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  4. Document 1344

Truman Papers

No. 1344
President Truman to Prime Minister Churchill 1

[ Babelsberg ,] July 24, 1945.

Memorandum

Subject: Palestine

There is great interest in America in the Palestine problem. The drastic restrictions imposed on Jewish immigration by the British White Paper of May, 1939,2 continue to provoke passionate protest from Americans most interested in Palestine and in the Jewish problem. They fervently urge the lifting of these restrictions which deny to Jews, who have been so cruelly uprooted by ruthless Nazi persecutions, entrance into the land which represents for so many of them their only hope of survival.

Knowing your deep and sympathetic interest in Jewish settlement in Palestine, I venture to express to you the hope that the British government may find it possible without delay to take steps to lift the restrictions of the White Paper on Jewish immigration into Palestine.

While I realize the difficulties of reaching a definite and satisfactory settlement of the Palestine problem, and that we cannot expect to discuss these difficulties at any length at our present meeting, I have some doubt whether these difficulties will be lessened by prolonged delay. I hope, therefore, that you can arrange at your early convenience to let me have your ideas on the settlement of the Palestine problem, so that we can at a later but not too distant date discuss the problem in concrete terms.

  1. Submitted to the Protocol Subcommittee. On the Russian original is the following typed notation in Russian: “Approved by Comrade Molotov 29. vii. 45.” and the following manuscript notation in English: “Syria & Lebanon for Protocol.” The following translation of this text, headed “Syria and the Lebanon”, was included in a third draft of the Protocol prepared by the British Delegation and annotated “Compared with U.S. Text and agreed 30.7.45.” (file No. 740.00119 Potsdam/7–3045): “At the suggestion of the Soviet Government, there was an exchange of views at the Conference on the situation in Syria and the Lebanon.” No section on this subject, however, was included in the Protocol (document No. 1383, post).↩
  2. A copy of Grew’s telegram No. 7 of July 9 to Byrnes (see vol. i, document No. 648, footnote 1) is attached to the source copy of this memorandum in the Truman Papers.↩