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can cultures. In 1936 he accepted Collier's offer to come work with the bureau to establish a tribal constitution and council for the Hopi.47

As early as 1934, he had written to Collier concerning the special problems of organizing the Hopi under a tribal constitution: the tradition of independence, if not hostility, among Hopi villages, and the influence of religious ceremonies that limited the political power of leaders.48 In preparing a tribal constitution LaFarge concentrated on the villages and had lengthy discussions with the Indians. The document that emerged in October 1936 emphasized the autonomy of local villages and the primacy of customary law administered by village councils in most tribal affairs. In the course of his work, LaFarge also prepared a descriptive guide to Hopi institutions and leaders to help bureau administrators in their work. 49

LaFarge was not the only anthropologist who adapted well to administrative tasks. Others whose work among the southwestern tribes was regarded highly in the bureau were Morris Opler, Oscar Lewis, and Clyde Kluckhohn. After the applied anthropology staff was disbanded, individual anthropologists were integrated into the regular Indian service organization. Several were appointed reservation superintendents where their specialized knowledge and approach could be effectively employed. Among those who served in this capacity were Sophie Aberle, superintendent for the United Pueblos; Louis Balsam who as noted earlier went to Colville reservation after finishing his work with the Chippewa; Gordon MacGregor who worked with TC-BIA, then was superintendent at the Blackfeet reservation and also participated in the Chicago project, writing a monograph on the Pine Ridge Sioux. Still others, including John Harrington, Julian H. Steward, and Archie Phinney worked directly out of the commissioner's office, coordinating reorganization programs at the regional level and working on special projects, 47 D'Arcy McNickle, Indian Man: A Life of Oliver LaFarge (Bloomington, Ind., 1971), pp. 89-93, 107.

48 LaFarge to Collier, Sept. 21, 1934, Collier Papers. 49 McNickle, Indian Man, pp. 107-115, describes in detail LaFarge's activities in Hopi organization, based on LaFarge's papers and records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. McNickle, an important figure in the tribal organization unit during this period, is favorable to LaFarge. Collier, in From Every Zenith, pp. 218-219, was more skeptical of lasting benefit from LaFarge's Hopi constitution and the work of anthropologists on the Indian reorganization program.

such as the development of a written Navaho language.50

These were, however, individual cases of successful adaptation. They did not constitute a systematic use of social scientists in applying programs based wholly or primarily on theories of culture change developed by anthropologists. The notion of reviving Indian self-determination by building up tribal organizations was appealing to Collier with his experience in community work, because the Indian tribes appeared to be the natural communities in which Indians lived. As we have noted, tribal institutions had disappeared beyond retrieval in many instances and where traditional Indian groups still existed, such as among the Pueblo, Papago, and Hopi in the Southwest, the village was the center of Indian life. This was also true in Alaska, which received special legislative consideration for this reason.51 Anthropologists were brought in to provide expert knowledge within the framework of this tribal concept, not to question the basic policy or to speculate on alternate ways of helping the Indians.

The reform administrators were also committed to rapid and radical improvement in the physical and economic conditions of Indian life, and to ending white domination in Indian civil and personal affairs. It was important to them that these changes should not unnecessarily damage traditional Indian cultures, but more important that something be done, some practical measures be taken to help Indians. Anthropologists such as LaFarge and MacGregor who shared this commitment and sense of urgency worked easily and effectively with the bureau both as anthropologists and administrators. Others whose commitments to professional and academic standards and to current social science methodology impinged on their work as applied anthropologists encountered hostility not only from local old guard bureau employees but also from the reformers.

50 Ibid., pp. 106-107.

51 A. L. Kroeber, "The Nature of the Land-Holding Group," Ethnohistory 2 (1955):303-314, argued that the concept of "tribe" did not reflect the reality of most North American Indians. The tribe was primarily a structure created by whites to identify Indian groups and leaders so that their social systems would be comprehensible to the European mind. In practice, Kroeber maintained, most Indians functioned within smaller groups, such as villages and bands or as extended family organizations. This argument may be overstated but it has support from data on relatively acculturated Indian groups in the twentieth century.

United States Policy
Toward Palestine

at the United Nations,

1947-1948: An Essay

GEORGE T. MAZUZAN

A great deal of speculation has taken place on

the role the United States played at the United Nations when the state of Israel was created in 1948. Certainly in the critical period before Israel's establishment, from April 1947 to May 1948, the policy the United States followed at the United Nations on the Palestine issue often appeared shifting, unstable, and leaderless, buffeted as it was by the rapidly changing events of that tumultuous time.1 Enough evi

1975 by George T. Mazuzan

The author wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute and the Research Foundation of the State University of New York.

