Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume VI

867N.01/1–1849

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State¹

top secret

[Washington,] January 18, 1949.

Subject: Palestine

Participants:	The Acting Secretary, Mr. Lovett
	The British Ambassador, Sir Oliver Franks
	First Secretary of British Embassy, Mr. Bromley
	NEA—Mr. Hare2
	UNA—Mr. McClintock

Sir Oliver Franks called at his request to leave an Aide-Mémoire³ under instructions of the Foreign Secretary. He prefaced his official remarks with the personal comment that he felt the conversations with Mr. Lovett over the past several weeks had had a material effect on the British Government. For his own part, he had tried carefully to present not only a fair picture of the American point of view, but the arguments which supported that point of view. This he had done not only in official reports of his interviews (he asked Mr. Lovett to read the telegrams recounting his conversation with the Acting Secretary on January 12 and his subsequent talk with the President),⁴ but also in a personal letter to the Foreign Secretary in which he stressed the basic reasons for the Department’s attitude. Summing up, the Ambassador indicated that the Americans were looking to what to do about the future of Palestine while the British had perhaps been regarding the problem too much in the light of their unhappy experiences in the past. He was relieved to feel that the United States by its recent actions in restraining the Israeli attack on Egypt had shown clearly that it did not feel that Israel could act outside the territorial limits of the former Palestine mandate, although within those limits the American Government thought that final dispositions should be made by negotiation between the parties.

Sir Oliver said that, no doubt, the request of the British Cabinet for a statement from the United States in the sense that the United States Government and the British Government have a common policy relating to the Middle East was conditioned at least in part by considerations of domestic politics. Mr. Bevin had been under considerable attack and Mr. Eden had based his principal argument on the assertion that Palestine was forcing the two Anglo-Saxon Governments apart. However, Sir Oliver pointed out that the Cabinet telegram which he had received, and on which the Aide-Mémoire was based, made no reference to the domestic political situation or to the impending debate in the House of Commons on British Palestine policy. All his Government asked was that if possible the attitude of this Government toward making a statement be ascertained prior to the Cabinet meeting on Thursday, January 20.

I replied that there were two reasons why it would be difficult for this Government to make an across-the-board statement with respect to our unanimity of policy with the British Government in the Middle East. The first was a domestic problem—that of security in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I had already seen how top secret information had been leaked from that committee. Certainly, if a sweeping official statement were made, the Senate Committee would wish inside information and would probe into the basis of our current understanding on policy in the Middle East. I could offer no assurances that our top secret testimony before the Committee would not soon become public. The second consideration was that a statement along the lines which seemed to be contemplated, if it were very broad in scope, would arouse an instant Soviet reaction. The USSR saw the United States and the United Kingdom active in current conversations on the Atlantic Pact. There was a danger that a far-reaching statement on the Middle East would lead the USSR to the conclusion that a similar arrangement was being contemplated for that area. However, I did think it might be possible, if we could limit the statement strictly to the Palestine problem, for us to meet most of the requirements set forth in the Ambassador’s telegram.

On other points Sir Oliver said that his Government intended to announce on Friday, January 21, that the Jewish internees on Cyprus would be released. As for his Government’s contemplated de facto recognition of Israel, he was gratified to know that this Government planned to extend de jure recognition to Transjordan as well as Israel immediately after the Israeli elections provided, as was hoped, the Israeli Government returned by those elections was a moderate Government worthy of de jure recognition.

Although the Aide-Mémoire which Sir Oliver left offically embodied most of the points covered in his telegram of instructions which he said bore the earmaks of having been drafted by the Cabinet itself, it contained one paragraph for my own private information which was not paraphrased in the Aide-Mémoire. This referred to the recent conversations between the French Foreign Minister and the British Foreign Secretary. M. Schuman was represented as saying that France had a population which included 25 million Moslems and therefore had to be very careful in the attitude it adopted on Palestine. Nevertheless, the French Government had been on the point of extending de facto recognition to Israel when it stayed its hand because of Israeli defiance of Security Council resolutions.

On the main point—the desired United States statement of mutuality of view with the United Kingdom on Middle Eastern policy—it was pointed out to Sir Oliver that much would depend upon the attitude Mr. Bevin would take in the forthcoming debate in Commons. If he backed up the line which he had instructed Sir Oliver to present at our last interview, it would be difficult for this Government to make a statement in support of British policy. The Ambassador said that, as he construed his telegram just received, it indicated that the British Government was not going to harp on the old issues but was looking, as did the Department, toward what to do about the future.

I said that I thought it might be possible, provided that Mr. Bevin’s statements in the House of Commons did not seek to re-establish the line which he had taken last week with us, for either the new Secretary of State or possibly the President to make a statement which would indicate that both Governments were in complete agreement in pursuing a policy designed to restore peace in the Near East as quickly as possible. I thought that it might be possible to hang such a statement on a peg like the announcement of the British decision to release the Jews on Cyprus.

Another possibility, which I advanced merely as an off-the-cuff suggestion, was that perhaps the two Governments could extend recognition to Israel almost simultaneously. This would be convincing evidence of a concerted policy between Washington and London.

It was agreed that Mr. McClintock, in consultation with Mr. Hare and Mr. Rusk, would prepare a tentative draft of a possible statement and discuss it later today with Mr. Bromley of the British Embassy. If some draft could be developed on the working level, Sir Oliver might then send it to his Government with the caution that this was a purely tentative draft and without top level clearance. At the same time Sir Oliver would point out the difficulty which this Government would face in making a statement prior to the debate in Parliament unless it was assured that Mr. Bevin would not rake up old embers.⁵

I told the British Ambassador that Mr. Bevin seemed to have come an encouraging distance from his last position and that the decision to return the Jews from Cyprus and the intent of the British Government to extend de facto recognition to Israel would have an immense and beneficial effect on the Israeli elections, particularly if recognition should be given immediately before the elections.

1. Drafted by Mr. McClintock.
2. Raymond A. Hare, Deputy Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs.
3. Infra.
4. For information on these conversations, see Mr. McClintock’s memorandum of conversation of January 13 and telegram 149 to London of the same date, pp. 651 and 658.
5. The Department informed London on January 19 that “Such statement was worked out yesterday and telegraphed by Brit. Emb to FonOff. It has not been cleared at White House.” (telegram 219, 501.BB Palestine/1–1949) The editors are unable to identify in the Department of State files the proposed statement passed to the British Embassy. London, on January 21, reported information from Mr. Burrows that the Foreign Office had accepted the draft statement, suggesting solely some rewording of paragraph 2 “designed to lay more emphasis on Middle Eastern aspects [of] Palestine [problem].” (telegram 247, 501.BB Palestine/1–2149)

   There is in the files of the Department of State a draft statement dated January 21 (867N.01/1–2149). The wording of the latter portion of its second paragraph suggests to the editors, in the absence of the original draft, that the Department of State accepted the suggestion of the British Foreign Office. The draft of January 24, approved by President Truman, is printed on p. 691.

   In telegram 247 (see first paragraph of this footnote), Mr. Burrows was said to have expressed Mr. Bevin’s hope that the statement would be made before the meeting of the British Cabinet scheduled for the morning of January 24. In its next numbered telegram, of the same date, London observed that “Foreign Office desire for some statement re US–UK agreement on long-term objectives in Middle East springs in part from internal political exigencies since one phase of most attacks on Bevin’s Palestine policy is that by his blundering he has managed to do harm to US–UK relations. There is belief here that such US statement in some form would go far to lessen difficulties British Government.” (867N.01/1–2149)