Office of the Historian

45. Letter From Secretary of State Dulles to Foreign Minister Meir1

Washington, October 31, 1958.

Dear Madame: The Egyptians have come to us expressing great concern over reports of the Prime Minister’s October 26 interview in the London Sunday Times regarding the status of Jordan. They professed to interpret this, together with reports they had received that Israel had ordered general mobilization, as indicating that Israel is planning some kind of military action in Jordan.

We told the Egyptians that we had no information whatever which would indicate that general mobilization had been ordered in Israel. (Subsequently, we learned of the denial of this report in Tel Aviv.) We also said that we were not aware of any Israeli plans for military action in Jordan. With regard to that country, it seemed to us that what was required was for all parties concerned to refrain from taking action likely to disturb the situation. For example, we earnestly sought full implementation of the Arab resolution of August 25.2 Our position of strong opposition to aggression by any nation in the Middle East against another was also well known. We believed that it was essential to establish tranquility if the basic problems of the area were to be solved.

You are of course already aware of the position taken by the Cairo press with regard to the Sunday Times interview. I thought that you would be interested to learn of the official UAR attitude as conveyed to us, and of our response.

Sincerely yours,

John Foster Dulles3
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 684A.85/10–3158. Secret. Transmitted in telegram 341 to Tel Aviv, October 31, 9:39 p.m., which is the source text. At 5:46 p.m., Dulles had called Rountree to say that he was “dubious about sending the message to Ben Gurion.” Rountree replied that he had given quite a bit of thought to the matter before recommending it. Dulles suggested that the message go to the Foreign Minister instead and Rountree agreed. (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations)↩
  2. Presumably a reference to Resolution 1237 (ES–IIII), August 25, which called, inter alia, for the Secretary-General to make a fact-finding trip to the Middle East. For text, see U.N. General Assembly, Official Records, Third Emergency Session, Supplement No. 1, p.1.↩
  3. Telegram 341 bears this typed signature.↩