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Boris Smolar's
'Between You
. . and Me'
(Copyright, 1965, Jewish
Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)
SHARETT THE FRIEND: Writing about Moshe Sharett, the
chairman of the Jewish Agency and former Israel Prime Minister
and Foreign Minister, who died last week in Israel, is to me writing
of a beloved personal friend whom I enjoyed knowing for more
than 35 years . . . I was fortunate to be among those of his
friends with whom he shared a good many of his political secrets,
some of which are even now too premature to reveal . . . I
hope I will be able to disclose the more important secrets in a
book of memoirs . . . The exceptional personal friendship between us
is
developed since my first visit to Palestine, when Sharett — then
known as Shertok — was editor of the English supplement of Davar,
the Histadrut newspaper . . . Later, in 1931, when he became
political secretary of the Jewish Agency, this friendship grew to
a point where he told his assistant, Moshe Medzini, that he has
no political secrets for me and that, during his absence, Medzini
can show me any confidential document I want to read . .
_f\—Those were delicate years in the relations between the Jewish
gency and the Palestine (British Mandatory) government, and
Ale had to have unlimited confidence in a journalist to share
Information with him . . . Sharett did it, and never had any
reason to regret it . . It served me as good background whenever
I wanted to clarify certain matters with Gen. Wauchope, then
the British High Commissioner in Palestine, to whom I had good
access and who knew that whatever he will tell me not for
publication will not be published .
. However, he also knew
of my close friendship with Shertok and whenever he wanted to
convey to the Jewish Agency something which he could not tell
officially to Agency leaders, he did it through me, indicating that,
while I could not use it as news, I was permitted to tell it to
Shertok . . . Thus, in a way, . I was a liaison between the High
Commissioner and the Jewish Agency . . . And there were
plenty of views Wauchoupe — a fine person, most friendly to
Jewish interests in the country — had conveyed "informally" through
me to Shertok . . . He also told me of his high opinion of
Shertok — a thing he could not tell Shertok personally.
FOND MEMORIES: Our friendship became even stronger after
the World Zionist Congress in Prague in 1933
. . While the
Congress was in session, the tragic news arrived from Palestine
that Chaim Arlosoroff, head of the political department of the
Jewish Agency—an able and clever person—was assassinated in Tel
Aviv . . . It was obvious to me that Shertok should be his successor,
since he, anyway, did most of Arlosoroff's work as the political
secretary of the Jewish Agency . . However, to Shertok himself,
who was very modest, this was not so obvious . . . When I asked
him whether he thought the Congress would elect him to the
executive of the Jewish Agency as Arlosoroff's successor, his reply
— so characteristic for him — was that his party, the Mapai,
had better people than himself to take the place of Arlosoroff
. . . It did not take me long to establish that he was wrong; a few
private talks with top leaders of the Mapai delegation at the Congress
created the atmosphere . . . Shertok — he was affectionately
called just Moshe — was named at a night session of the Congress
to membership of the Jewish Agency executive, and was elected
without any opposition . . . He became the executive member
in charge of political affairs, which paved the way to his becoming
later Israel's Foreign Minister when the Jewish State was estab-
lished . . . During my visits to Palestine in the years between,
especially in 1936, when anti-Jewish riots by Arabs reached their
height, there were many occasions when Shertok confided in me
most sensitive information . . . On the other hand, I was in a
position to rescue 'the Jewish Agency from an embarrassing political
situation by informing Shertok that the Palestine government had
listened in on a very important and confidential overseas talk
between him in Jerusalem and Dr. Chaim Weizmann in London
. . . The matter was so important that I was summoned, despite
curfew hours, to an urgent meeting of the Jewish Agency executive
at which I related the details of the Shertok-Weizmann talk as
given me by a friendly official of the Palestine government less
than an hour after the talk took place . . . Because of its high
confidential nature, the talk was conducted between Shertok and
Weizmann in Russian, in order that no Britisher who might listen
in could understand it . . . However, what the Jewish Agency
did not suspect was that a British intelligence officer who understood
Russian might be listening in . . • And, to make things worse, this
officer happened to be a Palestine Arab; he knew Russian because
he studied the language in a university in Turkey.
CRUCIAL MOMENTS: The height of our friendship was reached
at the session of the United Nations at Lake Success during the
historic discussions of the plan to partition Palestine into two
separate states—Jewish and Arab . . . The State Department was
not friendly but, among the U. S. delegates to the United Nations
was General Hilldring, who was previously in charge in Europe of
)
acuation of the remnants of Jews liberated from Nazi concentration
..mps by the American Army . . . Unlike other members of
ke U. S. delegation, Gen. Hilldring was extremely friendly to the
- –Partition plan and I kept contact with him at the UN, bringing
c him together with Jewish leaders, including Shertok . . • Gen.
