Harry S. Truman (United States)

Harry S. Truman became the 33rd President of the United States on 12 April 1945, on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and served until January 1953. After the war he read Earl Harrison's report on the Jewish survivors in the displaced persons camps and pressed Britain to let 100,000 of them into Mandate Eretz Israel, and in 1947 he backed the UN Partition Plan. In March 1948 his old friend and former business partner Eddie Jacobson persuaded him to receive Chaim Weizmann at the White House. On 14 May 1948, at 6:11 in the evening Washington time, eleven minutes after the State of Israel came into being, Truman recognized it, against the advice of his Secretary of State, George Marshall.

The United States was the first country to recognize Israel; full de jure recognition followed on 31 January 1949. In 1953, introduced at a gathering in New York as the man who had helped create the State of Israel, Truman is reported to have answered: "What do you mean 'helped create'? I am Cyrus, I am Cyrus", comparing himself to the Persian king who let the exiles return to Zion.