevelt’s presence in this group was extraordinary: she was, after all, part of the U.S. representation at the United Nations, an appointee of the president. The AAUN group urged the immediate establishment of a UN force for service in Palestine, to be activated as soon as British troops left the country, or sooner if requested. The avowed Arab determination to resist with arms a pacific settlement of the Palestine issue “poses the question of the authority of the United Nations,” the signatories declared. If the UN’s authority is successfully challenged by “these
weak states in the Middle East, what confidence can be placed in the ability of the UN to meet and master future crises to which, perhaps, major powers may be a party?” The signatories saw Soviet support for the partition resolution as a promising development. The hopes raised by the Soviet Union and the United States finding themselves in accord “must not be shattered by inaction or timidity at the present time.”
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She was about to go abroad to England for the unveiling of a statue of FDR in Grosvenor Square. Truman, who was in Key West, Florida, wished her a pleasant journey and said he had told Forrestal his views on an international police force, and if such a force should be organized, of course, there would be no question of loss of citizenship.
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But the United States, instead of moving in the United Nations to set up a police force, began to retreat from partition to the idea that a temporary trusteeship should replace the British mandate. Washington officials who were pressing the trusteeship concept, led by Forrestal and Lovett, tried to make it appear that the United Nations did not have the powers to enforce its decision. They called in everyone who had worked on the Charter, omitting Benjamin V. Cohen, to frame a statement to that effect.
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Mrs. Roosevelt knew of these maneuvers. She read trusteeship to be a reversal of U.S. policy, a shift that undermined the authority of the United Nations and betrayed a moral obligation the United States had assumed when it accepted the Balfour Declaration. She thought there would be quite a few nations who would refuse to jump to the U.S. whim. There was no perfect solution, and the one already adopted by the United Nations might as well be implemented. Trusteeship would confront the United States with exactly the same problems as it faced in its support of partition. So she wrote General Marshall, saying she would have to say these things publicly and offering her resignation. She wrote the same day to the president “a very frank and unpleasant letter,” as she called it. Her disagreement with the administration over Palestine reflected a larger disagreement over the increased deference to military considerations in the formulation of American foreign policy.

I feel that even though the Secretary of State takes responsibility for the Administration’s position on Palestine, you cannot escape the results of that attitude. I have written the Secretary a letter a copy of which I enclose which will explain my feelings on this particular subject.

On Trieste I feel we have also let the UN down. We are evidently discarding the UN and acting unilaterally, or setting up a balance of power by backing the European democracies and preparing for an ultimate war between the two political philosophies. I am opposed to this attitude because I feel it would be possible, with force and friendliness, to make some arrangements with the Russians, using our economic power as a bribe to obstruct their political advance.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war. While I am in accord that we need force and I am in accord that we need this force to preserve the peace, I do not think that complete preparation for war is the proper approach as yet. . . .

I realize that I am an entirely unimportant cog in the wheel of our work with the UN, but I have offered my resignation to the Secretary since I can quite understand the difficulty of having some one so far down the line openly criticize the Administration policies.

I deeply regret that I must write this letter.
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Her letter set the alarm bells ringing at the White House. In his most vigorous language Truman expressed his conviction that the United Nations was humanity’s best and perhaps only hope for peace. He knew from General Marshall that the latter was sending over Chip Bohlen to brief her on the government’s policies, and, if she was able to see Dean Rusk, he would further elucidate the president’s program. Her withdrawal from the United Nations would be a calamity. That organization, and the country, needed her. Addressing himself to the trusteeship controversy, the president assured her it was a stopgap measure designed to avoid further bloodshed in the Holy Land, not a substitute for partition.
He implored her not to resign and invoked the Lord’s blessings upon her.
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It was a heartfelt letter and moved her deeply, she wrote the president, adding, however, that she had talked with Bohlen and “I cannot say that even now the temporary measures that we have suggested for Palestine really makes anything simpler or safer than it was before but perhaps it will prove to be a solution and I certainly pray it will.” Neither the president’s letter nor her talk with Bohlen kept her from publicly criticizing the trusteeship proposal in her column even as she was en route to London.
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A month abroad did not reconcile her to the policy. She was going to stay out of the campaign, she informed Adlai Stevenson, who had asked her to come out to Illinois, where he was beginning his quest for the governorship.

I am very unhappy about going back on the Assembly decision on Palestine and I feel the handling of it up to this time has brought about much of the Arab arrogance and violence. Certainly our proposal for a change does not seem, from my point of view, to have put us in any better position. Somebody will have to implement a truce and somebody will have to implement a trusteeship. Some time the issue of serving on an equal basis with Russia under the UN will have to be faced.
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Although in January and February the chief arguments advanced by Forrestal and Lovett for the abandonment of partition had been the undesirability and unreadiness of the United States to provide troops to enforce it and the lack of power in the United Nations under the Charter to set up a police force to implement an Assembly resolution,
†
both men were ready to dispatch U.S. troops to the Near East to uphold a trusteeship proposal.
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But, as Mrs. Roosevelt
had predicted, other nations were not prepared to dance to the new U.S. tune. In the special session of the General Assembly, where the American representatives were still pushing the trusteeship proposal when she returned from London, the Soviet Union had declared its opposition to any shift away from partition and the British said there was not enough time to implement a trusteeship proposal.