1 A survey of the literature on American policy toward Palestine during this period reveals little that is new. Most American history textbook writers such as Julius W. Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy, 3d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), pp. 513-514, Daniel M. Smith, The American Diplomatic Experience (Boston, 1972), pp. 428-430, and Wayne S. Cole, An Interpretive History of American Foreign Relations (Homewood, Illinois, 1968), p. 571, have cited only the main events of Israel's creation. However, both Alexander De Conde, A History of American Foreign Policy, 2d ed. (New York, 1971), pp. 747-748 and Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy, 3d ed. (New York, 1975), pp. 739-743, give more emphasis to Near Eastern events. Ferrell's account is a shortened version, carried earlier in his biography of George C. Marshall (New York, 1966), pp. 181-192. Still excellent, though written over 20 years ago, is J. C. Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine: the

dence is now available, however, to show that American policy as expressed through the United Nations was not as rudderless as often supposed; rather, it was determined by definite, fixed ideas shaped by the deepening Cold War. This essay reviews that dramatic period and reassesses American policy vis-a-vis Palestine within the larger context of Soviet-American relations.

Tousled Diplomatic Bed (New York, 1950). Herbert Feis has written a brief interpretive account, The Birth of Israel (New York, 1969), while Joyce and Gabriel Kolko emphasize economic aspects of American policy in the Near East in their provocative, revisionist The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (New York, 1972), pp. 420-426. Other literature places the Palestine issue in a larger context and is in general agreement that American policy was inconsistent. See Grant S. McClellan, ed., The Middle East In The Cold War (New York, 1956), pp. 16-19, 30-33; Walter Laqueur, The Soviet Union and the Middle East (New York, 1959), pp. 146-148 and The Struggle For The Middle East (New York, 1969), pp. 5-13; George Lenczowski, ed., United States Interests in the Middle East (Washington, 1968), pp. 14-17; John C. Campbell, Defense of the Middle East (New York, 1960), pp. 35-38; Samuel Halperin and Irwin Oder, "The United States in Search of a Policy: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Palestine," Review of Politics 24 (1962), pp. 320-341. John Snetsinger's Truman, the Jewish Vote, and the Creation of Israel (Stanford, 1974) is an important new study that analyzes American policy as it was affected by Jewish political pressure in the United States. It agrees with this essay in most particulars, although its emphasis is quite different.

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Department of State map showing an early proposal for the boundaries of a Jewish state in Palestine.

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The Palestine question dated back to the time when Britain wrested the area from the Turks in World War I. As the major power in the Near East, Britain was chosen as mandatary for Palestine by the League of Nations. The League designated it a "class A" mandate, meaning that Palestine was to gain independence within a short period of time. The Balfour Declaration was closely tied to the mandate. It stated that Britain viewed with favor "the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people." As the number of Jews immigrating to Palestine swelled, the leaders of the Palestine Arabs began to fear that the Arab majority's hold on political power in the area would be weakened. This, combined with strong outpourings of Arab nationalism and of Zionism, brought violence to Palestine on several occasions throughout the interwar years. On the eve of World War II, the Palestine problem still had not been resolved.2

The strategic importance of Near Eastern oil determined British policy. Because the Arab nations comprised a potentially hostile network of Near Eastern states, Britain curtailed its attempts to resolve the Palestinian problem. In 1939 a British white paper underscored the long-range importance of the oil fields and lines of communication in the Arab Near East. Representing nearly the complete victory the Arabs aspired to in Palestine, the white paper recommended strict limits on and eventual ending of Jewish immigration, prohibited or restricted transfer of land from Arabs to Jews, and declared that Britain's mandate would cease in ten years.3

Britain's policies and the outbreak of World War II further stimulated both Arab nationalism and Zionism. Nazi attempts to destroy the European Jews intensified demands to increase the number of Jews immigrating to Palestine. In 1942 the World Zionist Organization called for a Jewish state and for unrestricted immigration. Later, in 1945, six Arab states organized the Arab League as Britain had encouraged them to do. Pan-Arabist countries, while splintered by many factions, could at least agree on their hostility toward Zionism. Throughout all

of this, violence continued sporadically in Palestine and by the end of the world war, the Arab League and the world Zionist movement were ready to demand from Britain an account of its mandate.

While British power and influence in the Near East reached a peak during the war years, it deteriorated rapidly thereafter. Emerging from the conflict victorious but war-weary, and struggling with overwhelming financial problems, Britain was forced into a policy of retrenchment abroad.4 With no clear solution to the Palestinian quandary evident, Britain decided to turn the matter over to the United Nations. Before doing so, however, it made one last attempt to resolve the problem jointly with the United States.

American attitudes and policy toward the Near East and Palestine varied during the late years of the war. Knowledge of German atrocities against the Jews became widespread early in 1943. Zionists effectively appealed to the humanitarian instincts of the American people concerning the plight of the Jews and won consideration of Palestine as a Jewish haven. Both political parties, for example, included planks in their 1944 platforms, calling for unrestricted immigration of Jews to Palestine as well as for establishment of a Jewish state there. Public sympathy toward settling the Palestine problem in favor of the Jews grew stronger in 1945 and 1946.5

The State Department held a less humanitarian view of Palestine's importance. The larger context of the strategic, political, and economic importance of the Near East determined its Palestine policy. State department planners saw any overt favoritism toward the Zionist cause as detrimental to Arab-American cooperation. They considered Arab good will highly important to United States interests. Oil concessions and the strategic military importance of the Near East countries circumscribed several competing objectives of United States foreign policy. One was to prevent an outbreak of hostilities that could lead to further instability in that area. A second goal was to prevent the region from falling under the control of a

2 Hurewitz, Struggle for Palestine, pp. 17-93.

3 Ibid., pp. 94-111; Rony E. Gabbay, A Political Study of the Arab-Jewish Conflict; the Arab Refugee Problem, a Case Study (Geneva, 1959), p. 37; William R. Polk, The United States and the Arab World (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 173-174.

