Office of the Historian

867N.01/7–446: Telegram

The British Prime Minister (Attlee) to President Truman 96

top secret
London, July 4, 1946—10:40 a.m.
[Received 1:55 p.m.]

Personal and Top Secret. I note from your telegram of 2nd [1st] July that the representatives of your Cabinet Committee plan to leave for London on 13th July to begin the second stage of the discussions on the Palestine report.

I am increasingly concerned about the timetable of these discussions in relation to our parliamentary situation here. I have promised that the House of Commons shall have an opportunity to debate the Palestine problem before Parliament rises for the summer recess on 2nd August. Parliamentary interest in this question is so keen that I could not deny facilities for this debate. But you will realize that in such a debate I shall be placed in an embarrassing position if no further progress has been made towards an agreement between our two Governments on at least the main recommendations of the report. It would certainly be very difficult to conduct such a debate in Parliament here while the discussions between officials of the two Governments were still proceeding in London.

I am also concerned about the effect in Palestine of delaying much longer a decision on the important issues dealt with in the report.

We have also to take into account the notification from the Arab states that, unless some arrangement satisfactory to them has been reached meanwhile, they will bring this matter forward at the meeting of the Assembly of the United Nations in September.

For all these reasons it has become a matter of the greatest urgency that the officials’ discussion should begin at the earliest practical moment and be conducted with the utmost speed. I should have wished myself to set 20th July as a target date for the completion of their work. But if they do not begin until the 15th July I do not imagine that they can finish by the 20th. This moves me to ask yet again whether it would not be possible for them to leave Washington earlier. Every day gained is of value and I should still like to see these talks start as early as possible in the week beginning 8 July.97

Thank you also for your further telegram of July 2 and for what you say therein. Best wishes.

  1. Copy transmitted to the Acting Secretary of State by the White House on July 4.↩
  2. In telegram 3293, July 5, 2 p.m., the Secretary of State, at Paris, requested “that this matter should be hurried up as much as possible.” (867N.01/7–546)↩