The Foreign Service Journal, September 2010

again had the occasion to press him on the need to exercise stronger con- trol over State. After McDonald pre- sented the memorandum described at the start of this article, the presi- dent gave him a letter confirming that McDonald was indeed acting with Truman’s full authority. That document set forth the fol- lowing areas of responsibility, beyond regular reports to the Department of State: “matters related to the arms embargo, the appropriate time for full recognition, and the types of as- sistance as may be required by and can properly be granted to the new state.” The president added that he expected to be kept personally in- formed on those matters, which Mc- Donald was careful to do throughout his tenure. Just as controversy persists as to Truman’s reasons for so quickly giv- ing Israel de facto recognition in May 1948, some have questioned the ap- propriateness of selecting McDonald as America’s first representative there. The principal charge against the president regarding the McDon- ald appointment is that he was pan- dering to Jewish voters for their financial support in the upcoming presidential election. Another criti- cism is that it was not in the national interest to have chosen a man so ex- plicitly associated with the Zionist cause. Clifford and other defenders maintained that Truman correctly un- derstood public opinion in the U.S. as being in favor of his decisions regard- ing Palestine — actions that were in line with U.S. government policy in favor of the Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate which incorporated that declaration, and the United Na- tions vote of Nov. 29, 1947. They also note that McDonald’s selection was in keeping with the president’s recogni- tion of Israel and his need to demon- strate an ongoing commitment to the policy of support for the Jewish state. The White House also clearly per- ceived the utility of having another voice to temper the unenthusiastic support it was receiving from the State Department, the consequences of which were creating a public image of an uncertain and ineffective lead- ership on this issue. But the debate over who should represent the United States in Israel did not end there. Once Israel elect- ed a constituent assembly on Jan. 25, 1949, and established a permanent government immediately thereafter, it received de jure recognition from Washington, among other capitals. This elevated the respective missions there to embassy status, and their representatives to the ambassadorial level. Despite Truman’s November 1948 election, it was far from certain that McDonald would remain at his new post. The president remained under pressure to choose a career diplomat, or at least a person less completely devoted to the Israeli cause. Some in the private sector were also pushing their own candidates, sometimes on grounds that the ambassador should be Jewish. But on March 18, 1949, the Sen- ate confirmed McDonald as U.S. am- bassador to Israel, a position he occupied until departing Tel Aviv on Dec. 13, 1950. McDonald was not only the first U.S. ambassador to Is- rael, but the world’s first envoy there with the rank of ambassador. This designation leapfrogged him over the incumbent Soviet minister to become the new dean of the seven-man diplo- matic corps in Tel Aviv. Assessing McDonald’s Tenure The establishment of diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level nat- urally did not end the deep policy dis- agreements between Israel and the U.S. that had characterized their rela- tionship from the start. The major is- sues are familiar ones even today: the fate of the hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees from Israeli-controlled territory, and the extent to which Is- rael’s borders should be adjusted from those outlined in the U.N.’s resolution of Nov. 29, 1947. In fact, these two problems were so intractable that Pres. Truman sent a strong personal message to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion threat- ening that “a revision” of the U.S. government’s attitude toward Israel would be “unavoidable.” He urged more willingness on Israel’s part to repatriate a significant number of refugees and agree to territorial com- pensation from lands originally as- signed to it for the net gains from its recent war against the Arab states having forces in Palestine (e.g., part of the Negev would go to Egypt in ex- change for Israel’s retention of the captured western Galilee). Perhaps McDonald’s most impor- tant contribution to the eventual so- lidification of the relations between Israel and the U.S. was his ability from the start to make the most of his ready and informal access to Presi- dent Ezer Weizmann, Prime Minis- ter David Ben-Gurion and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett. He used those ties to encourage flexibility in meeting the series of crises that marked the first part of his tenure. The armistices Israel signed with 46 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 McDonald was not only the first U.S. ambassador to Israel, but the world’s first envoy there with the rank of ambassador.