The Foreign Service Journal, September 2010

sent a personal telegram to Truman expressing the hope that he had not come across as more concerned about the political fate of the Jews in Pales- tine than with the issue of most con- cern to the president — the status of some 100,000 displaced persons in Germany. He also noted that he, too, was a Midwesterner by background, and would gladly be at the president’s disposal for any further assignment. McDonald took satisfaction when Truman subsequently forestalled any further U.S. consideration of the Mor- rison-Grady Plan and renewed his call for the transfer of the 100,000 refugees to Palestine, doing so in what was widely perceived as a clear political move on the eve of the 1946 congres- sional elections, the famous “YomKip- pur” statement. Still, by mid-1946, McDonald re- mained without the kind of position he had hoped to obtain. So he began to travel the world as a paid speaker urg- ing primarily Jewish communities to purchase bonds for the development of Palestine. In 1947, he also visited that territory to research a book he was writing, analyzing the 30-year history of the British Mandate there. Al- though he quickly completed the ex- tensive manuscript, he proved unable to publish it for lack of the 3,500 as- sured advance purchasers the pro- spective publisher demanded. A Fateful Phone Call Fortunately for McDonald, White House emissary Clark Clifford offered him the possibility of service as Amer- ica’s first special representative to Is- rael in a phone call on June 22, 1948. McDonald accepted the offer of a re- cess appointment (which did not re- quire Senate confirmation) within the hour, partly out of a desire to counter what he saw as State Department ef- forts to stymie movement toward cre- ating the Jewish state. At his pre-departure meeting with Truman in late July, McDonald once S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 45 Shortly after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933, McDonald interviewed him in fluent German and warned him against pursuing anti-Semitism.