740.00119 Council/4–2747
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Matthews)20
| Participants: | Mr. Bevin, accompanied by Mr. Robert Dixon |
| The Secretary | |
| Mr. Matthews |
Mr. Bevin called at his request and took up a number of matters. He said that he felt he must return to London over the week-end for talks with the Dominion Prime Ministers and asked the Secretary if he would be willing to forego his Sunday meeting. The Secretary agreed.
[Here follows paragraph numbered 1, dealing with food.]
2. Palestine. Mr. Bevin spoke at some length on the subject of Palestine and urged delay in the publication of the report of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry. He said that while Britain [Page 588] was prepared to go ahead and permit the immigration of 100,000 Jews, they could not all go to Palestine immediately. What worried him most, he said, was the fact that the Jews are acquiring large supplies of arms, most of them with money furnished by American Jews, and are in a very aggressive frame of mind. He said that most of the immigrants were carefully selected for their military qualities by the Jewish Agency and he urged that we join the British in forcing the Jewish Agency to cease its aggressive tactics. He said that the point has about been reached where he must consider the possibility of a complete British withdrawal from Palestine. At present he is forced to retain four Divisions there and this cannot go on indefinitely. He realizes that after British withdrawal there might be Russian penetration in the area and that it would weaken the whole situation in the Middle East, but he sees little hope of any improvement unless we accept a share of the responsibility. He said he hoped we could send some American troops there. He indicated he would send the Secretary a memorandum on the question with particular reference to several objectionable paragraphs in the Commission of Inquiry’s report. During the course of his remarks, Mr. Bevin asserted that the Jews through their aggressive attitude were “poisoning relations between our two peoples”.
[Here follow paragraphs numbered 3, 4, and 5, dealing with Greece, the Italian Colonies and Egypt, and bases in the Pacific, respectively.]
- Mr. Matthews was attending the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers which took place at Paris, April 25–May 16.↩