867N.01/3–2748
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Henderson) to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
On the morning of March 20 Sir John Balfour and Mr. Bromley of the British Embassy called on me in order to discuss the statement [Page 768] made on the preceding day in the Security Council by Senator Austin on Palestine.
During the course of our conversation I stressed the importance of British and American cooperation in bringing about a cessation of fighting in Palestine and in working out a temporary trusteeship for Palestine which would facilitate the maintenance of law and order in that country until a permanent solution of the Palestine problem could be achieved by peaceful means. I referred to certain efforts which our respective governments had been making to cooperate in maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East; I said that the one area with regard to which we had not been following parallel policies was Palestine; and I pointed out that the time seemed to have come when the two Governments could cooperate to their mutual advantage and in the interests of world peace in disposing of the Palestine problem. I added that the British could not escape the repercussions of civil war in Palestine merely by pulling out their troops. Developments threatening to undermine the security of the Middle East could not be ignored by Great Britain any more than by the United States. In fact Great Britain stood to lose more than the United States in case the tranquillity of the Middle East should be seriously disturbed. I realized that the British did not wish alone to continue to bear the main burden of maintaining law and order in Palestine. I could understand the desire of the British to terminate the mandate and withdraw their troops from Palestine as soon as possible. Nevertheless, the American Government hoped that the British Government would be willing to maintain British troops in Palestine for a short time beyond May 15 in case it should so transpire that an effective trusteeship regime could not be set up by that date.
Balfour and Bromley promised to submit the request at once to their Government by telegram. They said that they felt that the British Government, in any event, would not wish to indicate that it would be willing to retain British troops in Palestine beyond May 15. Such an indication would give rise to public resentment in Great Britain and might result in a relaxation of the efforts of members of the United Nations to bring about a speedy solution of the problem. I agreed that it might not be wise for Great Britain to indicate publicly at this time its willingness to retain troops beyond May 15. I said, however, that we would like to have some private assurances in that regard. I added that various offices in the Department had been working on draft trusteeship agreements and that within a few days I might be able informally to show the Embassy some of the results of this work.
On March 26 Sir John Balfour and Mr. Bromley came in to see me again and left with me the attached top secret message from the [Page 769] Foreign Office1 as well as the attached paraphrase of a telegram from the Foreign Office to Cadogan.2
During the course of the conversation I again emphasized how important it was in their own interest that the British should cooperate with us in the Palestine matter. I also handed to Balfour and Bromley copies of drafts which had been prepared in the Department of trusteeship agreements for Palestine. One of these drafts provided for the United Nations as administering authority and the other for the United States, Great Britain and France as the administering authority. I said that these drafts had been prepared at working levels; that they were still in an unfinished stage and would, of course, be subject to many alterations; that I had not had an opportunity myself to read them, and I doubted that any other director had read them. I said that I was handing them to the British Embassy, however, with the idea that it could send copies to the Foreign Office so that the working levels of the Foreign Office would understand the way in which the working levels of the Department of State were thinking. I stressed the fact that the documents in question should be treated as top secret.
Balfour said that he would send the drafts with the explanation which I had given him to the Foreign Office by courier leaving Washington on Sunday, March 28.3
- Not printed.↩
- The paraphrase read: “The American appeal that we should support their new proposals on Palestine places us in a great difficulty. I sympathise with the motives which have led the United States Government to make this last minute effort to avert civil war in Palestine. But I feel that, for the time being at any rate, we must maintain our consistent line of abstention. The accusation has already been made, during last night’s debate in the House of Commons on the Palestine bill, that the new American move was concerted with His Majesty’s Government, and any support you gave to Austin in the Security Council would lend colour to this suspicion. For this reason I doubt whether our support would be helpful to the United States Government in dealing with their public opinion.” The Foreign Office message was dated March 24.↩
- Mr. Ross, on April 12,
transmitted telegraphically to Mr. Rusk the text of an aide-mémoire dated April 9 left with him by
Sir Alexander Cadogan. The message underscored the Foreign Office’s
doubts as to prospects for an agreement between the Arabs and the
Jews on the basis of the trusteeship proposals handed by Mr.
Henderson to Sir John Balfour on March 26.
The aide-mémoire stated that there was little reason to suppose that the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine would come to an understanding on a plan for self-government; that the trusteeship would prove to be an interim one in name only; that the provisions proposed for terminating the trusteeship would rule out any possibility of partitioning Palestine, a factor which might cause rejection of the proposed trusteeship by the Jews; that the Arabs would oppose the trusteeship agreements in that they postponed independence indefinately and empowered the Jews to veto the constitution of an independent unitary state; and that the Arabs would object to the immigration and land transfer provisions in the trusteeship proposals. (Telegram 425 from New York, 501.BB Palestine/4–1248)
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