Summary
An American citizen (the name a pseudonym, like his friend David Marcus’s “Stone”) who served as chief military adviser to Israel’s Minister of Defence and Chief of Staff in 1949 without IDF enlistment or an oath of allegiance, with access to all military information; Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace presents the episode, omitted from Knesset Records, as an instance of the government’s double bookkeeping on Israel’s Western orientation (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.115-116).
Details
- MK Y. Ben-Aharon’s question of 18/7/49 asked whether it was true that Harris, still an American citizen and not sworn, served as chief military adviser, that commanders had to submit to him any information he requested — full reports on acquisitions, industry, manpower, unit strengths, buildings and bases, “nothing is secret from him” — and that he participated in General Staff meetings and all investigations compiled by the Minister of Defence; the question and reply were omitted from Knesset Records, published in Mapam internal material, and later entered in the Attorney General’s trial of Kol Ha’am and the pamphlet “Kol Ha’am vs Ben-Gurion” (June 1951), from which the book quotes them (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.115).
- Ben-Gurion’s written reply: “As a friend of David Marcus, who changed his name to Stone, Fred Harris too is merely a pseudonym. F. Harris is an American citizen and is not required to swear allegiance to the IDF. Harris helped the head of the operations branch and expressed his opinion on various military questions. I invited him a number of times to participate in meetings of the general staff. I am not prepared to order that his service be terminated. I see his service as a blessing” (PDF p.116).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, David Ben-Gurion, Non-alignment