In early 1946, Hilldring managed to get Marcus back from General Clay, this time to head the Pentagon’s War Crimes Division. Marcus was responsible for selecting the judges, prosecutors and lawyers for the major war crimes trials in Germany and Japan. He attended the Nuremberg Trials, where one of his main concerns was the complete documentation of Nazi atrocities for future generations.

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In 1946, the British government made Marcus an honorary officer of the Order of the British Empire, ‘in recognition of the distinguished service performed…in cooperation with British armed forces during the war.’ By then, he had been nominated for the rank of brigadier general five times. Nomination No. 6 came in early 1947, along with the offer of a coveted assignment as the military attach at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He elected instead to return to civilian life and his law practice–but his respite from military service would be short.

That December, Marcus was approached in New York by Major Shlomo Shamir, representing the ‘Provisional Jewish Government.’ Shamir had been sent to America to recruit a military expert to help organize and train the army of the soon-to-be-born state. At first Marcus agreed to help Shamir find such an individual, but it quickly became apparent that Marcus himself was the prime candidate. His wife vigorously opposed any such adventure, but Marcus argued that what he would be doing would be no different than what the Marquis de Lafayette, Friedrich von Steuben or Tadeusz Kosciuszko had done during the American Revolution.

Under the nom de guerre ‘Michael Stone,’ Marcus flew to Palestine in January 1948. The United Nations had voted to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states effective October 1, 1948. The British were to remain in control of the mandate until then. Since 1945, both sides had engaged in constant guerrilla warfare against each other and against the British. Many of the Arab countries were determined that the state of Israel would never come into existence.

The Jewish situation was desperate. The surrounding Arab states comprised about 100 times the territory and 60 times the population of the would-be Jewish state. As soon as the Jews declared their independence, the forces of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Trans-Jordan (later Jordan) were poised to invade. The Arab forces, however, were a mixed lot, ranging from the Arab Liberation Army–a ragged collection of poorly trained volunteers–to the 6,000-strong Trans-Jordan Arab Legion, a modern, elite fighting force with British officers and commanded by the legendary British Maj. Gen. John Bagot Glubb.

Opposing the Arabs, the Jews had the clandestine Haganah, with a mobilization strength of about 30,000, commanded by Israel Galili. The crack 2,500-man Palmach, under Colonel Yigael Allon, was the only full-time force within the Haganah. The Haganah was short on weapons and had only a few light observation aircraft and no artillery. What passed for its armored force consisted of locally fabricated armored cars made by bolting steel plates onto trucks.

The situation was made worse by the fact that the British maintained a strict arms embargo while they still controlled Palestine. The embargo hurt the Jews but did not affect the Arab forces outside the country. The Jews had just two things going for them. First, although the Arabs were set to attack from all sides, there was no unity of command or synchronization of effort. Second, with the exception of the Legion, the Arab forces were notoriously poor night fighters.

Reporting directly to future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Marcus toured the country, visiting Haganah bases, examining troop dispositions and evaluating training programs. He made recommendations that he believed were necessary to transform the largely underground organization into a modern, effective strike force.

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