History Forum / General / General Topics / January 2004

One could easily lose touch with what this thread is about:

The buzz saw that Howard Dean ran into for suggesting that we might consider
a little fair-mindedness in the Middle East has been in operation for quite
a while.  Wonder if we'll be hearing some sexual innuendo about him before
long, like was once used on John Foster Dulles, of all people:

[NIEL] JOHNSON: Then there was Edwin Wright; I think you remember him.

[HENRY] BYROADE: Ed Wright, yes.

JOHNSON: He served in the Bureau for the Near East, South Asian, African
Affairs. He relates in an interview his problems with the pro-Zionist
policymakers.

Wright describes the campaign by Zionists and the State Department and White
House staff, I think David Niles in particular, to have him fired as an
anti-Semite because of his criticism of Zionism. He claims the Zionists
labeled as pro-Arab anyone who did not support their position. He said, "You
had to be pro-Zionist or keep quiet in order to stay in the State
Department, and the net result was a whole generation of officers who are
simply 'Uncle Toms.' They don't dare to speak or publish things." Later on,
he says that Henry Byroade was "one of these men" threatened because he
spoke out. He cited your speeches in Dayton and Philadelphia in April 1954.
He says that he and Parker "Pete" Hart, head of the Near Eastern Section,
worked on this speech. Your speech included these sentences, "To the
Israelis I say that you should come to truly look upon yourselves as a
Middle Eastern State and see your own future in that context rather than as
a headquarter, or nucleus so to speak, of worldwide groupings of peoples of
a particular religious faith who must have special rights within and
obligations to the state. You should drop the attitude of the conqueror and
the conviction that force and a policy of retaliatory killings is the only
policy that your neighbors will understand. The Arabs must cease to think of
themselves as wanting to destroy Israel and should come to terms with Israel
itself" [ These sentences were drawn from Ambassador Byroade's copy of the
speech, and not from Edwin Wright's recollections ]. Then he says that Nahum
Goldmann called you the next morning and asked if you had made the speech,
and you said that you had [ Nahum Goldmann's name is sometimes incorrectly
spelled "Nathan Goldman" ]. Goldmann then said he would see to it that you
never held another good position. What did happen as a result of that
episode with Mr. Goldmann?

BYROADE: Well, Ed Wright is absolutely right. The only thing wrong about it
is that Goldmann didn't ask who made the speech; he knew I'd made the
speech. The sentence you quoted, the Zionists will never forgive me for. I
struggled personally with that sentence for a long, long time. I knew it
would upset them. I really believed in the truth of that statement. I do
today, and I think events have shown that that wasn't bad advice for Israel
really, although I'm sure that diehard Zionists wouldn't agree with that
statement; they'd say that sentence is very bad. I also attacked their
immigration policy in which they opened their arms and pleaded for every
person of Jewish faith anywhere in the world to come to Israel, when they
didn't have space, without expanding, to take them in.

Ed Wright was a wonderful old man. He was our historian; he really knew the
history of the Middle East. He died last year. I was sorry not to go to his
funeral. It is true that when you speak out, with the American Government
trying to go down the middle on the Arab-Israeli issue, to be fair to both
sides, it doesn't sit well with the American Zionist leaders who in some
ways seem to feel more strongly about it than the leaders of Israel.

JOHNSON: I think you had mentioned in some conversation that Harry Truman
had called you into the oval office to talk to you. Would you want to tell
us that story?

BYROADE: You don't want that whole story in detail.

JOHNSON: Oh yes, especially if it involves Truman.

BYROADE: Well, when I was given the job of Assistant Secretary for NEA,
which is the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, it was a part of the world
that I didn't know too much about. The first thing I did was to go to the
area, before I ever made any decisions at all. I made stops from Morocco to
India, and of course, in the Arab states and Israel itself. I think I
visited thirteen to fifteen countries in about twenty days.

I was very upset after listening to both the Arab leaders and the Israeli
leaders about the Arab-Israeli problem. Some time after I got back, my
secretary buzzed me and said, "President Truman is on the phone." I could
hardly believe it, because that was well before the days of Jack Kennedy
when that type of thing happened. Sure enough it was, and he said, "I'd like
to talk to you sometime; do you have time to come over?" I said, "Yes, sir."
I went over and saw on his calendar I had 30 minutes. I asked Dean Acheson
before I went over if he knew what it was all about, and he said he didn't
know, but "Go on over and find out."

When I got there I thought Truman acted like he wasn't quite sure why I was
there. I decided he must want to know about what I found on my trip. So in
some detail I went through the problems of North Africa and the Middle East
and India-Pakistan, primarily, and Kashmir at that time--and the troubles in
Morocco, all kinds of problems. About two-thirds of the way through this, I
stopped and said, "There's one problem that's so significant to the United
States, I think I should only talk about that for the time I've got left." I
went into considerable detail about my concern at the position of the United
States in the Arab states, because of our almost all-out support for Israel.
I didn't know what would happen, because Harry Truman had recognized Israel
immediately, the first nation to do so in the word. I knew he felt very
strongly about it, but I did too. I felt that I might get fired, but I was
going into an important job and it's better we find out right away. So I was

very frank with him, and in the process was critical of both the policies of
Israel and our policy towards Israel.

