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

Clifford Papers

Memorandum by the Presidents Special Counsel (Clifford)

[Washington ?,] May 8, 1948.

In a conversation with Mr. Dean Rusk this morning, May 8th, he indicated the following:

Considerable doubt as to the advantage of the British “Neutral In a conversation with Mr. Dean Rusk this morning, May 8th, he Authority Plan”. He more or less characterized the British position as one of doing nothing between now and May 15th when the mandate is surrendered.

2. He believes that sufficient votes are available in the General Assembly to approve a simplified trusteeship for Palestine if a truce is not obtained before the 15th. He sees such a simplified trusteeship plan as amounting to a substitute for the November 29th Resolution, with the advantage of placing the Arabs in the position of being brought before the Security Council in case of invasion after the 15th. (Of course this is true now to the same extent with respect to the November 29th Resolution; and the Jews would be faced with similar Security Council action if they forcibly oppose such a trusteeship).

3. Mr. Rusk indicates that the chief desire of the United States is for a truce agreement before the 15th. It is probably that the so-called simplified trusteeship plan, for which Mr. Rusk believes the necessary votes are available, is being held in reserve pending efforts to obtain a truce.

I urged that the United States take no position between now and the 15th which would tie the hands of the United States after May 15th. I pointed out the likelihood that the Jew and the Arab States would be proclaimed and the United States should then be in a position to deal with the result and that a truce was just as likely to be feasible then as between now and the 15th; that there was strong indication of actual partition now and we should be in a position to reconcile the two peoples under the actual situation without creating a United Nations’ legal substitute for partition; that there was just as much danger of continued conflict under such a substitute as under the existing Resolution and that when each had made proclamations there might be a better chance of conciliation. I said that if the United States were seeking an armed truce without a political truce there would be no difficulty.

Mr. Rusk denied that there was actual partition along the lines of the November Resolution, saying that the Jews were in control of only about one-third of the area of the Jewish State as described in the November Resolution. He meant that Negeb was not under their control and indicated the problem would be simpler if in November the delineation of the Jewish State had been different.

The matter seems to me to sum up as follows:

1. The United States as represented in this conversation with Mr. Rusk prefers and thinks it can obtain a simplified trusteeship plan in preference to the British neutral authority plan, unless the efforts of the United States for a truce succeed;

2. Mr. Rusk prefers such a trusteeship plan to leaving the November 29th Resolution untouched when May 15th arrives. He does not see the British plan as seriously impairing the November 29th Resolution;

3. The present principal effort of the United States is directed towards a truce, armed and also political in the sense of excluding the proclamation of States.