867N.01/9–544: Telegram
The Minister in Iraq (Henderson) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 5—12:30 a.m.]
201. 1. The Minister for Foreign Affairs told me today that his Government had been informed that Zionists had handed the Dumbarton Oaks Conference10 a memorandum demanding that a Jewish national state be established in Palestine, that his Government could not permit such a document to remain unanswered, that it was therefore instructing the Iraqi Legation in Washington in case it was confirmed that the Zionists had actually made a démarche to reply in behalf of the Iraqi Government.
2. The Minister thereupon read to me a draft of the reply which he planned to send to the Iraq Legation and asked if I had any suggestions. The draft was comparatively restrained in tone and contained the usual Arab arguments against the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. I said that I knew nothing whatsoever regarding any Zionist approach to the Conference and that in any event I did not believe that the agenda of the Conference would permit to consider [Page 613] such a memorandum. I said that it might be wise for the Iraqi Minister in Washington before submitting a reply to endeavor to ascertain by informal inquiry in the Department of State whether such a Zionist document if submitted could properly be incorporated in the proceedings of the Conference. It might be preferable for the Legation not to undertake to reply to a document which was not being made a matter of record. The Minister indicated that he could adopt my suggestion. It is possible, therefore, that the Iraqi Minister may in the near future make appropriate inquiries in the Department.
3. During our conversation the Minister stated that in pursuance of the policy of the Iraqi Government as outlined by him in our conversation of August 10 (redes 399, August 18,) the Iraqi Government would make every effort to prevent the Iraqi press from learning or at least from discussing any protest which might be submitted. His Government has determined that until after the American elections at least the Iraqi press would not be used in a campaign against pro-Zionist activities in the United States.
4. I told him that I had informed my Government of his remarks to me of August 10 and that my Government was appreciative of the efforts of the Iraqi Government not to permit Iraqi displeasure at Zionist activities in the United States to express itself in a senseless press campaign which might stir up feeling among the Iraqi Arabs of unfriendliness against the United States—feelings which would not be in the interests of either the United States or Iraq. I added that I had recently heard a rumor which I was not disposed to credit to the effect that the Iraqi censorship authorities were planning to release a number of articles containing pro-Zionist statements made by a [sic] prominent American citizens. The Minister replied that such a rumor was of course without basis and that the policy of present Government as outlined to me had undergone no change.
5. In view of the Minister’s statement to me and of the restraint which the Iraqi press has been showing in dealing with American pro-Zionist activity I am inclined to believe that in spite of the report referred to in the first paragraph of Department’s 154, September 1 [August 31] the Iraqi Government is not contemplating any kind of a campaign in the immediate future which will tend to arouse feelings against the United States. Undoubtedly the Iraqi Government censorship is holding numerous press accounts from abroad respecting statements made by Americans in favor of Zionism. I would be surprised, however, if these statements are released in the immediate future. Various conversations which I have had with the British Ambassador11 and the British Chargé in the last few months cause me to believe that the British Embassy would not encourage at the [Page 614] present time any kind of a press campaign against the United States based on American Zionist activities. Zionists are also not inactive in Great Britain.
6. I took occasion during the course of my conversation with the Foreign Minister again to draw his attention to the attitude of the American Government towards the Palestine question as outlined in Department’s 34, March 16 [15] to me and 657, March 28 to Cairo.12 The Minister expressed his appreciation of this reminder.