Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V, Part 2

IO Files: US/A/1070, US/S/462

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Dean Rusk of the United States Delegation at the United Nations

secret

[New York,] April 20, 1948.

At my request I had an hour’s discussion with Fawzi Bey¹ at Lake Success this afternoon. I told him that I had been looking forward to an informal and personal conversation for some time and that what I had to say was of a personal rather than an official character.

I told Fawzi Bey that we had been thinking for some time about an international force which might be required in connection with a truce and trusteeship for Palestine. It seemed to us important that a number of governments who could be relied upon to carry out the wishes of the General Assembly should agree to accept responsibility for the security of Palestine if the police available to the Governor General proved inadequate. I said that it was common knowledge that this question had been raised with the British and the French but that I felt he would be interested in knowing that we had given considerable thought to Egypt’s participation along with ten or twelve other United Nations Members in such a force. Any such proposal would, of course, be presented to the Egyptian Government for its consideration and we would not wish to embarrass Egypt by raising the question if they were unwilling to participate, I said that a considerable number of states would be desirable, even if their contributions varied considerably, in order to underline the broad United Nations aspect of the question and to afford a representative group of members. Egypt’s position as a leading member of the Arab League and the moderation shown by their delegations in the United Nations had led us to believe that Egypt could play an important and helpful role in this matter.

Fawzi Bey replied that he appreciated my letting him know informally that we had been thinking about this matter and that he realized that I was not making any proposals to him. He stated that such participation would raise serious questions for them among certain Arab groups who would not be enthusiastic about Egypt playing this role. He wondered if we had considered Trans-Jordan. I told him that we had but had supposed that there would be political difficulties about Trans-Jordan’s participation, particularly in view of the fact that that country was not a Member of the United Nations and the fact that our suggestion of Trans-Jordan might be seriously misunderstood. He agreed that that might raise many difficulties. He then said that the Arabs as a whole were not very enthusiastic about international forces coming into Palestine. He did not wish to question any motives of any government but he merely wished to report the concern among many Arabs lest an international force brought into Palestine for one purpose might suddenly be turned to another. I told him that our thought was that the nations who might be willing to contribute such forces would agree among themselves by means of a special protocol as to the numbers, role and conditions of such a joint venture and that Egypt’s participation might itself be a guarantee that the agreed purposes of the international force would in fact be followed.

[Here follows Mr. Rusk’s account of the remainder of the conversation.]

1. Mahmoud Fawzi, Egyptian Representative at the United Nations.