¹ Le Monde (Paris), 5 July 1979; Jung, Harald, ‘The Fall of Somoza’, New Left Review (London), 09–10 1979, p. 88.Google Scholar

² Somoza, Anastasio, Nicaragua Betrayed (Belmont, 1980), pp. 239–40Google Scholar; Kirkpatrick, Jeane, ‘US Security and Latin America’, Commentary (New York), 01 1981, p. 37Google Scholar; Palestine (Beirut), 16 May 1979; PFLP Bulletin (Beirut), December 1979, p. 33.

³ Israel State Archives (ISA), Jerusalem, 2277/2, Sefaradi-Yarden memorandum on Latin American department, 10 July 1945; Central Zionist Archives (CZA), Jerusalem, Z5/105, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American Section) executive, 21 April 1947.

⁴ CZA, Z5/737, Dudley Dwyre to Sefaradi-Yarden, 23 February 1944.

⁵ Glick, Edward B., Latin America and the Palestine Problem (New York, 1958) pp. 107–8Google Scholar; CZA, Z5/2374, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American Section) executive, 22 October 1947. Cuba's opposition to partition has been explained by the then director of the Jewish Agency's Latin American department as stemming from the fact that Guillermo Belt y Ramírez, its ambassador to Washington and permanent representative at the UN, took his cue from ‘the State Department's most reactionary elements, pro-oil and antisemitic at heart’. While the implication that the Cuban diplomat may have been anti-Jewish is inconsistent with Belt's previous record as mayor of Havana, including his homage to Maimonides, Cuba's anti-partition vote was viewed by Enrique Corominas, Argentina's pro-Zionist deputy delegation head, as an expression of that country's resentment at the US Congress' consideration (and eventual adoption) of a new sugar act, including a clause which was deemed to injure Cuban sovereignty, rather than the result of negative influences by the State Department's Arabists. Tov, Moshé A., El murmullo de Israel: historial diplomático (Jerusalem, 1983), p. 152Google Scholar; Mundo Hebreo (Havana), October 1935, pp. 22–3; Corominas to Juan Bramuglia, 30 November 1947, in Jabbaz, Israel, Israel nace en Naciones Unidas (Buenos Aires, 1960), p. 106.Google Scholar

⁶ CZA, Z5/737, Leib Jaffe to Latin America committee of the Jewish Agency, 8 October 1943; Minutes of the Latin America committee, 18 April 1944; S25/7502, Nahum Goldmann to Moshe Shertok (later Sharett) and Charles Ress, 15 February and 27 March 1946, La Nueva Prensa (Managua), 5 June 1946; Tov, El murmullo de Israel: historial diplomático, p. 223.

⁷ ISA, 2267/20, Charles Chapler to Arthur Lourie, 15 March 1947; 2270/9, Lourie to Sumner Welles, 9 April 1947. CZA, S25/7502, Toff to Shertok, n.d.; Z5/47, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 14 April 1947; Z5/481, Lionel Gelber to Meyer Weisgal, 16 April 1947.

⁸ For a candid discussion of prejudice and contempt towards Latin America among Israeli decision-makers see Viñas, Ismael, ‘Israel-Latinoamérica: ¿Pragmatismo o relaciones internacionales subrogadas?’, Dispersión y Unidad (Jerusalem), summer 1986, pp. 217–24.Google Scholar Panesso Robledo's rebuke in Semana (Jerusalem), 11 March 1982.

⁹ British Embassy in Washington, weekly political report, 31 October 1943, in Nicholas, H. G. (ed.), Washington Despatches (Chicago, 1981), p. 267Google Scholar; May, Stacy and Plaza, Galo, The United Fruit Company in Latin America (New York, 1958), pp. 15–16Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Stephen and Kinzer, Stephen, Bitter Fruit (London, 1982), pp. 68–71Google Scholar; Weizmann, Chaim, Trial and Error (New York, 1966), pp. 312–3Google Scholar; McCann, Thomas, An American Company: The Tragedy of United Fruit (New York, 1976), pp. 25–6Google Scholar; Weizmann to Zemurray, 20 October 1947, in Litvinoff, Barnet (ed.), The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann (Jerusalem, 1979 hereafter Weizmann Papers), xxiii, p. 16.Google Scholar CZA, Z5/2374, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 22 October 1947; The Nation Papers, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., Freda Kirchwey to Ovidio Gondi, 11 August 1949.

¹⁰ Robinson, Jacob, Palestine and the United Nations (Washington, 1947), p. 53Google Scholar; Jones, Martin, Failure in Palestine (London, 1986), p. 255.Google Scholar Argentine Foreign Ministry Archives, Buenos Aires, United Nations Division, General Assembly 10/947, Arce to Bramuglia, 7 April 1947. On Greenberg's late arrival in San José to influence the Costa Rican decision see National Archives (NA), Washington D.C., Diplomatic Branch, State Department records, 032/4–2547 Hallett Johnson to George Marshall.

