Office of the Historian

242. Message From Foreign Secretary Lloyd to Secretary of State Dulles1

London, undated.

I have delayed my reply to your letter of July 10 about Buraimi until my unofficial talks with Azzam were over and my colleagues and I had considered the results. I am afraid that these were meagre. Azzam made it clear that the Saudis are not interested in anything but Buraimi—we have heard from an unimpeachable source that King Saud is not concerned about his southern frontiers and will not trade Buraimi for concessions elsewhere. Moreover all their ideas for a deal over Buraimi involve either a recognition of Saudi suzerainty or some “neutral” administration that would permit the return of Saudi agents to the oasis. Either course would mean total surrender on the part of our allies. The former would involve a recognition that neither the Sultan of Muscat and Oman nor the Ruler of Abu Dhabi could possibly accept. The second would simply allow the Saudis to resume their subversion and gun-running which, as their own documents prove, were aimed at the disruption of the Sultan’s dominions. We could not accept such an arrangement even if we could impose it on the Rulers, which is certainly impossible in the case of the Sultan.

2. In these circumstances any sort of package deal seems to be ruled out. We can therefore do little more than make a concession on the place of Buraimi on the Agenda and put forward the offer that the President proposed during our talks in Washington at the beginning of the year. You will recall that he suggested that as the 1935 talks had broken down over the question of Saudi access to the sea east of Qatar we might offer some concession there. We can also offer to do our best to persuade the Sultan to allow back some of [Page 393] the exiles from Buraimi. Both these possible offers were hinted at by Dodds Parker when he went to Riyadh in April, but not taken up.

I am now instructing our Ambassador to make them formally to Prince Faisal.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 780.022/7–2856. Secret. Conveyed under cover of a note from Makins to Dulles dated July 28. (Ibid.) According to a memorandum from Kirk to Oulashin, Makins handed the note to Hoover on July 28. (Ibid, NEA Files: Lot 58 D 776, N & ME 55-56)↩