867N.01/1812³⁄₅
Memorandum by the Adviser on Political Relations ( Murray ) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: As you will recall from our conversation just before your departure, you wished to consider and discuss further the attached proposed letter to the President transmitting for his approval a statement4 setting forth the attitude of the Government of the United States toward the peoples of the Near East, with particular reference to their future.
The advantage of the present draft is that it refers to neither the Arabs nor the Jews and thereby avoids the controversial subjects both of the National Home for the Jews in Palestine and the Jewish Army.
While Axis propaganda has been able to make alarming inroads among the Arabs of the Near East, we have, unfortunately, sat by in silence and done nothing to win the Arabs over to the cause of the United Nations and away from the Axis.
If, as is not improbable, it eventually becomes necessary to send American troops to the Near East to bolster up the crumbling position of Great Britain there, I think we would be open to grave criticism for having exposed unnecessarily our troops in that area to the hostile native populations as well as to the Axis armies, when it might have been possible for us to take suitable action at an earlier moment to turn the tide of anti-American feeling among the Arabs and to have gained some support from them for our cause.
We are at your disposal any time you wish to discuss this matter further.5