¹¹ That the Central Americans' margin of independence could also be beneficial to Zionism was illustrated, among others, by Guatemala. Not part of the US list of recommended countries for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), Guatemala's Zionist-instigated candidature was successfully put forward by Chile. Its delegate, Jorge García Granados – unfavourably considered by the State Department, according to Toff, although the British, who portrayed him as ‘ a Soviet stooge’ with ‘an anti-British bias,’ blamed the United States for Guatemala's inclusion within UNSCOP – in the course of time became one of the most strident advocates of Jewish statehood. This, however, should not obscure the fact that the minutes of the Jewish Agency executive and other documents show that while García Granados performed many a favour for the Jewish Agency during UNSCOP's visits to Palestine and Europe he was not initially viewed as fully dependable because of his volatility. Illustrating this is his temporary advocacy of federalism and cantonisation. The latter is all the more interesting in light of a Syrian-inspired suggestion, first mentioned in October 1947, that the Arab states propose cantonisation as an alternative to partition. NA, SD/A/126, Dean Rusk to Truman, 17 April 1947; Institute of Contemporary Jewry (ICJ), Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Oral History Interview with Moshe Tov, 17 (112). Granados, Jorge García, Así nacio Israel (Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 11–15Google Scholar; Jones, , Failure in Palestine, pp. 260–1Google Scholar; Wilson, Evan M., Decision on Palestine (Stanford, 1979), p. 108Google Scholar; Khalidi, Walid, ‘The Arab Perspective’, in Wm, Louis, Roger and Stookey, Robert W. (eds.), The End of the Palestine Mandate (London, 1986), p. 120Google Scholar; Tov, , El murmullo de Israel: historial diplomático, pp. 63–4.Google Scholar

¹² Sachar, Abram L., The Redemption of the Unwanted (New York, 1983), p. 222Google Scholar; Tov, , El murmullo de Israel: historial diplomático, p. 224Google Scholar, ‘Heavy money bribes’ to swing more than one Central American republic in favour of partition are mentioned by Cohen, Michael J., ‘The Zionist Perspective’, in Louis, and Stookey, , The End of the Palestine Mandate, p. 92.Google Scholar Cohen's statement coincides with Zemurray's reference to Weizmann that, although too high for the Jewish Agency's limited resources, the votes of all the countries from Guatemala to Panama could be bought. Among the Central American supporters of partition, Guatemala and Panama were more consistently pro-Zionist than Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Should Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti – the three Caribbean states that may then have been classed as Central American too – be added to the previous four, the Dominican Republic would belong in the first category while the Haitians would be part of the second group. This means that the pro-partition votes of Costa Rica, Haiti and Nicaragua are the ones most likely to fit Cohen's description. Because of their anti-partitionist stance, the Cubans would have also been likely candidates to be targeted. If a State Department memorandum is anything to go by, Belt was ‘ promised the Presidency of Cuba by unspecified persons if he would cast a favorable vote for partition, and all the money and other facilities necessary to bring about his election’. It is possible that these allegations were intended to blunt Zionist insinuations that the Cubans had been bribed by the Arabs, inasmuch as their source was Mrs Belt, the recipient of a costly piece of jewellery from the Saudi foreign minister. While there is a difference between acceptance in public of a gift and backhanded dealings, it is undeniable that gratuities are always meant to buy influence. Nevertheless, the Saudi gift does not appear to have been crucial. Without denying that the present may have had some role, Sender Kaplan, a Cuban Zionist and former editor of Havaner Lebn, apportions the foremost blame for Cuba's negative vote to a decision by president Ramón Grau San Martin, not his diplomats. For Zemurray's assertion on the price-tag for Central American support to Zionism, the offers to Belt and the Saudi gift, ICJ, 17(112); Gordon Merriam to Loy Henderson, 23 December 1947, in The State Department Policy Planning Staff Papers (hereafter Policy Planning Staff Papers) (New York, 1983), ii, p. 47. Author's interview with Sender Kaplan.

¹³ CZA, Z5/2373, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 14 October 1947. At this meeting, Shlomo Rabinowitz (later Shamir), in charge of military acquisitions for the Jews in Palestine, not only expressed that it might very well be that they would have to buy arms from the United States through third parties, but also thought it probable that some friendly ‘Central or South American states’ might be prepared to act at their behest.