Hilldring kept me informed for the benefit of the Jewish delegation
from Palestine which was headed by Shertok . . . There were critical
moments during the UN deliberations of the partition plan, and
Shertok kept me confidentially informed about them . . . In one
such moment, which was of utmost importance to the vote on the
partition resolution, Shertok got me out of bed after midnight to
seek, through an influential friend of mine, access at 'that late hour
to President Truman . . . When the partition vote was taken
the next day, there was the proper margin in favor of the Jewish
‘,
side . . . While the jubilant Jews were dancing the Horah in
the lobby of the UN, Shertok left them to seek me out at the
> telegraph desk, where I was cabling the news to the JTA office
in Jerusalem, and to thank me "at this historic moment" for the
quiet help I had given him in his difficult task . . . He was the
kind of a person who never forgot a friend, and one of the things
I shall cherish forever is a numbered copy of a book, "The Saga
of Jerusalem," with rare ancient maps of the city and with a special
page of appreciation in Hebrew and .English pasted in and signed
by him as Israel's Prime Minister . . . He presented me with this
beautiful volume when I spent an evening at his residence in
Jerusalem talking of "old times."
"-- • —
L
S. Viet Nam Premier
Calls Hitler His Hero;
Washington Upset
WASHINGTON (JTA)—A state-
ment by South Vietnamese Prem-
ier Nguyen Cao Ky that Adolf Hit-
ler is his personal hero has upset
Washington officials committed to
the Saigon regime, it was learned
here. Gen. Ky told the London
Sunday Mirror, in an interview
printed in the Washington Post,
that "People ask me who my
heroes are. I have only one—
Hitler."
Gen. Ky explained that the basis
of his admiration for the Nazi
fuehrer was that Hitler succeeded
in unifying a divided Germany
around himself. He reportedly
added that South Viet Nam should
have "four or five Hitlers to deal
with subversive elements and uni-
fy the Vietnamese nation.
One official source here said
that Gem Ky may have admired
Hitler as a nationalist leader of
Germany, but that Washington au-
thorities felt this should not be in-
terpreted as an endorsement of
Hitler's anti-Jewish policies.
4 U.S. Profs to Study Own Subjects in Holy Land
NEW YORK — Israel will serve
as a laboratory for four prominent
American university professors
who w ill pursue independent
studies there in their respective
fields during the summer months,
it was announced by Henry Sonne-
born HI and Prof. Oscar I. Janow-
sky, co-chairmen of the America-
Israel University Program. The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
will be the base from which they
will conduct their research.
The scholars who will visit Is-
rael during July and August are
Dr. Tom F. Driver, associate pro-
fessor, Union Theological Semi-
nary; Prof. Herbert J. Gans, de-
partment of sociology, Columbia
University; Dr. Herbert Kaufman,
associate professor and chairman
of the department of political
science, Yale University; and
Prof. Stanley Kelley, Jr., profes-
sor and chairman of the depart-
ment of politics, Princeton Uni-
versity.
Meanwhile, 139 Americans left
this week to study at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. This in-
cludes a record number who will
attend the university for a full
year as part of the American stu-
dent program of American Friends
of the Hebrew University. The 11th
annual group under this program,
it includes 87 students from 48
colleges and universities in the
United States and Canada. The
next largest contingent, in 1964,
had 74 students.
Extract to Prevent
Type of Leukemia Is
Developed in Israel
REHOVOT—An extract capable
of preventing leukemia—cancerous
disease of the blood-forming or-
gans — induced by exposure to
radiation, has been developed by
scientists of the department of ex-
perimental biology of the Weiz-
man Institute of Science.
Derived from the spleen of
sheep and free of cells, the extract
has been provisionally named RIX
(radiation leukemia protection) by
the department of experimental
biology, headed by Dr. Isaac Be-
denblum, noted cancer authority.
The findings of the scientists
represent the results of large-scale
testing through injections of labora-
tory mice, bred for generations at
the Institute.
At this stage, the Institute
scientists make no claims that RLP
will work equally effectively with
humans. For this, additional re-
search is required. Excessive ex-
posure to radiation can produce
leukemia in humans.
But t h e i r discoveries are be-
lieved to be an important ad-
vance in knowledge which may lead
to inhibition of cancer in man, and
to minimization of dangers of ex-
posure to radioactive fallout and to
medical X-rays.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, July 16, 1965-7
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