867N.01/11–444
The Minister in Iraq (Henderson) to the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Murray)
Dear Wallace: Please don’t get the idea from my two long telegrams No. 237 and No. 238,43 relating to Zionism and the problem of Palestine that I have any intention of flooding the Department with telegraphic messages of this kind.
I am fully aware that my despatch of these two telegrams may cause certain members of the Department, and perhaps government officials outside the Department who see them to believe that I am attaching too much importance to the policy which we shall eventually adopt with regard to Palestine. Furthermore, the readers of these telegrams are likely to feel that I am rabidly anti-Zionist. I can only say that intervention by the United States on behalf of Zionists in Palestine would, in my opinion, adversely affect our relations with Iraq in every field. I have no intention of taking sides in the Palestine dispute. I am merely endeavoring truthfully to inform my Government what results might be expected in this area from its espousal of the Zionist cause. If it decides to do so, and I am so informed, I shall, of course, try in every possible way to soften the impact on Iraq. Such a task would not be easy, but I have faced tasks of a similar nature in other posts.
I sent in these telegrams because I had come to the conclusion that it was my duty to inform the Department with force and bluntness of the situation here as I see it. I felt that for me to mince words in order to save myself from hostile criticism would be cowardly. I did not send these telegrams until I had discussed them thoroughly with members of my staff and with representatives of OSS,44 OWI and of [Page 632] the Military Attaché’s office.45 These telegrams, therefore, represent our consensus, not merely my personal views.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs spent more than two hours last Sunday morning, October 29, discussing the feelings in this country with regard to Zionist activities in the United States. Our conversation was friendly and informal. He made it clear that what he said represented his own personal views and that he was making no representations of any kind to me. He appears to be deeply disturbed because of the rapidly increasing influence of the Soviet Union in this area. He said that those left-wing pro-Soviet elements in Iraq who claim to have inside knowledge of Soviet foreign policy were assiduously spreading the news that the Soviet Union if necessary would intervene to prevent the United States and Great Britain from establishing a Jewish State in Palestine and that at the proper time the Soviet Union would demonstrate to all the world who the true friend of the Arab was. He said that recent developments in Iran46 had greatly strengthened and encouraged friends of the Soviet Union in Iraq. He stated that he feared that Sa’ed would lose out in his struggle not to become a Soviet puppet and that this struggle would continue until the Government of Iran would degenerate into a mere Soviet tool.
The Foreign Minister continued that Iraq could not remain independent if it maintained close friendly relations with only one Great Power. That was one of the reasons why the Iraqi Government was so anxious to have relations with the United States as friendly as the relations which it has with Great Britain. If the American Government would prefer the support of the Zionists to the friendship of the Arabs, the Iraqis would have the choice of complete subservience to Great Britain or the establishment of close relations with the Soviet Union. Many of the more intelligent Iraqis were convinced that if Iraq is a British dependency the improvement in their political and economic conditions would be extremely slow, and would, therefore, turn to the Soviet Union which they had been taught during the present war to admire and regarding which they had little actual knowledge. He felt that in any struggle between the Soviet Union and Great Britain for predominance in Iraq, the Soviet Union would be the victor in view of its proximity and its willingness to make use of all weapons at its command in order to attain its international aims.
Sincerely,
P.S. Now that I have told my story I shall settle down to the usual routine of reporting developments.
- Received about November 14.↩
- Dated October 31, 1 p.m., and November 1, 6 p.m., pp. 626 and 628, respectively.↩
- Office of Strategic Services.↩
- Col. Paul H. M. Converse was the Military Attaché in Iraq.↩
- With regard to Soviet pressures being exerted upon the Iranian Government at this time, and in particular against the Prime Minister, Mohammed Saed, see pp. 445 ff., passim.↩