Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Near East: Jordan-Yemen, Volume XIII

260. Memorandum of a Conversation, White House, Washington, January 30, 1957, 4 p.m.¹

Washington, January 30, 1957, 4 p.m.

The following, dictated largely from memory, is the gist of a private conversation between myself and the King of Saudi Arabia on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 30, 1957, lasting from 4:00 until 5:45 p.m. There was present one other only, an interpreter friend of the King’s.²

The King started off by saying that he wanted to talk to me mainly about very secret, confidential things, some of them really personal. At the same time he said there were others that I could discuss with my advisers. However, I failed to get any clear understanding of which ones he considered absolutely secret (except for the last subject which I shall mention later), and which ones were of a lesser sensitivity. Consequently, I write this paper only for my own use and for the personal use of the Secretary of State. I have no objection if the Secretary of State permits a maximum of three other individuals in his Department to read it, should he believe that by so doing they would be helped in any way.

I. Relations with the British

The King’s first subject was his relationships with the British. He spoke at length and rather bitterly.

The King said that dating back into his father’s reign, the Arab policy had been to trust the British and to work with them in the advancement of their own country. He said this policy was practically forced upon them because the only alternative was to seek help from the Soviet Government; and they have always been anti-Communistic. Long before his father died, the relationships between Arabia and Britain had become strained and very unsatisfactory to the Arabs. Because of this the British had a deliberate policy of keeping the Arabs weak; that is, denying them any arms—at least in amounts that would be satisfactory to any self-respecting nation. Because of their weakness he said the Arabs had suffered many indignities, to say nothing of encroaching upon their borders and the flouting of their government in critical areas. Because of this weakness, the Arabs have also suffered indignities from the Israeli and they have been helpless to reply. This situation has grown steadily worse over the years. His people have become more and more restless, more demanding that he do something, and there has arisen a strong element in his country demanding that he even deal with the Soviets in order to get the necessary arms.

The King said that in spite of all these provocations, the basic tenet of his policy continued to be refusal to have anything whatsoever to do with the Kremlin.

About seven years ago the Arabs started an intensified campaign to obtain some arms. He encountered nothing but failure. Finally, about a year and a half ago, the Soviets approached him with what he said were wide open and very enticing offers.

The Soviets told him that they would provide any amount of arms he desired, together with adequate training teams to bring his forces to a good state of readiness. They offered to do this at a cost that would be “lower than that of anyone else.” He still refused.

Now, he says, the question has gotten to be a most sensitive one in his country. He simply must do something about the matter. He referred repeatedly to the demands of his people and the strength of public opinion. He talked about such matters far more than one would expect… .

In reply I said that this matter of armaments was not as simple as it appeared and that he should proceed very cautiously in making up his mind as to how much he wanted. I told him that we had helped to arm certain nations which had demanded far too much in the way of armaments, and as a result their economies were showing strains, and in some cases proved unequal to the task of maintaining their forces. I told him that I thought the best military policy for any nation which had a great problem of economic development facing it was to seek such arms as would assure the maintenance of internal order and freedom from subversive activities, together with a small reserve that would give it reasonable protection against small raiding attacks against its borders. Beyond this point I argued that any country in this position should depend largely upon its friendship with the other free nations of the world. I maintained that the United Nations was set up to preserve weak nations from unjustified and unprovoked aggression and that he could always count upon help in such a case. However, I did admit that the self-respect of a nation did demand arms to the level I had roughly described, and asked him how much he thought would be necessary in his case.

The King replied … about as follows: “My country has 900,000 square miles and at least 12 million people. The British are nibbling at a number of my borders and have been particularly aggressive in the case of Buraimi and the Empty Quarter. The Israeli have raided us a number of times and now Iran has committed an aggression against us. (Later he spoke about this incident at some length.) He finally said that he had a program for armament which had been approved by American training teams in his country.” (It is possible I misunderstood this particular statement, but this is what I thought he said.)

He did repeat, “I know that Britain would attempt to oppose our acquisition of armaments from you.” He feels that we would long ago have agreed to let him have arms except for British opposition.

He then remarked that his military program would take up half of his national budget and so he would need economic help. To this I made little reply except to say that it had been our experience that the first thing that undeveloped nations needed was technical help because otherwise they spent money uselessly.

II. Economics

The King said he had been working very hard at building new schools, hospitals, roads and communications. He said their five-year progress had been remarkable but it was, of course, still far too meagre. All his public expenditures had gone into these activities and he remarked, “All the money I have received has been wisely spent and for these good purposes.”