¹⁴ Created in the early 1920s by the Labour Zionist Histadrut trade union federation as a merger of all the Jewish defence groups in Palestine, the Haganah – the forerunner of the Israel Defence Forces – came under the wing of the broader, and better endowed, Jewish Agency before the end of that decade. Luttwak, Edward and Horowitz, Dan, The Israeli Army (London, 1975), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Somoza, , Nicaragua Betrayed, p. 156Google Scholar; Maliaño, Francisco Urcuyo, Solos (Guatemala, 1979), p. 83Google Scholar; Golan, Matti, Shimon Peres (London, 1982), p. 81.Google Scholar According to Walter Eytan, Peres' opposite number at the foreign ministry, who was more sensitive to the Latin American outcry, this was due to Nicaragua's ‘foreign policy and domestic regime’.

¹⁶ NA, 812.79667N/9–2448 and 1–749, Lovett to Walter Thurston and Vincent to Marshall; 819.85/7–1648, Thurston to Marshall; ICJ, Oral History Interview with Elías Sourasky, 1(144); and 17(112); Gurion, David Ben, Israel: A Personal History (New York, 1972), p. 114Google Scholar; Greenspun, Hank, Where I Stand (New York, 1966), pp. 119–51Google Scholar; Lorch, Netanel, Shebah Prakim be-Iachasei Israel–Amerika ha-Iberit (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 77–9Google Scholar; Slater, Leonard, The Pledge (New York, 1970), pp. 153, 200, 238, 308Google Scholar; Bercuson, David J., The Secret Army (New York, 1983), pp. 88 and 229Google Scholar; Stephen Green, Taking Sides (London, 1984), pp. 57–8.Google Scholar Bercuson and Green only refer to Mexico's assistance as a trans-shipment point for supplies bought elsewhere.

¹⁷ Cuban and Dominican Republic assistance to acquire military equipment for the Haganah was also sought. CZA, Z5/2373, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 14 October 1947; NA, 711.00111 Armament Control/9–849 and 9–1249. Memoranda on Israeli proposal to purchase US arms through Cuba; Greenspun, , Where I Stand, pp. 123–35Google Scholar; Lorch, , Shebah Prakim be-lachasei Israel–Amerika ha-lberit, pp. 75–6Google Scholar; and the same author's ‘Latin America and Israel’, Jerusalem Quarterly (Winter 1982), p. 72.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Based on new evidence, it has been argued that prime minister David ben Gurion's references to Czech military supplies coming to an end earlier than they actually did and to other unnamed countries' aid were meant to minimise the crucial importance of Soviet-bloc assistance. Bialer, Uri, ‘The Czech–Israeli Arms Deal Revisited’, Journal of Strategic Studies (London), 09 1985, pp. 307–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ Slater, , The Pledge, pp. 257–8.Google Scholar

²⁰ NA, 501.BB Palestine/7–1048, US Embassy in Rome to Marshall.

²¹ Washington National Record Center, Suitland, Ma., 800, Aide-mémoire by H. Bartlett Wells, 4 June 1947; NA, 710 Consultation 4/7–2947, Marshall to US chiefs of mission in American republics; 501.BB/9–1847, Newbegin, Robert to Reid, Gordon, Crawley, Eduardo, Dictators Never Die: A Portrait of Nicaragua and the Somozas (London, 1979). pp 101–8.Google Scholar

²² NA, 501.BB Palestine/10–3047. Memorandum on Cuban delegation to the UN.

²³ Tov, El murmullo de Israel: historial diplomático, p. 224.

²⁴ Schechtman, Joseph B., The United States and the Jewish State Movement (New York, 1966), p. 412Google Scholar; Grose, Peter, ‘The President versus the Diplomats’, in Louis, and Stookey, , The End of the Palestine Mandate, pp. 57–8Google Scholar; Podet, Allen H., ‘Anti-Zionism in a Key United States Diplomat’, American Jewish Archives (Cincinnati), 11 1978, p. 185.Google Scholar Unlike Podet, Schechtman, a Revisionist Zionist participant in AZEC executive meetings, also considered basically accurate the self-portrait of Loy Henderson, the Zionists' bête noire, as not being anti-Zionist.

²⁵ Harry S. Truman Library (HST), Independence, Mi., PSF, Connelly to Truman, 25 November 1947; NA, 501.BB Palestine/11–2547 R. Woodward to Newbegin; CZA, Z5/48, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American Section) executive, 24 November 1947. On the post-25 November exclusion of Nicaragua from the list of countries to be persuaded see Congressman Emanuel (Manny) Celler's cable to Truman and that of diplomat Benjamin Cohen to Marshall requesting an approach to various countries – including Ecuador (sic), Haiti, Honduras and Paraguay, in the former's list (with the gaffe on Ecuador presumably resulting from a mix up of this partition supporter with El Salvador), as well as the cables sent by a group of twenty-six US Senators to twelve countries unwilling to take a stand, seven from Latin America (Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Paraguay), and those of Jewish War Veterans national commander Julius Klein to the Central American republics on the fence. HST, OF 204, Celler to Truman, 26 November 1947; NA, 501.BB Palestine/ 11–2847, B. Cohen to Marshall; Robert Wagner papers, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., Cable from twenty-six US Senators, 25 November 1947; American Jewish Committee papers, YIVO, New York, Partition – Jewish Organisations, Klein to Honduran and Salvadorean presidents, 27 November 1947.

