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

USUN Files

Transcript of Remarks Made by Mr. Dean Rusk in Conversation by Telephone With Mr. Jessup and Mr. Ross on May 11, 1948¹

Washington New York, May 11, 1948

Mr. Jessup: Did you see the newspaper stories this morning from London about the Russian-United States agreement to settle all their difficulties.² Is there anything in that?

Mr. Rusk: I think there is, yes.

Mr. Jessup: If we now make a switch over to the side the Russians have been defending³ it would be an implication that we have a deal with them on the ME.

Mr. Rusk: Yes, but regardless of what people have said, we have never fundamentally abandoned this other plan. We have taken some time out to try to get a truce and a trusteeship.

I have a simplified view of this thing. It seems if we go back to what we are after, it has been all along a peaceful settlement of this thing in Palestine. As late as March 17 we were trying to find some inkling of some sort of agreement between the Jews and the Arabs with the help of the Security Council, with some effort to adjust the partition plan to what they would accept, but we went black-out because the Arabs would not talk about it. So we shifted on March 19, the whole emphasis, to a straight truce. That truce would have taken us beyond May 15 and beyond the period when there was no government in Palestine. If we had gotten a truce we were prepared to go in on a trusteeship to formalize the truce arrangement and for that we made suggestions to various governments about going in with us to establish this trusteeship. The President never did decide we had to impose a trusteeship against the wishes of either community. At the present time the situation is we have no truce and also we have no basis here for trusteeship unless it is asked for at least by some of the parties. The UK has not asked for a trusteeship. They have not in fact turned it down but they’re playing around with this thing. The Jews certainly have not asked for it and would bitterly oppose it. The Arabs have not asked for it. Under certain conditions they might vote for it but certainly are not seeking a trusteeship.

Mr. Ross: I think they are.

Mr. Rusk: They may now but they have not made any formal proposal that that be done. They could still come in to ask for trusteeship for Arab parts of Palestine.

If the UK comes forward with a proposal for any UN responsibility, I guess we will have to extend the Mandate long enough to permit the UN to give it consideration. They certainly cannot expect action in the next few days which would indicate a change of mind on the part of the UK. The simple question is what is the UN responsibility on May 15. We clearly stated on March 19 that it will not have overall administrative governmental responsibility for Palestine. If it is to have such responsibility somebody has to ask for it. I don’t think it is up to us to ask for it if the UK, the Jews and the Arabs are not asking for it. Our interest is in a peaceful settlement and not in the interest of pushing or imposing a truce on the people of Palestine. It seems the present parliamentary situation is that we have had in fact a rejection of a truce. Rejection of the truce cuts the heart out of trusteeship unless the parties come in on a trusteeship. It seems we must pursue a truce line in the Security Council. It seems the General Assembly might among other things stand by to help but specifically the General Assembly might authorize the Trusteeship Council to establish a trusteeship for Jerusalem in negotiation with the Jews and Arabs and with suitable arrangements for security of the City and if the General Assembly authorized the Trusteeship Council to take that necessary action with regard to Jerusalem, leave the truce negotiations in the hands of the Security Council, and ask that both report back to the next Session of the General Assembly if there is further action the General Assembly might possibly take to assist in getting a peaceful settlement, we have about all we want out of the situation. It is true but the main thing across the way is if this is going to happen anyway, why don’t we go ahead and get credit for it and we are trying to break that off. It sets our noses in a direction which we can’t disregard here.

I am not assuming for the moment it is a pushover at all, nor that it will develop that way, but I think as the pattern has got to develop within the efforts of the Security Council to get a truce. Otherwise you put the General Assembly in a position of putting something on paper that either somebody will enforce or will not be represented by the facts on the ground.

I would say as soon as the Special Session adjourns, then the truce resolution, that particular paragraph, of course, dissolves, but my guess is it is a——⁴ resolution at this stage and does not really bind the parties.

I think the General Assembly should back up the Security Council truce effort. Whether you do it in terms of a specific resolution or simply by means of a strongly worded General Assembly resolution in support of the idea of a truce is something else, but I think the terms of the truce ought to be negotiated between the parties solely on the grounds of what will stop the fighting, and I don’t think the Security Council or the General Assembly should lay down terms of the truce except in direct reference to the state of affairs in Palestine.

I think we ought to go ahead in the Security Council but I do think that there is a difference between the Security Council establishing provisional measures of a stricter military nature and the Security Council ordering cessation of political activity. I think the two elements are on different footing and I think the Council ought to be careful it shouldn’t put itself in an artificial position.

It hasn’t ordered them not to but has called upon them.