When I ended, he said, "Well, let me tell you what I've been telling Zionist
leaders here in America for the past several months." Now, it is true in our
system, even though a President may come into power knowing really nothing
about the Middle East, it's such an all pervasive problem that by the time
they leave office, they're very knowledgeable. This was shortly before
Truman was leaving office. And he outlined his view for me, which really
were very surprisingly similar my own. I left there extremely encouraged
that would get White House backing for what I called an even-handed,
balanced policy position between both Arabs and Israel.

Months went by, maybe a year, and I was having with Sam Kramer whom I had
known previously when he the Jewish advisor to Jack McCloy in Germany. He
was very good friend of mine. He asked me if I remember Truman's telephone
call and my talk with him shortly after I made my trip to the Middle East. I
said, "Yes, I did." He said, "Do you know what was behind that? I said, "No,
I never did know." He said, "Well, when you were appointed Assistant
Secretary for the area, Zionist leaders in New York, under the chairmanship
Abe Feinberg, [ Although Ambassador Byroade recalls hearing the name
"Finnan" in this conversation, he acknowledges that in all probability the
person was Abraham Feinberg ] had a meeting and decided that you we absolute
disaster for their interests." I said, "Say why do they feel that way? I'm a
farm boy from Indiana, I have no religious or racial prejudices whatsoever.
He said, "They know all that, but you're also a man who doesn't have any
political ambitions, and you'll say what you think, and they really don't
want that." He said, "After that meeting Abe Feinberg called the President
and said they considered my appointment extremely bad, and thought it would
be better for the United States if I were never allowed to really assume the
functions of that position." In other words, I'd be transferred before I
really got started because all I had done up to that point was to make the
trip to the area. Harry Truman's response to Abe Feinberg was, "Well, I
don't know about Byroade; let me have a talk with him." So, not knowing the
background of any of this, I go in there and was extremely frank with him
about my views on the Arab-Israeli situation, as well as my feeling that our
policy was too pro-Israel! What is so amazing is that, according to Sam
Kramer, right after I left Truman's office he (Truman) called Abe Feinberg
in New York and said, "I've had a good talk with young Byroade and I think
you're wrong about him. I think he's going to be just fine in that job." So
I didn't really know how close I was to being in real trouble except for the
nature of Truman himself!

JOHNSON: Was this after Loy Henderson had left the State Department?

BYROADE: Loy was still there, but he was no longer in charge of Middle East
Affairs. Loy had moved up to be head of administration for the State
Department.

JOHNSON: Had you ever consulted with him on this?

BYROADE: Oh, Loy Henderson was one of the best friends I had in the
Department; we felt very similar about the Middle East. Of course, I got to
know him even better when he was Ambassador to Iran during the Mossadegh
time, when the oil problem was such a problem for us.

JOHNSON: Did Goldmann follow up on the threat that we just noted, the threat
to make life a little hard for you?

BYROADE: Oh yes, I had all kinds of problems. There was a lot of pressure
put on the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to get me out of the
Service. I know; he talked to me frankly about it. He said to me once that a
part of these problems were rumors about my sexual life. John Foster Dulles
said, "The President and I know exactly what's behind all this." He said,
"Do you realize when I ran for the Senate in New York, they tried to pin a
sex rap on me?" I said, "No, Foster, I can't really believe that!"

JOHNSON: For John Foster Dulles that would be something.

BYROADE: Well, you know, Israel's a small country and it's worried about its
security. This would all be understandable to me, except for the extent they
go to, to try to discredit the people that they feel might endanger it.
There was a difference of opinion. I felt Israel would be far wiser to make
the kind of peace that I still think they could have made in the '50s. I
remember telling Ben-Gurion, "If you go ahead and do it, your people are so
capable, they'll be running every bank in the Middle East in 50 years. And
isn't that better than sitting here behind barbed wire?" He said, "No."

JOHNSON: This is in the early fifties.

BYROADE: It would be '53, that discussion.

JOHNSON: So you were kind of in the middle of a certain amount of
controversy then on the Palestinian or Israeli policy?

BYROADE: I became quite controversial, which is not good, and it's really
left me very sad. I was played as pro-Arab and anti-Semitic. I don't
consider that any of that is fair. Even today, I don't think I ever did
anything except try to go down the middle on a very tough problem.

JOHNSON: If President Truman had really felt you were anti-Semitic, you
would not have had the job, isn't that correct?

BYROADE: I'm sure that President Truman didn't think I was anti-Semitic.
What I said to him was in no way anti-Israel. It was trying to get the
United States to have respect on both sides of the line and be more helpful
in getting a peace settlement in the Middle East.

JOHNSON: But you did feel that there should be limits for instance on
immigration into Israel?

BYROADE: I did.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/byroade.htm

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DC Dave
Author, "Who Killed James Forrestal?"
"America's Dreyfus Affair, The Case of the Death of Vincent Foster"
"Upton Sinclair and Timothy McVeigh"
"Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression"
http://www.thebird.org/host/dcdave
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