²⁶ NA, 501.BB Palestine/11–2847, Merriam to Henderson. One such telegram warned the Hondurans that ‘American economic aid will be witheld from all opponents of partition’. Aside from a threat to cancel holidays, the same argument was reportedly used in Cuba's case too. Barry and Hannah Gourary to Honduran delegation to the UN, 26 November 1947, in Policy Planning Staff Papers, ii, p. 56.

²⁷ Striking testimony of this is perhaps the UN secretary general's overwhelming awareness of the Palestinian Arabs as those who would ‘ no doubt benefit from the great Zionist development projects already launched in the land’. Lie, Trygve, In the Cause of Peace (New York, 1954), p. 159.Google Scholar

²⁸ Goldstein, Israel, My World as a Jew (New York, 1984), 1, p. 213Google Scholar; Cohen, , ‘Zionist Perspectives’, p. 92Google Scholar; and the same author's ‘Truman, the Holocaust and the Establishment of the State of Israel’, Jerusalem Quarterly, spring 1982, p. 92Google Scholar; Urofsky, Melvin I., ‘Ha Ma'avek: American Zionists, Partition and Recognition, 1947–1948’, Herzl Year Book (New York, 1978), 294Google Scholar; and the same author's We Are One (New York, 1978), p. 145.Google Scholar On an alleged bribe to two Latin American republics – one of them unidentified, the other Costa Rica – see Llewellyn Thompson to Henderson, 18 December 1947, in Policy Planning Staff Papers, 11, p. 48; for Haiti see NA, 501.BB Palestine/2–1148, Robert McBride to Marshall; for Paraguay author's interview with the then adviser on Latin American affairs to a non-Zionist US Jewish organisation in charge of delivering the material reward. Cohen has also referred to ‘various money bribes (…) to Latin American countries' in ‘Truman, the Holocaust and the Establishment of the State of Israel’, p. 93.

²⁹ Author's interview with Abram Sachar. Among Niles's incoming mail there are four letters of appreciation for his role in helping secure the adoption of partition. David Niles papers, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass., Israeli Affairs, Hannah to Niles, 1 December 1947; Freda Kirchwey to Niles, 5 December 1947; Wise to Niles, 5 December 1947; Ely Pilchik to Niles, 11 December 1947.

³⁰ NA, 501.BB Palestine/11–2947, Memorandum of Truman-Lovett conversation on president's instructions on Palestine, 24 November 1947; HST, PSF, Weizmann to Truman, 27 November 1947. Eban, Abba, ‘Tragedy and Triumph’, in Weisgal, Meyer W. and Carmichael, Joel (eds.), Chaim Weizmann: A Biography by Several Hands (London, 1962), p. 302.Google Scholar As is known, those excluded from Weizmann's assurances helped persuade a handful of countries, including Haiti and Paraguay, while failing with others too. Whereas former US assistant secretary of state Adolf Berle, past New York governor Herbert Lehman and New York Congressman Sol Bloom had various roles in securing Haiti's support, another man working for a non-Zionist US Jewish Organisation played a crucial part in the Paraguayan case. Included among those whose initiatives yielded no affirmative votes were Argentine shipping businessman Alberto Dodero in his country, and Lehman and US financier Bernard Baruch in Cuba's case, as well as the respective approaches to Mexico by Celler and former US interior secretary Harold Ickes, and the solicitation of Honduran and Salvadorean support by the US Jewish War Veterans. While the Haitian case had been mentioned in earlier reports by the Palestinian Arab delegation to the UN, neither they nor other anti-partitionists were apparently aware of some of these Zionist-inspired initiatives which, although yielding no more than abstentions in all but Cuba's case, can still be seen as having deprived the anti-partition camp of a number of votes. ‘The Great Betrayal in the United Nations’, Arab Higher Committee, New York, February 1948, pp. 9–11; Roosevelt, Kermit, ‘The Partition of Palestine’, Middle East Journal (Washington), 01 1948, pp. 14–15Google Scholar; Gildersleeve, Virginia, Many a Good Crusade (New York, 1954), p. 408.Google Scholar

