> Yeah, exactly. That's what Michael's saying. The State and Defense
> Departments were stridently against recognizing Israel and Marshall
> came close to resigning over it.
The issue seems to have been at least one of the reasons that Forrestal became estranged from Truman. And of course the slightly junior George Ball was always an Israel skeptic, to say the least.
1967 certainly does seem to have been a turning point. The somewhat unsettled character of US relations with Israel up to that point shows in the interesting history of the Suez crisis, which saw the US and USSR lined up against Britain, France and Israel, to the advantage of Nasser's Egypt. Hard to imagine a US president now behaving the way Eisenhower did.
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org