2 KiB
| aliases | category | tags | summary | born | died | location | ||||
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Political Figure |
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33rd U.S. President who declined Israeli military offers during the Korean War, reportedly fearing a binding security arrangement with Israel. | 1884-05-08 | 1972-12-26 | Lamar, Missouri |
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. He declined David Ben-Gurion's offer to send Israeli troops to fight alongside United Nations forces in South Korea, reportedly fearing it would back him into a security arrangement with Israel.1
Sarnoff committee and the Campaign of Truth, 1950
On March 1, 1950 Truman wrote to Secretary of State Dean Acheson after a conversation with David Sarnoff, chairman of the Radio Corporation of America, who had suggested a committee to examine the Voice of America. Truman asked Acheson to consider the proposal, adding "I wish you would consider that, and we will discuss it when you come over tomorrow."2 Barrett's memorandum of March 6 proposed a new high-level committee of Sarnoff and others to look for added means of getting the truth behind the Iron Curtain, and said that the committee should not confine itself to radio.2 Barrett later claimed that he had helped Truman prepare the Campaign of Truth speech of April 20, 1950, partly with reference to the conclusions of the April 1950 symposium. In that speech Truman framed the Cold War as "a struggle, above all else, for the minds of men."3
Footnotes
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Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 2. ↩︎
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FRUS 1950, volume IV, Document 127 (Truman to Acheson, March 1, 1950) and Document 131 (Barrett to Acheson, March 6, 1950). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v04/d127 ↩︎
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Bessner, "The Night Watchman," p. 229 (Truman's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 20, 1950), and p. 237 and note 38 (Barrett's later claim). ↩︎