³¹ HST, OF 204, Emmanuel Celler to Truman, 3 December 1947; Michael Comay to Bernard Gering and Eliahu Epstein (later Elath) to Yeshayahu Klinow, 3 and 11 December 1947, in Political and Diplomatic Documents (Jerusalem, 1979 – hereafter Israel Documents), December 1947–May 1948, pp. 6, 52–3Google Scholar; Goldmann, Nahum, Memories (London, 1969), p. 245Google Scholar; Horowitz, David, State in the Making (New York, 1953), p. 301Google Scholar; Kenen, I. L., Israel's Defense Line (Buffalo, 1981), p. 48Google Scholar; Welles, Sumner, We Need Not Fail (Boston, 1948), p. 63Google Scholar; Truman, Harry S., Years of Trial and Hope (New York, 1955), pp. 158–9Google Scholar; Truman, Margaret, Harry S. Truman (New York, 1973), pp. 384–5.Google Scholar

³² Millis, Walter (ed.), The Forrestal Diaries (New York, 1951), pp. 309, 325 and 344–5Google Scholar; CZA, Z5/2366, 2369 and 48, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 27 September, 1 October and 24 November 1947; HST, OF 204, Wagner to Truman, Fitzpatrick to Truman and Celler to Truman, 29 September, 6 and 13 October 1947; Emanuel Celler papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Israel (Palestine) September–December 1947, Celler to McGrath, 3 December 1947. For a discussion of US Jewry's role in Truman's successful reelection bid in 1948 see Snetsinger, John, Truman, the Jewish Vote and the Creation of Israel (Stanford, 1974), pp. 133–5.Google Scholar

³³ NA, 501.BB Palestine/11–2547, Lovett to US diplomatic and consular officers in the Middle East; 501.BB Palestine/11–2847 and 12–347, Lovett to Claude Bowers and memorandum of Henderson–Faiz al-Khouri conversation.

³⁴ Niles papers, Israeli Affairs, Niles to Truman, 29 July 1947; Horowitz, State in the Making, pp. 255–6; Hamilton, Thomas J., ‘Partition of Palestine’, Foreign Policy Reports, 15 February 1948, p. 291Google Scholar, as quoted in Glick, , Latin America and the Palestine Problem, p. 107Google Scholar; Hacker, Louis M. and Hirsch, Mark D., Proskauer: His Life and Times (Alabama, 1978), p. 150.Google Scholar

³⁵ CZA, Z5/2369, 2374 and 2375, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 1, 22 and 26 October 1947; Weizmann Archives, Rehovot, Weizmann to Tulin, 21 October 1947.

³⁶ CZA, Z5/2369, 2372, 2374 and 237;, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 1, 13, 22 and 26 October 1947; NA, 501.BB Palestine/10–2247, Memorandum of Henderson–Shertok conversation; 501.BB/10–2947, McClintock to Lovett and Henderson to Lovett.

³⁷ CZA, Z5/2374, 2375 and 48, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 22 and 26 October, and 24 November 1947. Weizman to Wyndham Deedes, 22 October 1947, in Weizmann Papers, xiii, pp. 16–17; NA, 501.BB Palestine/10–2547, Fraser Wilkins to Gordon Mattison; 867N.01/11–547 and 11–947, Dorsz to Marshall and Marshall to US representatives in the Arab world. Jones, , Failure in Palestine, p. 305.Google Scholar

³⁸ CZA, Z5/2364, 2365, 2366 and 2369, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American section) executive, 19, 22 and 27 September, and 1 October 1947. Aside from those already mentioned, a partial list of those who were asked by the Jewish Agency to lobby other countries included chief justices Felix Frankfurter and Frank Murphy; former treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.; former secretary of state Edward Stettinius, Jr.; former undersecretary of state Summer Welles; former assistant secretary of state for Latin America Nelson Rockefeller as well as New York's highest Catholic dignitary, Cardinal Francis Spellman. UN secretary general Lie's memoirs suggest that the supporters of Jewish sovereignty could count on his help too.

³⁹ ISA, 2266/10, Minutes of the AZEC executive, 11 December 1947. Unlike the minutes of Jewish Agency (American section) executive meetings, the AZEC ones are not verbatim transcripts of what was said but an edited synopsis. This provides a possible explanation for Silver's more guarded language when summing up the US role in promoting the passage of partition.

⁴⁰ HST, PSF, Undated note on target countries, including Cuba and Haiti, presumably written by presidential press secretary Charles Ross on 11–20 November. Donovan, Robert J., Conflict and Crisis (New York, 1977), p. 329.Google Scholar On Honduras' seeking US advice NA, 501.BB Palestine/10–647, Newbegin to Norman Armour.

