501.BB Palestine/5–1748
Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
At my meeting with the President at 12:30 today we first took up the question of the position paper for our representatives at the Security Council for the meeting this afternoon. I read the draft to him, [Page 1008] and Rusk and I explained some of the details to all of which he agreed and formally approved the paper.1
Following this I had Mr. Rusk explain to him the present situation regarding the arms embargo and following that I stated that I was not certain that Mr. Rusk had made the facts clear enough. The President then said “I will recite how I understand it” and did so reflecting correct understanding of our point of view.
After Mr. Rusk’s departure I again referred to the arms embargo and read the section of the Resolution of April 17 that referred to it and made a particular point of the fact that we must proceed in this matter with extreme care or we will give a final kick to the UN. The President agreed to that view of the matter. I went on to say that we had to see what happened and he said he agreed, that we have to see who does what to whom and quoted my language to the press. I added some other explanations of possibilities in the case all of which he agreed with.
Incidentally he did not know up to that time what had occurred at the Security Council in the absence of Ambassador Austin and the fact that Sayre2 was unaware of what was coming, and treated it somewhat as a joke as I had done but I think we both privately thought it was a hell of a mess. I went on to say that we felt that the United States had hit its all-time low before the UN and that we must be most careful what we do in relation to this arms embargo.
[Here follow two paragraphs of discussion on candidates to head the United Nations program of relief for Palestine refugees.]
There were no other matters discussed.