235. Letter From Foreign Secretary Lloyd to Secretary of State Dulles1
My Dear Foster: I have been considering the record of last month’s talks in Washington between our intelligence people on Middle Eastern problems. Whilst I am naturally heartened by the close cooperation that exists between the two Services and the wide measure of agreement that we have reached, it is sad to see that we are still so far apart on Saudi Arabia.
I wonder whether this is not due primarily to a divergence between us in assessing the available intelligence. For example, we are disposed to believe that Saudi Arabia is basically hostile to this country, that it regards Buraimi as a springboard for further expansion into the Persian Gulf, and that consequently a Buraimi settlement, far from detaching King Saud from Nasser, would be likely only to bring him into armed conflict with us in the Persian Gulf, thus aggravating the present situation. We base this view on secret reports, which are also available to you, … and on other intelligence.
I understand, however, that many of your people believe that if we could make some face-saving concession to King Saud over Buraimi, the consequence would be to place Anglo-Saudi relations [Page 378] on a good footing and to facilitate the detachment of Saud from Egypt. I do not know on what evidence this opinion is based. Nor do I know whether you have any evidence to show what would be the minimum concession required to bring Saudi Arabia into our fold.
But it seems to me that it might be of great advantage to both of us if we could have a joint examination of all the available evidence and an effort to reach an agreed assessment. If we could achieve this, it ought not to be too difficult in a second stage to reach agreement on a common policy.
I put this suggestion to you because of my deep anxiety to cooperate with you in the Middle East and to bring our policies in Saudi Arabia into full and amicable concord.
Yours ever,
- Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204. Top Secret. Makins transmitted the letter to Dulles under cover of a note dated June 28. On June 29 Howe forwarded the message to Allen with instructions that a reply be prepared by the close of business July 5. Howe noted that the reply should be cleared with Armstrong, MacArthur, Murphy, and finally with Hoover. He added that the Department was handling the Lloyd letter on an Eyes Only basis. Copies, Howe continued, had been sent to Dulles, Hoover, and Armstrong, and the message had been shown to Murphy and MacArthur. (Ibid., S/S-NEA Files: Lot 61 D 417)↩