867N.01/5–1346: Telegram
The British Prime Minister (Attlee) to President Truman 40
Personal and Top Secret. I have now been able to consult the Foreign Secretary and the Cabinet on your message of 8th May concerning Palestine. We agree that the consultations with the Jews and Arabs to which both our Governments are committed should be initiated as quickly as possible. I hope however that in view of the delicate negotiations which we are at present conducting in Egypt, you will feel able to postpone any approach to the parties concerned until 20th May at the earliest.
We also think that the suggested period of two weeks is too short for the Arab Government and Jewish Organisations to prepare and submit their views on the Anglo-American Committee’s recommendations and that it would be preferable to allow them one month.
As I said in my previous telegram we think it important that there should also be some provision for the study by expert officials of our two Governments of the implications of the Committee’s Report, with particular reference to the military and financial liabilities which would be involved in its adoption. We would prefer these official discussions between experts to precede the consultations with Jews and Arabs, but if this suggestion does not meet with your approval they can be conducted either simultaneously with or after those consultations.
It also seems to us most desirable that as a final stage in the consultations which we are contemplating every effort should be made to convene a conference at which Arab and Jewish representatives would meet with representatives of our two Governments to consider the whole question on the basis of the Committee’s report and of the results of the preliminary consultations both between Arabs and Jews and between our own experts.
Our two Governments would then be in a position to make known their decisions on the issues dealt with by the Committee of Enquiry, having had the fullest opportunity of bringing their own views into harmony and of promoting the largest possible measures of agreement between the other interested parties.
- Transmitted to President Truman by the British Embassy on May 13; copy received by the Department from the same source the following day.↩