501.BB Palestine/10–947
Memorandum by Mr. Robert M. McClintock to the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Rusk)
Subject: Palestinian perplexities
When I took your telegram1 to Mr. Lovett for signature this afternoon he said he had just been on the ‘phone with General Hilldring who, he said, “sees eye to eye with us on the constabulary thing”.
Mr. Lovett made certain emendations and deletions in the telegram as indicated in the attached copy. The telegram went out at 3:45 and the code room assures us it will be in New York by 4 o’clock.
Mr. Lovett shares our misgivings regarding the sentence in paragraph 9 on the voluntary constabulary. He said on the basis of his talk with General Hilldring that he thought this sentence came from the Secretary himself. However, Mr. Lovett did not cease to be anxious over this sentence and agreed with me that reference to a volunteer constabulary might be taken by the more wild-eyed elements both on the Jewish and Arab sides as an invitation to man and finance small [Page 1179] armies under the guise of police forces in the new Arab and Jewish States.
Mr. Lovett asked if you would communicate with General Hilldring by telephone and express again our doubts on this equivocal sentence.
Since you were engaged in a meeting and General Hilldring I found was in conference at the Hotel Roosevelt with Mr. David Niles,2 I endeavored to give the gist of Mr. Lovett’s comment to Mr. Sandifer.3 Sandifer said that the Delegation was getting conflicting reports as to the true perspective with which the Department regarded the constabulary clause. On one side (Rusk, McClintock and Co.) the Delegation was being told the Department had grave doubts as to this sentence while on the other side (Hilldring) a completely different picture was developed. Mr. Sandifer said that General Hilldring had reported from his telephone conversation with Mr. Lovett that the President did not object to American participation in the constabulary force provided it were a United Nations force and part of the over-all United Nations program for Palestine.
Mr. Sandifer thought it would be useful if you talked directly to General Hilldring in an attempt to work out these differences in emphasis.
I told Mr. Sandifer irrespective of whatever confusion he might have in mind he should be very certain to believe me when I said that the telegram enroute to New York reporting the President’s comments on Delga 264 had been annotated in Mr. Lovett’s own hand and represented the Acting Secretary’s own account of what was said at the White House this morning.