867N.01/5–1748
Memorandum of Conversations, by the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
On Friday afternoon1 following lunch Mr. Clifford told me that the President was under unbearable pressure to recognize the Jewish state promptly.
He recalled that on Wednesday afternoon previously I had vigorously attacked the proposals then advanced by the President’s advisers that the President should make a statement at his Thursday press conference promising recognition, etc.2 He stated that he felt the State Department criticisms had been persuasive and that the fact that General Marshall and I had opposed it had caused the President to change his mind and agree to a “postponement of recognition”.
Clifford indicated that the most persuasive arguments were the fact that, by stating in advance of any request from the Jewish Agency that he would recognize the state, it would place this country in the position of being a sponsor and increase responsibility thereby; that while the UN special session was still considering the matter, this act by the President would be a grave breach of propriety and would be labelled a doublecross; that the boundaries were unknown and the President would be putting this country in the position of buying a pig in a poke without knowing who the Government was3 or anything about it. Clifford said the President was impressed by these facts as he had been, but that at six o’clock Friday night there would be no government or authority of any kind in Palestine. Title would be lying about for anybody to seize and a number of people had advised the President that this should not be permitted. The President had decided to do something about recognizing the new state if it was set up but that he would agree to wait until the request had been made and until there was some definition of boundaries. He would postpone the [Page 1006] decision to the last until he was satisfied that the interests of this country would be adequately protected if such a step were taken. He asked the State Department to recommend language to put into effect recognition in the event the President decided upon it. He said that the White House had been informed that an appeal would be made for immediate recognition by the new state, which had been proclaimed that morning and which, according to information given the White House, proposed to live within the conditions of the November 29 General Assembly resolution and to restrict its claim to the borders therein defined.
I replied to Mr. Clifford that the legal paper the Department had provided him with4 indicated that there was, strictly speaking, no legal bar to recognition. However, indecent haste in recognizing the state would be very unfortunate for some of the reasons I had mentioned on Wednesday. I therefore urged the President to delay action for a day or so until we could confirm the details of the proclamation. Clifford replied that he felt sure we would have adequate details to indicate a recognition of the provisional government but that the timing of the recognition was “of the greatest possible importance to the President from a domestic point of view”. I said that it was hard for me to believe that one day could make so much difference, and emphasized especially the tremendous reaction which would take place in the Arab world. I mentioned specifically that we might lose the effects of many years of hard work in the Middle East with the Arabs and that it would jeopardize our position with the Arab leaders and would probably bring our missions and consular representatives into personal jeopardy. Mr. Clifford replied that we should take every precaution against that and that he would hope that we could get messages out in time to forewarn the personnel and inform them of the situation.
I said that we also ought to notify the head of our UN delegation, Senator Austin, and the British, French and Belgian Governments in advance, and asked if the President could not withhold the decision until the next day so that we could be sure that the messages would get through in time. Clifford said that the President could not afford to have any such action leak and that we should try to insure against it. I told him that it was manifestly impossible to time messages to arrive in a distant capital when we did not know when the decision would be made. Clifford said that he hoped the final answer would be given us in the late afternoon and that they were awaiting the formal request, which he again repeated they were sure would be received.
Telephone conversations continued during the afternoon on the subject and the White House was apparently advised by phone that [Page 1007] the message was on its way. The general Sense was given me by Mr. Clifford and we started to prepare a statement for Mr. Ross to use in connection with our continuing efforts on the truce. The language to be used in the White House release was arrived at at a final conference in the middle of the afternoon in the Department prior to notice of the President’s decision but based on the assumption that it would be in favor of recognition.
After the completion of this, sometime about 5:30, I called Mr. Clifford and told him that the General Assembly was in session and was winding up, and that it was our guess that it would be over by around ten o’clock that night. I asked him if he would endeavor to delay the announcement until after the General Assembly, but he said again that time was terribly important and that he did not feel that the President would do this although he would discuss it with him. I reminded Clifford that we had to have time to get the message to Senator Austin and asked him to let me know as soon as the final decision was reached. Mr. Clifford was with the President at the time and said that he would call me back after they had talked it over.
About twenty minutes to six I was told that the President was going to make the announcement shortly after six o’clock and that it was all right to call Senator Austin and tell him of the action. Mr. Rusk called the Senator about a quarter to six and gave him the information. The various cables had been released on the basis of this action being possible so that they had gone out some time before.
In this memorandum of conversation I have omitted, for the sake of brevity, the long arguments back and forth throughout the afternoon. My protests against the precipitate action and warnings as to consequences with the Arab world appear to have been outweighed by considerations unknown to me, but I can only conclude that the President’s political advisers, having failed last Wednesday afternoon to make the President a father of the new state, have determined at least to make him the midwife.
- May 14.↩
- See memorandum of conversation by the Secretary of State, May 12, p. 972.↩
- Jerusalem reported, on May 20, that the portfolios in the Provisional Council of Government of the State of Israel had been distributed the previous day, with David Ben-Gurion as Premier and Moshe Shertok as Foreign Secretary (telegram 673, 867N.01/5–2048). It reported further, on June 2, that the Premier had concurrently become Minister of Defense the previous evening (telegram 822, 867N.01/6–248).↩
- Mr. Gross’ memorandum of May 13 to Mr. Lovett, p. 960.↩