The King remarked that the Bedouins were in a particularly deplorable state economically and had so little in the way of resources that they were practically living on a dole. This dole he furnishes from his private purse… . But he said beyond the things just mentioned, Arabia could do no more by itself and they need desperately to have economic assistance.

In reply to this, I repeated my assertion that technical help should probably come first. I pointed out that schools were no good without teachers; that irrigation systems were of little use except where there were people who knew how to make economic use of water on land. I pointed out that this same observation applied almost in everything that was economic in character.

I emphasized that money alone could not make a country prosperous or raise its level of industrialization. It took investment, brains, experience in organization and professional matters, and a provision for balance among the various segments of the economy. I pointed out that purchasing power had to go along with the production of goods. Most of this was lost on him, but at least he did not express to me any thoughts of rushing into “big business” and he seemed to be responsive to the idea when I told him that small village and household industries were far more important to a country with very low living standards than were heavy goods industries.

Finally, I told him that our staffs would study both the military and the economic matters very sympathetically in cooperation with his staffs, but I did want to point out that it was progress all across the board that was sought, not an imbalance that would do no good at all for his country.

I thought that possibly the King felt that I was being too pessimistic in my attitude toward his desires and ambitions, for he remarked to me, “When we get this strength it will always be with yours.” He wanted to make clear that whatever strength we built up for him would always be available to us. He said over and over again, “We are your friends and we want to be even better friends.”

III. Islands

The next matter that the King wanted to talk about were two islands in the Persian Gulf—Farasan [Farsi] and one named, I think, Arabi, or Aribi.³ The modern political history of these islands as given to me by the King is as follows: For some years the ownership of the islands has been claimed by both Kuwait and Arabia. No other nation has asserted any claim to the islands, although of course Britain has supported the Kuwait claim.

A short time ago an Iranian force suddenly moved into the islands, seized them and is now occupying one. The Arabs regard this as rank aggression. The King’s Government has protested to Iran, but to no avail. Iran has not attempted to establish any historical claim—rather it has depended completely upon the power of possession. In this situation the Arabian Government has proposed two possible solutions to the Iranians:

(1) The Iranians to go home and leave both islands unoccupied, and the Arabs and Iranians thereafter to meet in negotiations to work out an agreed ownership.

(2) The Iranians to occupy one island and to recognize Arab ownership of the other.

The Iranians have refused to accept either suggestion. In fact, the suggestions have simply been ignored.

Again, the King said, a tense situation has developed in his country. This has reached a point where he believes he will have to cancel the planned visit of the Shah to Arabia, which was to take place in early March.

The King is at a complete loss to understand the developments since he says the Shah and he are great personal friends and “I have liked and admired him very much.” He indicated that the Shah could be embarrassed very badly if he should come to Arabia at present. This subject was left with the intimation that he would appreciate our support wherever it was possible to give it in reaching a satisfactory solution to this question.

In reply I merely told him I would have the matter studied. I said that it was one thing that had escaped my attention.

IV. Cairo Meeting

The next subject was his meeting with some of the other Arab chieftains at Cairo. The King said that reports of the leanings of Nasser and the President of Syria toward the Soviets have been greatly exaggerated. Each of these men told the King that if the Soviets made any move that implied an attempt to interfere in their internal governmental activities, they would instantly cease all dealings with the Soviets. My impression is that he believes that these rulers can take from the Soviets anything they please, but still retain their own power of decision and control over all internal affairs. (I refrained from commenting … .) In any event, the King twice repeated a statement about as follows:

“I told my associates very plainly and flatly—I am with you in Arab cooperation and in opposition to Israel, but I will not go one step with you in working with the Soviet Union—I shall have nothing to do with the Soviets.”

The King did not discuss plans for opening the Canal beyond saying that this subject had already been mentioned at the preceding conference. He did, however, take up the Israeli question and said that, as he explained in his letter of some time ago, he believed that we must take the status quo for the present and wait for feelings to calm down before we could do much in the way of constructive work. Of course the status quo for him involves a withdrawal of all Israeli forces inside the armistice line.

He repeated at some length the familiar complaints that the Arabs have against Israel, although he did tacitly agree that Israel, as a nation, is now an historical fact and must be accepted as such. He tried to put all the blame for border troubles on the Israelis, even though occurring a long time before the attacks of last fall. The Arab activities along the border he said were mostly those of civilians who had been dispossessed from their homes and who were hungry and starving—and just across the border they see their old properties being exploited by the Jewish communities. In desperation they try to go back at times and get some of the food and things of which they have been deprived. The Israeli use these small incidents as excuses to put on big raids, killing lots of Arabs. The King remarked that any fair settlement of the Jewish-Arab problem would give these border villages back to their former owners.