⁴¹ In his report to Argentine foreign minister Bramuglia, Corominas interpreted these Central American republics' vote as follows: ‘The abstention of Honduras and El Salvador has led some to believe in an anti-partition manoeuver on the part of the United States to deprive the resolution of a larger majority. But others have been led to think that these countries had stated their demands in exchange for a (favorable) vote, and in the impossibility of getting satisfaction… fired back with their abstention… Abstention was a weakened version of their dislike at the lack of US cooperation.’ While the Jewish Agency and others have argued that Honduras' Arab community had an even more important part in Tegucigalpa's decision to abstain, so far no attention has been paid to the potency among some of the Central Americans of another US-related factor, anti-communism. For one thing, the Hondurans misjudged García Granados as a Soviet agent, a view shared by some British and US diplomats. Franco's Spain held the same conviction and sought to discredit García Granados because of his activities in support of the Republicans since the 1930s. This, and the fact that the Jewish Agency in April 1947 hired The Nation to undertake a public relations campaign at the UN, may have adversely affected the chances of winning Salvadorean support for partition. In effect, since 1946, El Salvador consistently opposed UN sanctions against the Spanish regime while García Granados and The Nation, one of whose staffers was a former foreign minister of the Spanish republic, actively campaigned for the opposite. Likewise, the Jewish Agency's problems with Costa Rica may have had something to do with that country's consistent opposition to anti-Franco measures by the international community. All this helps explain Niles's keen interest in enlisting Spanish support for partition with indications that this would help the Franco regime in Washington. NA, 501.BB/10–2947, McClintock to Lovett. Corominas to Bramuglia, 30 November 1947, in Jabbaz, , Israel nace en Naciones Unidas, p. 105.Google ScholarTov, , El murmullo de Israel: historial diplomático, p. 217Google Scholar; Granados, García, Así nació Israel, p. 31Google Scholar; Grose, Peter, Israel in the Mind of America (New York, 1984), p. 249.Google Scholar On García Granados' alleged belonging to ‘the Soviet camp’, see Jones, , Failure in Palestine, p. 261.Google Scholar NA, 814.00B/1–2546, 12–546, 3–548 and 3–1948, Andrew Donovan II to Marshall; William Dawson to Ellis Briggs; Edward Maffitt to Marshall, and Jack Neal to Wilson.

⁴² Granados, García, Así nació Israel, p. 290Google Scholar; Glick, , Latin America and the Palestine Problem, pp. 107–8Google Scholar, and the same author's The Triangular Connection (London, 1982), pp. 87–8Google Scholar; Kaufman, Edy, Shapira, Yoram and Barromi, Joel, Israel-Latin American Relations (New Brunswick, 1979), p. 5.Google Scholar

⁴³ Niles papers, Israeli Affairs, Wise to Niles, 5 December 1947. Based on other evidence the same conclusion was previously reached by Cohen, , ‘Truman, the Holocaust and the Establishment of the State of Israel’, p. 92Google Scholar; also mentioned in his Palestine and the Great Powers, 1945–1948 (Princeton, 1982), p. 296.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Letter to author from colonel László Pataky, 25 June 1986.

⁴⁵ While the progressive liberal credentials of Guatemalan president Juan Arevalo Bermejo are beyond doubt, and his government's Constitution of March 1945 declared ‘illegal and punishable any discrimination based on affiliation, sex, race, colour, class, religious beliefs or political ideas’, as well as pronouncing null and void any government or other decrees that ‘diminish, restrict or distort’ the rights guaranteed by the new constitution, in practice Guatemalan officialdom still applied the openly anti-Arab and covertly anti-Jewish racial laws passed by general Jorge Ubico's regime. Part of the discriminatory immigration legislation that was introduced in several Latin American republics in the wake of the economic depression of the 1930s, Guatemala's decree 1813 of 4 May 1936, for instance, forbade the opening of new commercial and industrial establishments, or branches of existing ones, ‘which are to be owned or directed by individuals of the following nationalities: Turks, Syrians, Lebanese, Arabs, Palestinians, Armenians, Egyptians, Persians, Afghans, Hindus and Polish, as well as members of races originating in the African continent’. This being the case, García Granados, who had a part in the drafting of the new Constitution, was reported to have denounced such decrees as a manifestation of Nazi-fascist spirit and strongly recommended their elimination in February 1947. If the restriction on the influx of Poles is understood as a thinly disguised reference to Polish Jews, and if the Jewish component of the migration from the former Ottoman empire's Middle Eastern domains is remembered, it is clear that García Granados cannot be easily identified with those whom foreign secretary Ernest Bevin accused of supporting Zionism to avoid admitting Jewish immigrants to their countries. Moreover, García Granados' strong language and practical recommendations in regard to measures discriminating against Arab immigrants should also be taken into account when considering whether his pejorative use of the term ‘bedouin’, reportedly employed in connection with one of partition's most eloquent opponents, is sufficient proof of anti-Arab prejudice. NA, 814.4016/11–446 and 3–747, Jacob Landau to Spruille Braden; La Natura (Buenos Aires), 10 February 1947; Granados, García, Así nació Israel, pp. 31–2Google Scholar; Tov, , El murmullo de Israel: historial diplomático, p. 321.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ NA, 867N.01/6–448, Maurice Bernbaum to Marshall; Zwaytir, Akram, Mahamma fi Qarra (Beirut, 1950), pp. 431–7.Google Scholar Somoza also asked Serafín Giacamán, a Nicaraguan of Palestinian parentage whose easy access to Tacho also resulted in Zwaytir being received by president Román, to assure the Arab Higher Committee envoy that he was with the Arabs.

