The view from 1947: The CIA and the partition of Palestine

Middle East Journal

Volumn 61, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 17-28

  Lippman, Thomas W ^a  

^a Middle East Institute   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK; WAR;

ASIA; EURASIA; MIDDLE EAST; PALESTINE;

EID: 33847037425     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3751/61.1.11     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Central Intelligence Agency, "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," ORE 55, November 28, 1947. Text at http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs_full.asp?doc_no=0000256628.
2. Quoted in Brian J. Duffy, "The New Spy Wars," US News and World Report, March 19, 1991.
3. For the text of the Balfour Declaration see, inter alia, David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1989), p. 297.
4. The official joint memorandum of this conversation is in Foreign Relations of the United States, a collection of declassified diplomatic documents published by the US Department of State, 1945 edition, Vol. VIII, p. 1 ff.
5. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945 edition, Vol. VIII, p. 802.
6. The Hagana, the Irgun, and the Stern Gang all operated under the British Mandate. The Hagana was "designed primarily to afford ... police protection to the various Jewish colonies in Palestine," and did not become military in nature until 1948. The Irgun developed in the 1930s in opposition to the Hagana's policy of "non-retaliation," and the Stern Gang (or Lehi) split from the Irgun in 1940. Menachem Begin, The Revolt (London: W.H. Allen, 1951), pp. 34-40, 400.
7. See Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 1946-1953 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), pp. 139-141,
8. and Phillip J. Baram, The Department of State in the Middle East, 1914-1945 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), pp. 279-80.
9. For comprehensive accounts of the Truman Administration's deliberations on the Palestine issue, see Michael J. Cohen, Truman and Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)
10. and Evan M. Wilson, Decision on Palestine: How the US Came to Recognize Israel (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1979).
11. Zvi Ganin, Truman, American Jewry, and Israel, 1945-1948 (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc., 1979), pp. 179-82.
12. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945 edition, Vol. VIII, p. 751ff.
13. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945 edition, Vol. VIII, p. 751ff.
14. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 169ff.
15. Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow, 1973), p. 381ff.
16. E-mail communication to the author, Oct. 26, 2006.
17. The material on William A. Eddy is drawn from the William A. Eddy papers at Princeton University as well as my forthcoming biography on Eddy.
18. William A. Eddy papers, Princeton University, Box 6, Folder 2.
19. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 3.
20. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," pp. 3-4.
21. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 5.
22. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 8.
23. Personal observations of the author in Egypt, 1979.
24. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 8.
25. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," pp. 6-7.
26. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," pp. 7-9.
27. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 4.
28. In fact, Richard Mitchell saw the Brothers' involvment in the Palestine issue as a key transition point for the organization from a social institution to a political one: "[t]he disturbances in Palestine, between Zionist and Arab nationalism and the British provided the first occasion for active involvement, beyond propoganda, in matters 'political.'" The Society of Muslim Brothers (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 15.
29. Evan Wilson, Decision on Palestine, p. 30.
30. National Archives, Records Group 21, Chairman's File, Box 10, Folder 56.
31. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," pp. 11-12.
32. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 5.
33. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 11.
34. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 13.
35. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," pp. 13-14.
36. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 1.
37. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 12.
38. "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," p. 6.
39. Memos of May 7 and September 27, 1943, in the papers of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY, President's Secretary's File, Box 9, "State Department."
40. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, p. 136ff.
41. Particularly in the Jews' coordination of interior lines as well as their successful use of the month-long ceasefire in June 1948 to rearm and retrain troops.
42. See Wallace Murray memo of January 22, 1945, National Archives, Records Group 59, General records of the Department of State, Lot File 57, Box 15.
43. Foreign Relations of the United States 1945, Vol. VIII, p. 628.
44. See, for example, Robert Stephens, Nasser (Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1971), pp. 77-78.
45. Muhammad Nagib, Egypt's Destiny, A Personal Statement (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1955), pp. 19-21.
46. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, p. 156.
47. E-mail communication to author, Oct. 26, 2006.
48. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs:, Vol. 2, p. 167.
49. "1948 Presidential Election Results: New York," www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=1948&fips=36&f= 0&off=0&elect=0.