for a U.S. loan for the upgrading of Haifa harbour and was involved in the first formal commercial agreement between the two countries — the 1950 Israel–US air treaty. He held two meetings with Pope Pius XII at which he argued for Papal recognition of Israel which was being withheld. Following the publication of his book, My mission in Israel. 1948–1951, a complimentary copy was sent to every Rabbi in the United States. Back in the U.S., he added his name to the list of Zionist groups, 23 October 1953, which issued a statement condemning the threat to cut off aid during the crisis over diverting water from the Jordan River. Diary James Grover McDonald was the first U.S. ambassador to Israel, but he was much more than that. He kept a diary which recorded his meetings with some of the history-making personalities of the 1930s, and his activities on behalf of the Jews back in the 1930s when no one would listen. His diary, which was never intended for publication, was dictated to his secretary at the end of each day, as he considered himself a better speaker than a writer. In a number of key diplomatic posts, he had access to the highest levels of government in Europe and the United States. His diaries, which began in 1922, record events up to 1936. In his capacity as the League of Nations high commissioner for refugees from 1933 to 1935, he saw firsthand what the Nazis were plotting, and believed - long before many German Jews had internalized the threat - that Hitler would destroy European Jewry. He was born in Coldwater, Ohio, in 1886, and as his mother was German he spoke the language fluently. He studied at Harvard and became friendly with visiting German students, who later became prominent Nazis. In his work as chairman of the Foreign Policy Association, a job he held from 1919 to 1933, he regularly visited Germany. The Nazi officials, charmed by his fluent German and aquiline features, spoke openly about their plans for the Jews. On April 4, 1933, he records his meeting with two Nazi officials: "I looked forward to an informing analysis of the Nazi economic program. Instead, after we discussed it for 10 or 15 minutes, both Daitz and Ludecke drifted back to the subject of the Jews, which seems to be an obsession with so many of