⁴⁷ Palestinian and Chilean Zionist sources agree that the trade weapon played a key part in persuading president Gabriel González Videla, a former head of the Chilean pro-(Hebrew) Palestine Committee and WCP vice-president, to shift from support for partition on 25 November to abstention four days later. Without contradicting this, Chile's permanent representative at the UN and the US ambassador in Santiago described the reversal as the result of the Chilean Arab community's successful lobbying of González Videla himself or that of his Radical party as well as the Liberal and Agrarian Labour parties. Author's interviews with Zwaytir, former Chilean Zionist Federation president Abraham Drapkin (later Darom) and ambassador Hernán Santa Cruz; Cruz, Hernán Santa, Cooperar o perecer (Buenos Aires, 1984), 1, p. 134Google Scholar; NA, 501.BB Palestine/12–247, Bowers to Marshall.

⁴⁸ Arab efforts to persuade Costa Rica were also mentioned by Greenberg in CZA, Z5/ 2374, Minutes of the Jewish Agency (American Section) executive, 22 October 1947. Granados, GarcíaAsí nació Israel, pp. 285–6.Google Scholar On the lobbying of the Costa Rican government by prominent San José Jews see Sikora, Jacobo Schifter, Gudmundson, Lowell and Castro, Mario Solera, El judío en Costa Rica (San José, 1979), p. 367.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Moisés Azize papers, privately held, Faysal al-Saud, Camille Chamoun et al to Azize, 26 November 1947. Nadir, Jawad, Ma'araqa Filastin fi al-Mahjar (Buenos Aires, 1951), p. 166.Google Scholar The fact that the Arab delegates to the UN sought the intervention of Azize, a Buenos Aires-based Argentine Arab leader whose Latin American Brotherhood Circle put him in touch with Honduran diplomats in the Argentine capital, raises some doubts about how influential Honduras' Arab community was.

⁵⁰ Jamil Mardam Bey papers, privately held, Syrian legation in Rio de Janeiro to Mardam, 1 August 1947; letter to author from Najla Izz al-Din, 27 August 1986. Furlonge, Geoffrey, Palestine is My Country (London, 1969), p. 150.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Klich, Ignacio, ‘Argentina, the Arab World and the Partition of Palestine’, Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1986), B–III, pp. 275–6.Google Scholar

⁵² Just as Ofelia Domínguez Navarro, the active secretary of the Cuban pro-(Hebrew) Palestine Committee, helped re-establish the Mexican committee, the Costa Rican secretary played an important part in getting the Nicaraguan committee off the ground. No other external interventions are mentioned in the relevant Israeli files. ISA, 2276/ 19, Alfredo Sancho to Sefaradi-Yarden, June 1946; Sefaradi-Yarden to Leonardo Argüello, 6 August 1946; Laszlo Weisz to Sefaradi-Yarden, 30 August 1946; 2276/6, Rodríguez to Sefaradi-Yarden, 9 May 1946; La Noticia (Managua), 8 June 1946; 1CJ, Oral History Interview with Corina Rodríguez, 33(171).

⁵³ Kollek, Teddy, For Jerusalem (New York, 1978), p. 71.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Fletcher Warren to Marshall, 23 April 1947, in Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1947, viii, p. 847. Somoza's admission came as part of his denial of opposition claims, aimed at discrediting him in the United States, that he had ‘had pictures of Hitler and Mussolini in his office’.

