Office of the Historian

867N.01/7–946

Memorandum on Matters Regarding Palestine To Be Considered Before the London Conference2

undated
[Page 645]
Probable Recommendations of Cabinet Committee
1. Is U.S. willing to employ military forces? No
2. Is U.S. willing to act as Trustee or Co-Trustee in Palestine? No
3. Is U.S. willing to support Anglo-American Committee report as a whole, including “No Jewish, no Arab State”? Yes
4. Is President willing to ask Congress to admit say 50,000 non quota victims of Nazi persecution? Yes
5. Is President willing to ask the appropriate lending agencies (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Export-Import Bank) for substantial funds for development of Middle-Eastern countries, including Palestine? Yes
6. Is President willing as part of the immediate 100,000 program to support admission of Palestine to the International Bank and a loan of up to $200,000,000 for sound projects, or failing this a loan of $50,000,000–$100,000,000 by Export-Import Bank for such projects? Yes
7. Is President willing as part of 100,000 program* to ask Congress for grant-in-aid to Palestine of $25,000,000 up to $50,000,000 for aid in improving conditions of the people of Palestine on the assumption that the British government will make a like grant? Yes
8. Is President willing to end preferential displaced persons care for future infiltrees in Europe? Yes
9. Should any future announcements of our policy contain some emphasis on our interest in the Palestine situation as part of our larger interest in the peoples of the Middle East, their regained political equality and their economic development, and of our understanding at any rate of their points of view? Yes
  1. Marginal notation: “Top page approved by President Truman in interview with Grady, July 9 ’46”. The authorship of the memorandum is not indicated but it was prepared, presumably, in the Cabinet Committee on Palestine. Attached to it is an undated “Memorandum of Board of Alternates to Cabinet Committee as to certain matters to be discussed with the British in London”, not printed.↩
  2. Note: Total cost of 100,000 program estimated at $450,000,000 (exclusive of costs of transportation which the U.S. will bear) of which Jewish sources estimate they can make $250,000,000 available. [Footnote in the original.]↩