Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The Near East and Africa, Volume V

501.BB Palestine/10–1647

Memorandum by Mr. Durward V. Sandifer to the Acting United States Representative at the United Nations (Johnson)¹

secret

[New York,] October 16, 1947.

Mr. Rusk called on the telephone to pass on informally to me certain observations concerning developments or reported developments on the Palestine question.

1. There had been a report in the Department that some consideration had been given here to the possibility of a joint resolution with an Eastern European state. Mr. Rusk said that the sentiment in the Department would be strongly against such action. I told him that I knew of no suggestion or thought of such joint action with an Eastern European state.

2. Mr. Rusk stressed the necessity of maintaining a broad approach to the question of implementation and the nature and organization of the interim administration to be set up in Palestine. Some people in the Department had been disturbed at what appeared to them to be the tendency here to go into the details of the organization of the constabulary, of economic planning, of the administrative framework of the government, et cetera. The present thinking in the Department, at least at the lower levels, was that the General Assembly should limit itself to recommendations in broad terms to the mandatory power. Attention should be directed to the broadest aspects of political and geographical questions.

As to the nature of the interim administration, the questions of the administrative framework of government, of the organization of courts of law, of the organization of a constabulary, the United Kingdom as the present administering authority was the best source for detailed plans and recommendations. The Department is not in a position to turn out a blue-print of the constabulary. We cannot let the assumption arise that the question of Palestine has become solely a United Nations responsibility through the British having referred it to the General Assembly for recommendations.

I told Mr. Rusk that I was quite sure that it would be impossible for the Representative of the United States on the proposed Subcommittee of the Palestine Committee to maintain any such a narrow view of the role of the Assembly in making recommendations. What he suggested represented a responsibility for the British which they showed no indication of a willingness to shoulder. I said that I thought that if thinking in the Department was running along such lines, the Delegation should have a written directive as to the main lines of approach to be taken in working out the question of implementation. We had put the stamp of our endorsement on the proposition for partition, and we would be in a completely untenable position if we refused to come forward with help and assistance in working out the details of plans for the establishment of an interim authority and for the working out of plans for the forces necessary to enable such an authority to perform its responsibilities.

Mr. Rusk said that he merely wanted to pass on to us some of their thinking for the purpose principally of stressing the need of not accepting without reservation the British effort to transfer the whole responsibility for the Palestine question to the United Nations.

These remarks should not be taken as reflecting any position on the part of the Department. We may hear from the Department further in a few days concerning some of the questions mentioned.

I told Mr. Rusk that our understanding was that Mr. Evatt intended to bring our resolution on basic principles to a vote on Monday, and if that were approved, to proceed to a vote on the establishment of a subcommittee. The questions which he raised would have to be met in the subcommittee.

1. Addressed also to General Hilldring.