501.BB Palestine/9–3048
Memorandum for the Files by Mr. Robert M. McClintock
Mr. Lovett received a call during luncheon yesterday from Mr. Clark Clifford, who was on the Presidential train somewhere in Oklahoma. Mr. Clifford said that the President had ordered him to send a telegram to the Secretary of State in Paris, completely disavowing the statement made by the Secretary on September 21 in support of the Bernadotte Plan. Mr. Clifford said that on his own responsibility he had held up this telegram in order to consult with Mr. Lovett but that he could not delay sending the message beyond three hours. He arranged to call Mr. Lovett from Tulsa at 4:30 yesterday afternoon to get the Acting Secretary’s reactions.
Mr. Lovett conferred with Messrs. Kennan, Satterthwaite, Rockwell and myself. We were unanimous in the opinion that the President should under no circumstances disavow the Secretary of State. Not only had the President been fully informed by Mr. Lovett of the text of the proposed statement which the Secretary would make supporting the Bernadotte Plan, but the plan itself was in essence almost identical with the Department’s suggestions for territorial changes in Palestine which had been explicitly approved by President Truman on September 1 in his own handwriting. A telegram from Tel Aviv, dated September 28, indicated that even the Jewish Foreign Minister was going to Paris prepared to accept the Bernadotte Plan as a basis for negotiation. The President should be told that the Marshall statement [Page 1438] in support of the Bernadotte Plan had been made after consultation with the British Foreign Secretary, who had indicated his willingness to make a statement on Palestine favoring the Bernadotte report in the House of Commons with the explicit understanding that the Secretary would have issued a prior statement likewise in support of the Bernadotte Plan. In addition, the President should be told that after the Marshall statement of September 21 the Department had made official representations to six Arab governments and to the Provisional Government of Israel in terms of the Secretary’s statement.1 Accordingly, for the President now to disavow what the Secretary said would impugn the integrity of the United States and would have far-reaching repercussions on our foreign policy not only with respect to the Palestine problem but in every other matter where the pledged word of the United States might henceforth be regarded as valueless.
Mr. Lovett said that he would urge these considerations on the President or Mr. Clifford. He thought it prudent, however, in the event that the President should insist on sending some message to General Marshall to have a draft text which would possibly serve to meet the President’s domestic political requirements by showing that not every detail of the Bernadotte Plan need be placed into effect but at the same time not disavowing this Government’s support of the plan. Such a statement was prepared but not used.
Mr. Lovett spent an hour and a half on the telephone yesterday afternoon with Mr. Clifford, who had established himself in the freight yards at Tulsa, where the conversation was punctuated by the whistles of on-coming trains. There was a later telecon-conversation with the President at 7 p. m. As the outcome of this strenuous telecommunication debate the President was dissuaded from his original intention and compromised on a draft message which he might send to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.2 The text of this message, which is unobjectionable from the Department’s point of view, is appended to this memorandum.
As the result of this episode it was agreed this morning in consultation with Mr. Lovett and Mr. Satterthwaite that the Department would withhold its contemplated representations to the Arab Governments and Israel at least until the President has returned to Washington this weekend. Since Mr. Truman plans to make a speaking tour of New York next week at a time when the Jewish vote will be brought most urgently to his attention, it would seem that the climacteric is yet to be reached.