ABSTRACT
The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, announced simultaneously by Harry Truman in Washington and Ernest Bevin in London on 13 November 1945, was not quite the AAC that Bevin had envisaged. From the time in October that the Americans agreed to the idea in principle, up until the actual mutual acceptance of the terms of reference, scope and duration of the Inquiry, a lot of negotiations-even haggling-took place. In the end, it was apparent that America was determined to dictate the terms of the Inquiry. So much so that they warned that a premature British announcement of U.S. agreement to participate in such an inquiry prior to the mayoral elections in New York (in which a Jewish Republican was running against the Democratic candidate) might adversely affect the course of the negotiations for a loan to Britain being conducted at that time.1 “This is the most cynical and dishonest performance I have ever seen,” was the comment of one Foreign Office official.2
