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By Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh

Published by Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY, 2009 Buy this Book!

The authors, both associated with the City University of New York, Allis as teacher and Ronald a professor emeritus of history, have written a thorough history of the founding of the nation of Israel, from its early beginnings, when during World War I the League of Nations awarded Britain a Mandate over Palestine, to its recognition as a nation by President Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972) on May 14, 1948. Although expositions of the outstanding contributions of many personalities and organizations are detailed throughout the book, the authors have centered their work around the biography and the role of Harry Truman, revealing that his motives in carrying much of the weight for this achievement were fundamentally, unmistakably humanitarian. The authors add cautionary emphasis in several places, of course, that Truman was also a politician, and faced at times with seemingly unending frustrations, became disgruntled with the Jewish people (see the Truman Wikiquotes referenced below). The Nazi atrocities had been made public through newspaper articles in May and June of 1945, and Truman, who had also seen the harrowing newsreel footage of the concentration camps, said in 1964 to CBS News: “It was a horrible thing. I saw and I dream about it even to this day.”

Truman as vice president became the 33rd president of the United States following the sudden death by stroke of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. Truman had been vice president for only a few months, and had been a compromise choice over the alternative candidate, Henry A. Wallace. Roosevelt had kept Truman at arm’s length, out of the loop, and when Roosevelt died, Truman, who had never expected or wished to become president, found himself immediately confronted with the enormous and pressing problems of a nation still at war. Though the decisive, down-to-earth, straight-talking Truman left office with the lowest popularity polls of any American president to date, “eventually the public as well as professional historians would rate him as one of the greatest American presidents… Harry Truman was insecure about many things when he became president, but he was confident he could handle the issue of Palestine in a just way. He did not anticipate the maelstrom he was about to enter.” The task “would consume him from the day he became president to the day he recognized Israel… The story of why he made the decisions and took the actions he did is the subject of our book.” More »