⁵⁵ CZA, Z5/481, Chart of Diplomatic Interviews, n.d.; Z5/1324, Dorothy Adelson to Greenberg, 19 May 1947; Jessup, Philip C., The Birth of Nations (New York, 1974), p. 271.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Although Nicaragua and Uruguay are described by some Israeli sources as having extended recognition on 19 May 1948 they only did so later. Asked by Zwaytir to withold recognition, the main reason for his early June 1948 meeting with the Nicaraguan strongman, the Arab Higher Committee envoy reported that Tacho responded that he would not follow in the footsteps of Guatemala, the first Latin American republic to do so. Instead, Tacho said, he would wait until a good many other countries recognised the newly established state. In support of Zwaytir's account, Nicaragua was not mentioned among the countries which foreign minister Shertok listed at the provisional state council's session of 23 June 1948 as having recognised Israel. As for Montevideo, Shertok was quoted on the same occasion as saying that ‘Uruguay had been very friendly, but had not reached a formal decision on recognition’. By August 1948, Toff informed the State Department that the countries that had recognised Israel were Venezuela, Argentina (sic), Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua – a list which not only excludes Uruguay but also includes Argentina. According to Argentine sources, though, the Perón government only granted recognition in March 1949. Unlike Shertok, Jacobo Hazán, the Jewish Agency's liaison officer with the Uruguayan pro-(Hebrew) Palestine Committee and later honorary counsellor to the Israeli legation in Montevideo, maintains that Uruguay granted verbal de facto recognition on 18 May. Rather than factual inaccuracies, these discrepancies are explained by the time it took these countries to confirm that they had recognised Israel. Until such written confirmation was forthcoming oral recognitions were no more than an expression of intent. The earlier dates, though, were subsequently described as those when the Jewish state was first recognised. As likely as not, the time gap between the two is an indication that Nicaragua, Uruguay and others sought to see how military operations in the Middle East and the political battle in New York fared before finally commiting themselves. On the subject of confirmed recognitions, State Department officials mentioned that the granting of visas to Israeli envoys was being construed by them as proof of recognition. While Tov's memoirs refer to the diplomatic visas which some Latin American governments gave him as encouraging signs about their intentions, the US document suggests that this may not have always been the case, thereby providing another plausible explanation for the discrepancy over dates. Glick, , Latin America and the Palestine Problem, pp. 170–1Google Scholar; Gurion, Ben, Israel, p. 129Google Scholar; Tov, to Abba Eban, 5 August 1948, in Israel Documents (Jerusalem 1981)Google Scholar, May–September 1948, p. 489; Luna, Félix, Perón y su tiempo (Buenos Aires, 1984), 1, p. 574Google Scholar; Avni, Haim and Raicher, Rosa Perla (eds.), Memorias del Uruguay (Jerusalem, 1986), p. 34Google Scholar; NA, 701.67N15/7–3148, Bushley to Marshall.

⁵⁷ NA, 818.00/3–2348, Bowers to Marshall.

⁵⁸ Memorandum of Braden–Sevilla Sacasa conversation, 14 February 1947; Lovett to US Embassy in Managua, 21 August 1947, in FRUS, 1947, viii, pp. 844, 867–8.

⁵⁹ Bernbaum to Marshall, 7 August 1947, in FRUS, 1947, viii, p. 865; Schifter, Jacobo, Costa Rita 1948 (San José, 1982), pp. 169–70.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ NA, 817.248/8–349, Capus Waynick to Marshall.

⁶¹ NA, 817.00/1–1049, Shaw to Marshall; letters to author from colonel László Pataky, 28 May and 25 June 1986. Tov, , El murmutlo de Israel: historial diplomático, p. 230Google Scholar; Kollek, , For Jerusalem, p. 70.Google Scholar Unlike Tov and Kollek, Tachito's interim successor erroneously claims that Saúl Retelny, who was only a child at the time, played Morris Pataky's role. Urcuyo Solos, p. 83.

⁶² NA, 817.00/5–1048, Neal to Bennett; 817.248/5–2848, Bernbaum to Marshall; 818.00/ 12–1748, Thurston to Marshall. Schifter, p. 194; Slater, pp. 134, 228 and 238. For other Nicaraguan efforts to buy military equipment in Canada see NA, 817.248/10–3147, Neal to J. Edgar Hoover.

⁶³ La Prensa (Managua), 18 November 1978; Klich, Ignacio, ‘Latin America and the Palestinian Question’, IJA Research Report (London), 01 1986, pp. 17–19.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Golan, , Shimon Peres, p. 82.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Report of Haim Berman-René Neuville conversation, 8 April 1948, in Israel Documents, December 1947–May 1948, p. 587.

⁶⁶ CZA, Z5/1324, Adelson to Greenberg, 19 May 1947; ICJ, 17(112). The US delegate's statement in Dozer, Donald Marquand, Are We Good Neighbors? (New York, 1972), p. 200.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ If it is true that ‘antisemitic tendencies underlay such bloated notions of Jewish power’ it is legitimate to conclude that the Zionist-Somoza relationship included another unsavoury feature: help to a Judeophobe. While exaggerations about Jewish power are typical of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious Czarist police forgery, and other antisemitic literature, Zionists and other Jews have long encouraged notions of Jewish power to influence the decisions of third parties. Bauer, Yehuda, The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness (Toronto, 1979), pp. 47 and 54Google Scholar; Kinche, Jon, The Unromantics (London, 1968), pp. 41–5.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ NA, 501.BB Palestine/9–1247, Theodore Babbitt to Charles Bohlen. On the basis of US diplomats' reports to the State Department, a newspaperman offered the Zionists his unsolicited forecast of the vote line-up, including Nicaragua among the probable supporters of partition; in ISA, 2266/9, Leo Sack to Silver, 27 October 1947.