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290017436
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White House Press Release
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290017436
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document
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White House Press Release
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President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)
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290017436
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15
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1951-01-15
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1951
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IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ANUARY 15, 1951
NATIONAL
ARCHIVES AND
The President has sent the following letter to the Honorable
RECORDS
James G. McDonald, accepting his resignation as Ambassador to Israel:
"December 18, 1950
My dear Mr. McDonald:
I have received your further letter of November twenty-ninth
and in the light of your earlier correspondence expressing your wish to
be relieved of your assignment as Ambassador to Israel, I reluctantly
accept your resignation, effective on December thirty-first.
I wish to extend my deep appreciation for the outstanding
service you. have rendered as Special Representative of the United States
to the Provisional Government of Israel and since March 1949 as first
American Ambassador to Israel.
Your effective performance of duty resulted in the establish-
ment and operation of our Government's first diplomatic mission in that
new State and enebled you to maintain a most valuable relationship with
the officials of that Government and the people of the country as well.
With best wishes,
Very sincerely yours,
HARRY S. TRUMAN.
Following is the text of Ambassador McDonald's letter to
the President:
"My dear Mr. President:
Two and one-half years ago when you named me as your first
representative to the new State of Israel, I anticipated that my tour of
duty would be relatively short, six months or at the most a year. The
indications of confidence which you and Secretary Acheson have given me
and the exigencies of the work, however, have made me glad to stay on.
My experience here has been personally very rewarding. It has
enabled me to watch closely the emergence of democratic Israel from a
provisional regime which, even while at war with several of its neighbors,
was struggling to build itself into a modern progressive state. Elections
for the Knesset were held early in 1949, and were followed promptly by
the establishment of a representative government. This transformation
was simultaneous with the signing with all of Israel's immediate neighbors
of armistice agreements which were primarily the result of the brilliant
mediation of Dr. Ralph Bunche. Since then, the rebuilding and enlarging
of the economic life of the country has been carried on indefatigably
and at amazing speed.
But the most heartening of all of these developments has been
Israel's open-door policy of "ingathering the exiles". Into a Jewish
population of less than 700,000 at the time the State was set up, Israel
has already gathered more than one-half million refugees. Even our own
hospitable country at the peak of its policy of unrestricted immigration
never received proportionately SO large an inf
The absorption of these newcomers and of the approximately
200,000 expected to follow annually will be Israel's major task during
the next five or ten years. This gigantic program entails immense economic
burdens. But success will mean the rescue from inhospitable or perilous
situations of many additional hundreds of thousands of Jews, who will then
so strengthen their new-old homeland that it will be freed to concentrate
fully on constructive work of peace. Thenceforth - and I hope in coopera-
tion with its Arab neighbors - Israel will become an increasingly potent
influence for the democratization and modernization of this whole
strategic area.
Interesting and challenging though my work continues to be, I feel
that for personal reasons I should soon return home. I hope that you will
agree to make effective my resignation on or about January 1.
I am deeply grateful for the confidence you have shown me, and
if there should be any task in the future in which you should find that I
might be helpful I should be happy to serve.
Very sincerely,
JAMES
McDONALD. If