Truman, who all along had stoutly insisted that he did not construe the State Department’s advocacy of trusteeship as abandonment of the original plan, began to back away.

She thought the people down below had tried to put one over on him. He himself later wrote in his
Memoirs
that the State Department should have known that trusteeship would be regarded by both Jews and Arabs as an abandonment of partition, and in that sense “the trusteeship idea was at odds with my attitude and the policy I had laid down.”
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On May 11, 1948, Mrs. Roosevelt alerted Marshall:

I have just heard from some of the Jewish organizations that they have heard that Russia will recognize the Jewish State as soon as it is declared which will be midnight on Friday, I imagine. The people who spoke to me are afraid that we will lag behind and again follow instead of lead.

I have no idea what the policy of the Administration and the State Department is going to be on this, and I am only just telling you what you probably already know about the Russian position. I have no feeling that they have any principles or convictions in what they are doing, but wherever they can put us in a hole they certainly are going to do it.

Then she added a postscript in her own hand, to make sure that he understood that in her mind recognition was not simply a matter of beating the Russians to it. “I failed to say that personally I believe
there is right back of the establishment of a Jewish state.” Marshall and Lovett, in their first discussion with Truman on the question of recognition, were opposed to it. But then their viewpoint changed. Perhaps Mrs. Roosevelt’s letter was a factor. In any event, the president had determined to extend immediate
de facto
recognition to the new state and to be the first nation to do so. He wanted to get in ahead of Soviet Russia. This was a presidential election year and he knew that such a move would be hailed with enthusiasm by American Jews. And he was not averse to surprising the State Department officials who had tried to circumvent his policy.

He moved with such secrecy that not only were friendly UN delegations unprepared, but his own UN representatives as well. In fact, Ambassador Philip C. Jessup, in the Security Council, was still pushing trusteeship when news of America’s recognition came over the press wires. The procedure stirred her to new indignation because she felt the United Nations had been demeaned. She wrote General Marshall:

May 16, 1948

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Having written you before what I had heard on the subject of the recognition of Palestine, I feel I should write you again.

The way in which the recognition of Palestine came about has created complete consternation in the United Nations.

As you know, I never wanted us to change our original stand. When I wrote to the President and to you the other day what I had heard, I thought, of course, that you would weigh it against the reports which you were getting from the United Nations. Much as I wanted the Palestine State recognized, I would not have wanted it done without the knowledge of our representatives in the United Nations who had been fighting for our changed position. I would have felt that they had to know the reason and I would also have felt that there had to be a very clear understanding beforehand with such nations as we expected would follow our lead.

Several of the representatives of other governments have
been to talk to me since, and have stated quite frankly that they do not see how they could ever follow the United States’ lead because the United States changed so often without any consultation. There seems to be no sense of interlocking information between the United States delegate and the State Department on the policy making level. This is serious because our acts which should strengthen the United Nations only result in weakening our influence within the United Nations and in weakening the United Nations itself.

More and more the other delegates seem to believe that our whole policy is based on antagonism to Russia and that we think in terms of going it alone rather than in terms of building up a leadership within the United Nations.

This seems to me a very serious defect and I do not see how we can expect to have any real leadership if,

1.  We do not consult our people in the United Nations on what we are going to do, and

2.  If we do not line up our following before we do things, rather than trusting to influencing them afterwards.

I can not imagine that major considerations on policies such as this are taken at such short notice that there is not time to think through every consequence and inform all those who should be informed.

I have seldom seen a more bitter, puzzled, discouraged group of people than some of those whom I saw on Saturday. Some of them I know are favorable to the rights of the Jews in Palestine, but they are just nonplused by the way in which we do things.

I thought I had to tell you this because I had written you before and as you know, I believe that it is the Administration’s desire to strengthen the United Nations, but we do not always achieve it because, apparently, there is a lack of contact on the higher levels.

With deep concern, I am,

Very sincerely yours,

Ambassador Austin was advised, Truman and Marshall assured her, but not in time to notify other members of the delegation. Truman stressed the need of stealing a march on the Russians, who were anxious to be the first. “We were aware here of the unfortunate effect on our situation with the United Nations, which is much to be regretted,” Marshall added. “More than this, I am not free to say.”
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Recognition was a fact of the highest political importance, but one that would have been annulled had the Jewish settlements in Palestine been unable to repel the armies of the surrounding Arab states. Arab boasts that they would erase the new state in ten days were accompanied by an Arab exodus from the cities in order to facilitate the task of driving the Jews into the sea. But the Arab armies were soon in retreat.