890F.796/6–1545
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Merriam)
| Participants: | Mr. Michael Wright, Counselor, British Embassy |
| Mr. Merriam, NE | |
| Mr. Parker, NE | |
| (Mr. Paul Ailing, former Deputy Director of NEA,25 participated in the later stages of the conversation) |
On June 14, Mr. Ailing informed me that Mr. Wright had spoken to him privately to the effect that he (Mr. Wright) was in an embarrassing position with respect to his own Government, due to the fact that he had been instrumental in obtaining the approval of the British Government for the construction of an American military airfield at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, only to learn that when we asked the King for permission to do so, we had also made a request for civil air rights.
After some checking, and conferring with AV,26 I invited Mr. Wright to come in for a discussion of the matter, and he did so on June 15.
I first apologized to him because the British Embassy had not yet received an answer to its memorandum of May 24, 1945.27 asking to be informed of the details of our request to King Ibn Saud for air facilities. I explained that an answer had been drafted promptly but had got held up in the Department, and that I had only just learned that it had not gone out. In view of Mr. Phillips’28 feeling that the substance, but not the text, of our communication to Ibn Saud should be made available to the British, I informed Mr. Wright orally of the substance and said that we expected to communicate it to the British Embassy in writing.
Mr. Wright then observed that the British Government had supported our desire to construct a military airfield at Dhahran only to find out that we had requested something quite different from the Saudi Arabian Government. It had been his understanding that we [Page 906] would ask for a military airfield only. He also observed smilingly that he had listened to strong lectures in the Department from Mr. Wallace Murray on the subject of approaches by the British representative at Jidda to the Saudi Arabian Government without informing our representative in advance.
In reply, we made the following points:
- 1.
- There may have been a divergence between his earlier informal understanding and the character of the instructions actually sent to Jidda owing to the fact that officials in the Department who had the earlier talks were away when the instructions were drafted.
- 2.
- Our representative at Jidda had taken up two matters with the King: a military airfield, and civil air rights. Thus he had not requested quite a different thing, but an additional thing.
- 3.
- We felt that we had clearance from the British Government for taking up civil air matters with Saudi Arabia by virtue of the Department’s note of October 19, 1944, to the British Embassy29 and the latter’s reply of February 16, 1945.30 It is true that our military airfield is not yet in existence, but our civil air people felt strongly that we would be shirking our responsibilities if we did not bring up the question of civil air rights at the same time we were discussing a military field, in view of the desirability of inaugurating civil air services in the relatively near future.
- 4.
- We had expressly asked for non-discriminatory civil air rights in connection with the field. We were thus, in effect, opening up the field to British civil airlines as well as to American.
- 5.
- The question remained why our Minister in Jidda had not informed his British colleague that we intended to take up the question of civil air rights with the King. We reminded Mr. Wright that despite his helpfulness, it had taken many months to get clearance from the British on the military project, during which time the Department had been under heavy and insistent pressure from the War Department. Since our civil air people felt so strongly that we should not raise the military question without also raising the civilian question, we ran the risk that, in view of obstructive British tactics throughout the Middle East to prevent our civil airlines from operating,31 the British would object to a discussion with the King of civil air rights and thus cause further delay in presenting the military plan. We emphasized that our Government felt very keenly on the subject of these obstructive British tactics. In view of the foregoing, and the fact that the King much prefers projects to be presented to him as a whole and not piecemeal, we felt obliged to consider the civil air aspect from the standpoint of general procedure in such a matter, and not from the standpoint of the special understanding as to consultation between the two Ministers in Saudi Arabia; that this matter pertained to the general question of civil aviation in the Near East and not just to Saudi Arabia as is the case with matters about which the two Ministers have had prior consultations. We said that if Mr. [Page 907] Wright desired to have a further conversation, with the Aviation Division, we would be glad to arrange it.
Mr. Wright indicated that he would do what he could with our explanation, but that he would prefer not to arrange for a talk with AV until he heard again from London.
We stated that the general policy of cooperation between Ministers in Saudi Arabia remained unchanged, so far as we were concerned.