501.BB Palestine/4–2248: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Douglas) to the Secretary of State
top secret us urgent
London, April 22,
1948—8 p. m.
1697. For Lovett from Douglas. Deptel 1418, April 21.
- 1.
- Neither Bevin nor the Foreign Office have any knowledge of the press conference nor of the points made.
- 2.
- Bevin says that while paragraphs One to Four in your cable represent the official British position, that which was represented to have been said as summarized in the paragraph succeeding No. Four is without authority.
- 3.
- I pressed on Bevin our hope that the UK would fill the breach in
Palestine until a UN solution had been found, and made it clear
[Page 851]
to him that we had not
abandoned the hope that the UK, France and other powers might be
able to join US in sharing the burden of implementing a temporary
trusteeship if it were voted by GA.
Bevin said that he cannot participate in the use of force to impose
a regime which is unacceptable to the parties. He did, however,
write out for me the following:
“We were in fact willing to play a part if there were agreement, but much has happened since, and withdrawal has gone so far. In the absence of agreement between Jews and Arabs it is impossible to speculate, but if agreement were reached and we were approached, we would, of course, give it immediate consideration.”1
Douglas
- London, on April 23, advised of information from the British Foreign Office that the British Delegation at New York had given a press conference making the points set forth in telegram 1418 to London but that “only New York Times correspondent saw in statement hint of new British policy.” The Foreign Office also indicated that point 3 of Department’s telegram 1418 might be better expressed by saying that while the British Government would not enforce a truce, it might consider a supervisory role until August 1 if both sides were to accept a truce. (Telegram 1704, 501.BB Palestine/4–2348)↩