Clark Clifford, 1906-1998

As a special presidential counsel, Clifford opposed the pro-Arab State Department and urged President Harry Truman to maintain support for the U.N. partition of Palestine and to lift the arms embargo on Jewish forces heading into Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. He equated support for partition with strengthening the United States’ presence in the Middle East at the onset of the Cold War.

Photo: Yoichi R. Okamoto, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration