890E.01/5–1245
The Lebanese Minister (Malik) to the Secretary of State, at San Francisco3
Sir: I have the honor to bring to Your Excellency’s attention the following information which I received from my Government.
The French General Delegation in Lebanon informed our Foreign Minister verbally that a French cruiser was arriving in Beirut with 800 Senegalese soldiers on board destined to be disembarked there for the purpose of relieving other troops. Whereupon our Foreign Minister handed a note to the French General Delegation in Beirut dated May 3 [5] in which he emphasizes that independent and sovereign Lebanon is right in demanding of the Allies the respect of international usage in regard to the presence or passage of Allied troops upon Lebanese soil even where relief of troops was only involved. The Foreign Minister then stated that he regarded it indispensable that in the future measures of this nature should be the object of a previous agreement between the Lebanese Government and Allied interested Authorities. While Lebanon will always aid its Allies [Page 1074] by every means in its power in bringing the war to a victorious conclusion, by facilitating in every way their task especially in regard to the displacement of their troops, it must insist, the Foreign Minister concludes, upon a previous agreement in circumstances similar to those above-mentioned.
The outcome of this unfortunate incident has been that public opinion in our country has become once again anxious for our independence. With such anxiety it is impossible to concentrate on the twofold task ahead of us, that of helping to bring the war in the Far East to a victorious end and that of building up a wise and just international order for the maintenance of international peace and security. We are interested in both tasks, because we declared war on Japan, and because we are here in San Francisco trying with our sister United Nations to project a charter for a lasting peace.
Owing to the uneasy tension of public opinion in Lebanon, my Government fears the outbreak of public disorders; and owing to our membership in the Arab League, such disorders may easily spread to our neighboring sister Arab countries. It is because such disorders (or even their possibility) are obviously not in the interest of our common war effort, nor of the success of our deliberations here in San Francisco, that I thought it fit to bring this whole matter to Your Excellency’s attention.4
Permit me to seize this opportunity [etc.]
- The Secretary of State was head of the American delegation attending the United Nations Conference on International Organization held at San Francisco from April 25 to June 26, 1945. The message was telephoned to the Department on May 13 by Mr. Alling, then serving as a Political and Liaison Officer in the American delegation (890E.01/5–1345), and sent by him to the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs the following day.↩
- In a memorandum of May 17, 1945, to the Acting Secretary of State, the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs referred to a telephone conversation with his Deputy Director at San Francisco and stated: “Mr. Ailing added that some of the Arab delegations, particularly the Syrian and Lebanese, had approached the American delegation with the suggestion that the recent action of the French in landing forces in the Levant without the consent of the Levantine governments be brought before the Conference, or at least be discussed informally among the interested delegations in San Francisco. Mr. Ailing said that Mr. Stettinius felt that it would be inopportune for the Levantine problem to be injected into the discussions at San Francisco, and that the matter should be handled in Washington.” (890D.01/5–1745)↩