The King therefore felt that the Israeli should retire immediately from the Port of Aqaba and from the Gaza Strip and cease all of their border raids. He repeated that in the relatively quiet state that would result from such Israeli movements, we could then begin to hope to find the solution of the bigger and broader problem. This, of course, was a very one-sided presentation and so I told him that I would bring up some of the complaints brought to me by Jewish sympathizers.

I said, first, that because of the Egyptian embargo on Israeli shipping in the Canal, the Israelis had a good excuse to keep the Port of Aqaba and make it a useful and workable one.

Also, they have had so much trouble with raids originating in the Gaza Strip that they would under no circumstances permit Egypt to reoccupy it, arguing that in any case the Strip had never been a part of Egypt. I referred also to the Israeli complaints against the Fedayeen and their purpose of retaining partial mobilization to conduct retaliatory raids at any time they suffered a Fedayeen attack.

The King took each of these up in turn.

First, he said that the Egyptians in his opinion would not permit the Israeli shipping to transit the Canal, but after discussing it a little while longer, he said he did believe this was a negotiable item and that in return for other concessions, they would probably do so.

I immediately told him that unless the Egyptians would permit such transitting, then they would defeat in advance any attempt to settle the Canal issue on the six principles of the United Nations because they would stand in violation of the 1888 Treaty even before they started to confer.

The King repeated that he thought they might yield on this point.

He next stated that the Egyptians would never consent to the internationalization of the Gaza Strip. He said it was Arab, and internationalization of the Strip would mean inevitably that it was partly occupied by Arab enemies. I gained the distinct impression that the King thoroughly approved of the Egyptian stand on this point.

I replied that if the Israelis refused to turn over the Gaza Strip and the Egyptians refused to allow even an international force to occupy it, then we were at an impasse and any hope of reducing Arab-Israel tensions was gone.

Consequently, I asked him what would he think of establishing the Gaza Strip as an independent principality, somewhat like Yemen. He replied that this might provide an answer, although I told him that I was merely asking a question—that I did not know whether such an idea would be acceptable to either the Arabs or the Israeli or anyone else—but I was simply trying to find out whether there was some point of negotiation and flexibility rather than rigidity in the situation.

The King then went to the question of the Fedayeen. He declared that there had been only one raid by the Fedayeen in many weeks (I forget its exact date), and all other border disorders were not of their making. I felt sure, … that the King was completely misinformed, but that he implicitly believed what Nasser told him. So I did not pursue the subject further.

Finally, the King took up a subject which he said was completely personal and had not been mentioned to him by anyone, nor by him to anyone other than me.

It was the suggestion that I should ask Nasser and the King [President] of Syria to visit me. He said that he believed great good could come of such visits. He did not say that either knew of his suggestion—he intimated the contrary.

I had not expected this one and so I stalled a little bit, saying that of course I would think the matter over. He hastened to interject that he was certain these people did not lean nearly so much toward the Soviets as we had thought and they would like to re-establish their ties with the West.

I then remarked that, of course, I could not ask the two people he suggested immediately after the King himself had made a visit here without causing difficulty with our relationships with Israel. I asked him what he would think of my asking the head of the Jewish State. This he said would be quite all right and satisfactory.

In discussing this subject at some length, the King was rather vague and I am not quite certain what he thought would come out of it, but he did urge that it be treated on a top secret basis.

The King concluded with a little talk that showed he knew something about our political situation, at least that we had a lot of Jewish voters in this country. He maintained a very pleasant attitude throughout the conversation and seemed quite happy that I had given him an hour and three-quarters to get all of these matters off his chest.

He ended up by saying that in the Cairo meeting he had urged his associates to look upon American efforts in the region as motivated by genuine friendship and a desire to help—and not a desire to conquer. He repeated that he thought a face-to-face talk with both Nasser and the President of Syria would be very valuable.⁴

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. Top Secret.
2. Royal Counselor Jamal al-Husayni.
3. The President was apparently referring to the islands of Farsi and Arabi. Documentation on U.S. interest in the disputed islands is in Department of State, Central File 686A.88.
4. At 6:43 p.m. on January 30, in a telephone call to Secretary Dulles, Eisenhower conveyed the highlights of his private meeting with the King. The President focused almost entirely on those aspects of the meeting dealing with the Arab-Israeli issue and Iran. The President informed Dulles, inter alia, that he had kept notes of the meeting and would give them to the Secretary at their meeting. Eisenhower also noted that “the fact is, the fellow was more than anxious to be decent and honest.” (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, White House Telephone Conversations)