Stella Reading to Eleanor Roosevelt

28 August 1946 [London]

My dear Mrs. Roosevelt:

Thank you very much for your letter of the 23rd. I am passing this on as you suggest, in the spirit in which you have written it, and know you would rather the matter be left there.⁷

Of course, there are many wheels within wheels that do not appear to the naked eye, and of which those of us who have been near to this problem for many years are fully aware.⁸

                                   Ever yours affectionately
                                        Stella Reading

TLS AERP, FDRL

1. On the night of June 17, 1946, the Stern Gang destroyed Palestine Railway's central workshop in Haifa's harbor with fifteen separate explosions. The Haifa explosions were in connection with a series of attacks by Jewish underground groups against British installations in Palestine on that night in an effort to "demonstrate by force against the alleged intentions of British authorities to liquidate the Palestine Jews' defense organization and cripple its leadership" (Julian Louis Meltzer, "Palestine Terror Mounts as Harbor, Bridges Are Ripped," NYT, 18 June 1946, 1; "British Spare 18 Zionists, Bar Mufti at London Talks," NYT, 30 August 1946, 1). For more on the attacks against British installations see n2 Document 129.

2. See n16 Document 87.

3. In response to continued efforts by Jewish refugees to illegally enter Palestine, Prime Minister Clement Attlee launched Operation Igloo, which called for future illegal immigrants to be transferred to camps in Cyprus "and elsewhere" until a decision could be taken as to their future. In announcing this decision, the British government maintained that while they were "deeply sensible" of the sufferings undergone by the Jewish community and "anxious" to bring them to an end as soon as possible, they could not tolerate an attempt by a minority of "Zionist extremists" to exploit the sufferings of unfortunate people in order to "create a situation prejudicial to a just settlement" ("British Halt Palestine Entry, Sidetrack Jews to Cyprus," NYT, 13 August 1946, 1; Britain's Statement on Immigration, NYT, 13 August 1946, 14).

4. See n5 Document 82, n2 and n3 Document 123, and Document 129.

5. Great Britain's postwar policy in the Middle East was driven in large part by its desire to maintain access to vital oil supplies in the Arab world. Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, in particular, believed that the best way to defend the Middle East oil fields and pipelines from the designs of the Soviet Union was to foster Arab good will. Accordingly, he opposed large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine, and tried to further involve the United States in solving the refugee crisis and securing the Middle East for the West (Bickerton and Klausner, 77-78; Shwadran, 532; Cohen and Kolinsky, 23). For more on ER's views on British postwar policies in the Middle East see Document 144 and Document 123.

6. The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. See n2, n3, and n4 Document 123.

7. A search of British archives, including the records of the Women's Voluntary Services, and the correspondence of the Reading family, indicates that Stella Reading's correspondence with ER was not preserved.

8. Although Reading herself was not Jewish, her husband, Rufus Isaacs, First Marquess of Reading, who died in 1935, was one of the most prominent Jews in British public life. Lord Reading served as viceroy of India, lord chief justice, special ambassador to the United States and, briefly, as foreign secretary. He was not a Zionist but approved of the Balfour Declaration and, once the work of creating a Jewish national home began, supported Jewish settlement efforts (Hyde, 282-84, 399, 417; Reading, 365-67).

Critiquing Dewey, Challenging the Party

In 1946, Paul E. Fitzpatrick, chair of the New York State Democratic Committee, and other Democratic leaders asked ER to serve as temporary chairman of and deliver the keynote address to the New York State Democratic Convention. Trying to defuse speculation that, despite her earlier denials, she did seek political office, she used My Day to acknowledge that although she was the first woman to serve in this role, she realized:

of course, that this honor has been given to me in deference to my husband's memory and in recognition of the importance of women in the Democratic Party—that there is nothing personal in the designation. I only hope I will be able to play my part creditably. If possible, I would like not only to express the hopes and purposes of the women in the Democratic Party in this State, but to speak, too, of the things that the party as a whole, men and women together, feel are essential to our success in the State and in the nation as well. New York State has often in the past pioneered in Democratic thinking, and I hope it will again in the future.¹