205. Letter From Prime Minister Eden to President Eisenhower1
Dear Mr. President: I think that I must approach you about the situation which is rapidly developing in the Middle East, particularly in regard to the activities of Saudi Arabia and the bribery in which she is indulging. This is going on so fast that I felt I must telegraph before we meet. No doubt much of our information will be available to the State Department from the same sources as we receive it. Saudi money has been subsidising newspapers in Syria, Jordan and in the Lebanon, some of them extremely left and Communist or near–Communist papers, which they keep going. Many Ministers and Deputies are also being bought up.
Now has come a move, of which you will be aware, to supplant us in Jordan by making payments similar to those which we have been making all these years. Our payments to Jordan last year have cost us twelve million pounds. Nominally, the new offer comes from Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. However, the first two have no money.
There now appears to be a new development, as we learn from Jordan. The Russians are behind this whole plan to subvert the country. The Soviet Ambassador has approached the Jordan Chargé d’Affaires in Cairo, with presumably the full knowledge and support of the Egyptians and Saudis, and offered him “everything” that he wants, including arms, provided Jordan denounces her treaty with us. The Jordan Government also has information that the Russians have offered to pay five years subsidy in advance.
In the light of all this it becomes increasingly clear that the Saudis, the Russians, the Egyptians and the Syrians are working together. If we don’t want to see the whole of the Middle East fall into Communist hands we must first back the friends of the West in [Page 314] Jordan and Iraq. This we are trying to do. It is equally important to find some way of regulating the Saudi use of their money and of stopping them playing the Russian game.
I understand full well all the difficulties this means for you, but if the Saudis go on spending and behaving as at present there will be nothing left for anybody but the Bear, who is already working in their wake.
Yours ever,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, International File. Top Secret. On January 16 Ambassador Makins conveyed Eden’s message to the White House under cover of a note indicating that it was based on the “latest secret information.” (Ibid.) On January 19, in a memorandum to Dulles, Allen transmitted a proposed memorandum to the President and a possible reply to Eden’s message, which, according to Allen, would indicate “our awareness of the problem, our willingness to discuss it further with the British Prime Minister, and our belief that it may well be essential that Western influence in Saudi Arabia be strengthened if we are to have any success in persuading the Saudis to use their money for better purposes.” A handwritten notation on the Allen memorandum by William Macomber reads as follows: “Sec. has decided that no reply is necessary. WM” The proposed memorandum to the President was not attached. (Department of State, Central Files, 780.001/1–1956) A copy of the proposed reply to Eden is attached as Tab F to a memorandum of January 26 from Barnes to Dulles. (Ibid., 611.41/1–2656)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