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December 19, 2003
Anti-Semitic ideas found in diary
A new find forces a reassessment of the president who was considered
one of Israel's strongest supporters.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Before one can enter the public exhibit hall at the Harry S. Truman
Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., one can't
avoid the rather progressive-thinking caveat posted by museum staff.
"The years of Harry Truman's presidency are crowded with significance
and controversial events," states the warning. "No single,
universally accepted account of this period exists." It goes
on to explain that different interpretations have been included
in the museum. "These differing viewpoints are reminders that
the history of the Truman years is not settled. It is constantly
being disputed, reviewed and revised. New research continually emerges
to challenge accepted facts and alter the story."
These are wise words for any observer entering any museum, but they
proved particularly relevant this year at this museum. Some of the
new research that emerged suddenly last summer has altered the way
most Jews and plenty of non-Jews view the grandfatherly Truman.
A trip through the museum takes on a new critic's eye in light of
what we learned this year.
In July, the U.S. National Archives released the text of a previously
unknown journal kept by the president during part of 1947. At a
scant 5,500 words, it does not challenge Boswell's Life of Dr.
Johnson as a monument of the biographic arts, but its terse
comments force a significant reassessment of the president who may
have single-handedly ensured Israel an American ally, a situation
which cannot be overestimated in its importance over the past 55
years.
The diary had not been discovered earlier because Truman made the
jottings in a nondescript tablet titled The Real Estate Board
of New York, Inc., Diary and Manual 1947. A librarian discovered
its sordid contents only this year.
In his notes, Truman betrayed anti-Semitic views that may have been
prevalent at that point in history, but which shocked historians,
given Truman's forceful support for Israel at its inception, as
well as his strong efforts to assist the post-Holocaust Jewish communities
of Europe.
On July 21, 1947, President Truman
had a meeting with Henry Morgenthau, a leader of American Jewry
and a former treasury secretary under Truman's predecessor Franklin
Roosevelt. Morgenthau urged Truman to assist in the plight of a
ship, possibly the Exodus, carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees, which
had been refused landing in Palestine.
Of Morgenthau's request for the meeting, Truman wrote, "He'd
no business whatever to call me," then proceeded: "The
Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement
[sic] on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York
on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed."
Truman wrote on: "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish.
They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs
or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as
long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power,
physical, financial or political, neither Hitler nor Stalin has
anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the underdog. Put
an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is
Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes
haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition
when prosperity comes."
The writings are particularly jarring in the context of the museum
exhibit, which reinforces the understanding of Truman's role in
the creation, recognition and defence of Israel. On display is the
Torah scroll given to Truman by Israel's first president, Chaim
Weizmann on May 25, 1948, in recognition of American support and
recognition, as well as a copper and silver ark and menorah given
to the president by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister,
in 1951.
Truman's support for Israel came with political costs and benefits
to Truman, who stood up to, reportedly, his entire state department
in insisting that America support the Jewish state. Secretary of
State George Marshall, a massive political force in his own right
whose name has become synonymous with the postwar rebuilding of
Europe, was dead-set against recognition. Jewish voters, however,
may have rewarded Truman a few months later, when he unexpectedly
defeated Thomas Dewey in a 1948 presidential upset.
Also on display is the typed memo, with handwritten changes by the
president, which affirmed America's support for Israel.
"This government has been informed that a Jewish state has
been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested
by the Government [sic] thereof," states the letter. "The
United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto
authority of the new Jewish state." It was signed by Truman
after he added in ink the word "provisional" to "the
Government thereof" and altered the final words from "Jewish
state" to "state of Israel."
In addition to the material related to Israel and Jewish issues,
the museum, which is adjacent to Truman's boyhood home in Independence,
now a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., offers a survey of the times in
which Truman served, from the dropping of the first atomic bomb,
through the rebuilding of Europe, the Cold War and the American
mania for the automobile. One of Truman's achievements, a national
network of highways, takes visitors practically to the door of Truman's
library.
Another, less tangible but even more consequential act of Truman's
administration was the doctrine that bears his name, which promises
American support for "free peoples resisting attempted subjugation
by armed minorities or by outside pressures," which could be
and was the justification for going into many places, including
Vietnam.
Museums like the Truman library are enjoyable, especially for their
trivial surprises. A keen-eyed Canadian will note the reference
to home in Truman's official portrait hanging in the library. The
president is holding in his hand a paper, which turns out to be
the joint statement on control and use of atomic energy signed Nov.
15, 1945, by British prime minister Clement Attlee, Truman and our
own William Lyon Mackenzie-King, though that's all you hear about
Canada for a while.
Also on display is the cover of the Philadelphia newspaper, the
Evening Bulletin, of May 2, 1945, carrying a banner over
a big picture of Hitler and the words: "Take him away, history."
Would that it were so easy.
Truman's era was also the beginning
of a new trend: Hysteria Amid Plenty! Fear of communism at home
and abroad motivated some of the most repressive restraints on free
speech ever initiated in the United States. Despite a postwar boom,
30 per cent of Americans lived in poverty and skin color still counted
as much as talent in many respects. Interestingly, the Truman library
is frank in dealing with Truman's warts, which is more than can
be said of the nearby library of Truman's successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
a short drive west, in Abilene, Kan., where the 1950s are painted
as a relatively problem-free time of exuberant economic expansion.
The parallels and contrasts between the two museums are interesting
in content, style and political judgment. Between the two, a unique
perspective on the entire postwar era from 1944 to 1961 is offered.
Both libraries are easily accessible
from a base in Kansas City, a surprisingly artsy and cosmopolitan
city that also houses the American Jazz Museum, the Negro Leagues
Baseball Museum, remarkable architecture and some of America's best
"typical" cuisine, such as "steak soup" and
Kansas City "barbecue." In the heart of Kansas City's
spectacularly renovated core is the Kansas City Sheraton Suites
Country Club Plaza Hotel. Even with the Canadian currency being
what it is, the dollar goes a long way at Midwest hotels and this
three-diamond Sheraton is top of the line with a price equivalent
to a mid-range room in Vancouver.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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