Commentator G. Jefferson Price revives the old canard that President Harry S. Truman supported the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 solely in order to woo Jewish voters ("The U.S. romance with Saudi Arabia is 70 years old this Valentine's Day," Feb. 12).
As was noted many years ago by Clark Clifford, the president's White House counsel and close personal aide, the claim — which Mr. Clifford vigorously denied — "casts a shroud of suspicion over the Truman presidency" and portrays the birth of Israel as "somehow illicit and ignoble."
In reality, Truman's sympathy for the Zionist cause predated his ascension to the presidency. As a U.S. senator representing Missouri — a state with few Jewish voters — Truman denounced British restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine.
He also joined a congressional resolution supporting the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine and called for the creation of a safe haven for survivors of the Holocaust.
According to Mr. Clifford, President Truman believed that the establishment of a Jewish homeland was historically justified and that the Balfour Declaration constituted a solemn promise to make that homeland a reality.
As president, Truman acted upon these sentiments when he chose to recognize the fledgling state of Israel over the objections of the State Department.
Mr. Clifford writes that this decision was based on the president's calculation of American national interests as well as a sincere "human concern for a people who had endured the torments of the damned, and whose instincts for survival and nationhood still refused to be extinguished."
The humanitarian, moral and national security considerations that guided Truman so long ago both explain and justify the support given Israel by American leaders and the American public down to the present day.
Jay Bernstein, Baltimore