867N.01/10–2344
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Murray) to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman), Temporarily in Washington
Referring to our conversation respecting the Soviet attitude toward Palestine and other Near Eastern matters, we have telegraphed to the Embassy in Moscow and have also drafted an airmail instruction along the lines which we discussed.47
I am attaching as of possible interest and as background for your forthcoming talk with the President on this subject a number of memoranda48 which we have recently sent to Mr. Stettinius outlining the sharp reaction in the Arab world to recent pro-Zionist pronouncements in this country and the consequent effect upon our position in the Near East. Four of these memoranda are concerned specifically with the reaction of the Arabs, while the fifth summarizes the extremely interesting conversation between Mr. Hirschmann, of the War Refugee Board, and Mr. Mikhailov, of the Soviet Embassy in Ankara, regarding the attitude of Soviet Russia toward the Palestine problem.
When we consider that there are according to our best estimates about 50 million Arabs in the Near East and North Africa, as compared with half a million Jews in Palestine, it is not difficult to see why the Soviet Union, in pursuing a realistic and active policy in the Near East, should be inclined to give its support to the Arabs.
When the attached memoranda have served their purpose, we would very much appreciate your returning them, together with any comments which may occur to you.49
- Telegram 2591, November 2, 11 p.m., and instruction 346, November 7, respectively, to Moscow, neither printed. The telegraphic instruction directed that the Department be furnished with “full coverage to press articles or other developments bearing upon what is evidently a growing Soviet interest in Near Eastern affairs”; the Chargé was requested further to furnish a report on information, said by Ambassador Harriman to be in the Embassy files, concerning the Soviet attitude on Near Eastern matters, especially the Palestine question (867N.01/11–244).↩
- Five memoranda from the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs to the Under Secretary of State; for those dated October 23 and October 27, see pp. 619 and 622, respectively; others not printed.↩
- Apparently Ambassador Harriman did not make any written commentary.↩