Phil, I think what is likely to come out from down here, particularly across the way,⁵ is the idea that something has happened in fact over there. It is not according to plan but nevertheless there is a community in existence over there,⁶ running its own affairs. Now that community apparently is going to get an open shot at establishing itself. We have told them that if they get in trouble don’t come to us for help in a military sense. Nevertheless, I don’t think the boss⁷ will ever put himself in a position of opposing that effort when it might be that the US opposition would be the only thing that would prevent it from succeeding.

I don’t know whether the Arabs are going to do that and whether the Arabs are going to invite Abdullah in, but it seems to me that what you have there then is simply a continuation of the status quo in this sense. You have people, each fairly responsible for its own community but with a political settlement which has to be negotiated because you have these succeeding claims.

I don’t quite see—I think the way you state the possibility is entirely accurate and it may take all sorts of different forms. We have no assurance at all that there is any agreement between any Jews and any Arabs on anything. Nevertheless, unless we assume that our basic problem is a negotiated settlement between the Jews and the Arabs, then we get into the possibility of either having to enforce something or imposing something, which is merely a piece of paper, and has no connection with what is going on in Palestine.

I think the idea that they worked on here yesterday was that the Palestine Commission would be discharged of its responsibility but that the plan would stand as an expression of the views of the General Assembly on what the future of Palestine ought to be.

Ross: In principle?

Rusk: That’s right. It seems to me that one of the positive things we need do is authorize the Trusteeship Council in negotiation with the Jews and Arabs to undertake international administration for the City of Jerusalem if that can be arranged because I do think that might avoid a terrific battle between the Jews and Arabs and one which both might accept. The Jews are committed to accept it, in one sense.

Yes, I think making a full disclosure of our truce negotiations would be entirely reasonable and possible, and also, a disclosure of the basis on which they were turned down. I think, Jack, your third alternative is one which is going to be bought down here.

You, remember, Jack, that the Committee 1 effort and the trusteeship discussions have always been embarrassed by the fact—and cur basic position paper—the fellow carrying that was always looking over his shoulder at the progress of the truce negotiations and those didn’t materialize.

Yes. I can tell you right now that Bob Lovett is most anxious to have a completely clean breast of all these negotiations, and I think you can assume that our efforts from, oh, certainly March 19 on, would be a completely appropriate basis for a good statement. In other words, we have literally done our damndest on this thing. Now if it doesn’t work, we certainly aren’t going to take this thing on our own backs single-handed and it is not up to us to continue to bat our brains out on the theory we are solely responsible for what the General Assembly does on this situation and what action the Assembly takes has got to be something which is either a provisional or final solution of this thing.

That part of the GA which is critical to trusteeship is not willing to approve it.

Jessup: Yes but I think we can count on two-thirds.

Rusk: Yes, but if the UK and France are unwilling to step in and help implement it you really haven’t got anything yet.

Yes, but we have had some difficulty though calling something an administering authority which would be something less than the central government of Palestine. If the UN becomes administering authority the UN becomes responsible in X number of ways—the UK would thereby take on unbeknownst to itself an unlimited number of obligations merely because it becomes the government, and we don’t know what those obligations are, and I think our British friends would like nothing better than to trap us in an arrangement like that so that we would take on an excess number of responsibilities or liabilities.

I think if we start taking up any of these things, the only possible way would be to extend the Mandate for a long enough period to be able to consider it. The caboose has gone by on a number of this stuff and they would have to start a new train here.

Jessup: When do you think we will get some word from you, Dean?

Rusk: I definitely hope this afternoon.

I think you better be quiet during the morning unless I can call you back. I think what we can do is to go ahead on the Jerusalem thing, but don’t you think there is a possibility the General Assembly might authorize the Trusteeship Council with a certain amount of discretion to negotiate an international zone for Jerusalem?

Jessup: Yes.

Rusk: So that these truce negotiations will always have the possible element in them as one way of reducing friction between the Jews and Arabs. I hope by early afternoon we can give you the green light to go full speed ahead at a snail’s pace.

1. Mr. Rusk was in Washington; Messrs. Jessup and Ross in New York City. The transcript was classified secret.
2. For documentation on the conversations between Walter Bedell Smith, American Ambassador in the Soviet Union, and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, which took place at Moscow from May 4 to May 9, see vol. iv, pp. 845–854, passim. At the conversation on May 9, the Foreign Minister handed to Ambassador Smith the text of an oral statement, which read in part as follows: “The Soviet Government shares the desire, expressed in this statement by the Government of the USA, to better these relations, and is in agreement with the proposal to proceed with this aim towards a discussion and settlement of the difference existing between us.” The text of the statement is presented in telegram 867, May 10, from Moscow, ibid., p. 854.
3. The reference is to the Soviet support of the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab States.
4. As in the source text.
5. The White House.
6. The Jewish community in Palestine.
7. President Truman.