4 Elie Kedourie, "Britain, France, and the Last Phase of the Eastern Question," in J. C. Hurewitz, ed., Soviet-American Rivalry in the Middle East (New York, 1969), pp. 192-193. 5 Hurewitz, Struggle for Palestine, pp. 174-176, 216, 226; Snetsinger, Truman, The Jewish Vote, PP. 4-10.

power hostile to the United States and its allies. Furthermore, maintenance of air and sea transit routes was deemed a salient objective and to this was tied the continued flow of oil from the Near Eastern fields to western markets. Although American-owned oil concessions in Arab lands were numerous, maintaining American ownership was given lower priority than continuing the flow of oil. These considerations underscored the Department's insistence on preserving the status quo in Palestine.6

As America moved toward publicly committing itself to creating some form of Jewish homeland in Palestine, government officials faced problems in the area, which many of them thought the creation of a Jewish state would only aggravate. Coupled with this was the fact that Britain held ultimate responsibility for the fate of Palestine. It is significant, then, that Britain invited the United States to sit on a committee of inquiry into conditions in Palestine during the fall of 1945. The extending of the invitation symbolized the new importance of the United States as a power in the Near East. American involvement generally increased as British power waned. In addition, acceptance of the invitation indicated that the United States was ready to assume some responsibility toward reaching a solution to the problem of Palestine.

The Anglo-American committee's final report April 30, 1946, however, cast the issue into doubt. It rejected partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states and instead suggested federation as a solution, with neither community being dominated by the other. Britain would continue as the mandatory power until the United Nations arranged a trusteeship.

6 Hurewitz, Struggle for Palestine, pp. 176-178; Polk, United States and the Arab World, pp. 288-289; Snetsinger, Truman, the Jewish Vote, pp. 13-15; E. A. Speiser, The United States and the Near East (Cambridge, 1947), pp. 125-133; Raymond S. Mikesell and Hollis B. Chenery, Arabian Oil: America's Stake in the Middle East (Chapel Hill, 1949), pp. 44-70; Grant S. McClellan, "Palestine and America's Role in the Middle East," Foreign Policy Reports 21 (1945), pp. 100, 104-105; James M. Landis, "Middle East Challenge," Fortune, Sept. 1945, pp. 161-164; Bartley C. Crum, Behind the Silken Curtain (New York, 1947), pp. 36-37; Dean G. Acheson, Present At The Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York, 1969), pp. 169-171; Sumner Welles, We Need Not Fail (Boston, 1948), pp. 74-76; Chief of Petroleum Division, memo, Feb. 5, 1946; George Wadsworth to Byrnes, May 29, 1946; Joint Chiefs of Staff, memo to State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, June 21, 1946, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946 (Washington, 1861-), 7: 18-22, 616-617, 631-633 (cited hereafter as FRUS).

During the ensuing year Britain attempted to work out a plan for an independent JewishArab community. Meeting noncooperation from Jewish and Arab groups, she decided to turn the matter over to the United Nations and requested a special session specifically to deal with the question.7

Long before the spring of 1947, the State Department anticipated that the Palestine issue would come before the General Assembly and the lack of instructions for the American delegation was a matter of concern to some State Department officials. Several policies were suggested, ranging from a radical stand favoring creation of a Jewish state to the ambiguous one of marking time. While the question was not raised at the 1945 General Assembly session, the Department's Near Eastern desk continued to work toward a more clearly defined position.

By the end of the year, a loose policy was formed. Independence for Palestine was its ultimate objective, but with the important proviso that the Arabs and Jews must agree to the terms. The United Nations was to negotiate the plan for independence. Since neither the United States nor the United Nations possessed military capability of any size in that area, the Near Eastern desk officers suggested that Britain continue its control of Palestine under United Nations trusteeship until independence was arranged.9 The cautious design of this policy gave the United States as much flexibility as possible without further alienating either the Arab or Jewish communities. Since the United States could control events in the General Assembly, the policy would not greatly jeopardize the United States strategic concerns and objectives. With little modification, the United States followed this policy until it was scrapped following the events of May 1948.

Warren R. Austin, former Senator from Vermont and President Truman's bipartisan choice for the post of first United States ambassador to the United Nations, had long maintained an interest in the Near East. He had closely studied the Palestine question in 1936, and during World War II he was quick to advocate his

"Snetsinger, Truman, the Jewish Vote, pp. 26-33; Trygve Lie, In the Cause of Peace (New York, 1959), pp. 160-161; Hurewitz, Struggle for Palestine, pp. 282-285.

Loy Henderson to Dean Acheson, Oct. 21, 1946, FRUS, 1946, 7: 710-713.

9 Gordon Merriman to Henderson, Dec. 27, 1946, ibid., 7: 732-735.

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