The UN was about to vote on partition and surprisingly the Soviet Union supported it as did the US (The United States means President Truman, the State Department was opposed). The world was shocked by the sudden Soviet support of the partition plan affording a home for the Jews, for this contravened all of Stalin policy heretofore. Although Israel was not yet ready to defend itself militarily against its Arab enemies, the constellation of countries willing to support the partition vote would never repeat itself. It was a “now or never” situation for Israel and she rallied all of her influence and contacts behind mustering the 2/3 majority required. (By error, I referred in the recording to Andrei Gromyko as Alexei Kosygin, his colleague in the Politburo.)