But the most surprising comments were Truman's remarks on Jews, written on July 21, 1947, after the president had a conversation with Henry Morganthau, his Jewish treasury secretary, who called to talk about a Jewish ship in Palestine — possibly the Exodus, the legendary ship carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees who were refused entry into Palestine by the British, who then ruled that land.

"He'd no business, whatever to call me," Truman wrote. "The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement (sic) on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed."

Truman then went into a rant: "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D(isplaced) P(ersons) as long as the Jews get special treatment. ...

"Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes."

Those comments startled scholars yesterday because Truman is known as a president who acted to help Jews in post-war Europe and who supported recognition of Israel in 1948.

"My reaction is: Wow! It did surprise me because of what I know about Truman's record." says Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.