320/9–1752
Memorandum for the File, by the Ambassador at Large (Jessup)
Mr. Nitze, Mr. Byroade, Mr. Sandifer, Mr. Allison, Mr. Bonbright, Mr. Kitchen and I met with the Secretary this afternoon to go over the memorandum on the Arab-Asian problem. The Secretary said he thought it was along the right line and indicated his agreement with the general conclusion. He said it indicated the position we are in and it was necessary for us to act on that basis. We are not able to get out of the middle position.
Mr. Nitze commented on Part VII on pages 9 and 10, saying that S/P had some reservations about this point of view since it left out of account certain other elements in the situation. I noted that these pages really dealt particularly with the situation of countries in the Near East and the views were not fully applicable to South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Far East.
Mr. Allison said that he was in general agreement with the paper. He emphasized the importance from a tactical point of view of advance talks with representatives of governments to make our position clear. He said he planned to talk along the line of this memorandum in the various countries which he will visit on his trip. I mentioned the [Page 63] memorandum for Ambassador Bowles which was being prepared and Mr. Allison said he would like to have a copy.
Mr. Byroade said he also agreed with the general line of the paper. He questioned the first paragraph on page 11 which he thought might imply too much playing down of the benefits we get from our military aid program. He said it is the view of NEA that the British and French are through in that area and that the problem is ours. He suggested that Egypt was a good example of the case in which we had taken action which annoyed the British at the time but which they now agree was right. Mr. Nitze pointed out that if we take over these problems as we had to in Greece, we are left holding the bag and cannot fall back on the easier position of trying to help the British for example. Mr. Byroade said that we did have to take on more and more responsibility and eventually we became the hope of the Arab-Asian States. The Secretary inquired whether we did not ultimately also become identified as the enemy and Mr. Byroade agreed that that might be true.
Mr. Allison suggested that in terms of tactics in the General Assembly we should not press too hard to make all of our friends vote with us on every question. We should recognize their right to be neutral. Mr. Sandifer agreed in general but pointed to the necessity of avoiding building up an Arab-Asian bloc which would oppose us on all issues.
Mr. Bonbright wondered whether we were thinking of ways to block Arab-Asian extremism. He thought the first sentence on the top of page 9 suggested that all of the Arab-Asian aspirations are good which he thinks they are not. He thought we should explore ways in which to split the bloc.
The Secretary agreed that this was something to which we should give our attention. He thought that it was very important that we work on the Egyptians, keeping our discussion of possible military aid running along.
There was then some discussion as to whether there was any possibility of persuading the Arab-Asian States to take the Palestine issue off the agenda. The Secretary wondered whether we could suggest that the PPC [PCC?] hold conversations with all of the parties during the Assembly and report at the end. Sandifer and I pointed out that we would get the same orations on the refugee question anyway and Byroade agreed that we could not take the initiative in trying to keep the question off the agenda.
The Secretary both in connection with this memorandum and in connection with a recent message from Kennan wondered whether we had to start out with such a row as we usually do in order to secure [Page 64] appropriations from Congress. Mr. Nitze thought that on one detail it might be possible to include our military aid items in our domestic defense appropriations although we would still have to justify the power of allocation which would need to be written into the bill.
We discussed the telegram to London about inscribing the Tunisian item on the agenda and agreed on what the telegram should contain.1 The Secretary did not like either the NEA–EUR draft of the statement or the UNA draft. In talking about this the Secretary wondered whether we couldn’t make a brief statement in which we would merely make the following points:
We thought the French proposals were pretty good; we are sorry they were turned down; we hope the discussion in the General Assembly will help; the real result, however, must come from discussions by the French and Tunisians; we will do our best to help to get good results.
- Reference is to telegram 2102 to London, Sept. 23, 1952 (722.00/9–2352).↩