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

501.BB Palestine/10–2148: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Secretary of State, at Paris

top secret   us urgent
niact

Washington, October 21, 1948—7 p. m.

Telmar 86. Eyes alone for Marshall from Lovett. After careful consideration President feels that statement contained in Delga 432, October 21, would be extremely unwise and requests that reason given in paragraph (b) and last paragraph not be used under any circumstances. While he would prefer not to have paragraph (a) used, he is willing to have this argument used if considered absolutely unavoidable.

Senior advisers in Department likewise feel for quite different reasons statement as proposed would be serious mistake. We believe “reason” paragraph (b) and succeeding paragraph might be construed as open acceptance of a precedent which would be most unfortunate. With respect to paragraph (a) in its present form, we fear it may be distorted by groups here into a unilateral threat to use Chapter 7 to make security measures effective.

Our main worry is that the approach seems negative rather than positive in justification of placing the Greek or any other case on the agenda prior to Palestine. We believe the Secretary’s recent trip to Greece highlights in the public imagination our concern with conditions in that country which are aggravated by the continued disregard of previous UN resolutions and in defiance of the UNSCOB. We feel that a statement on the affirmative side might improve our case.

Furthermore, if it appeared wise inject additional question, we now have the Korean civil war threatening the government established under quasi-UN auspices.

On balance, the Department recommends against the statement as proposed and suggests that we limit ourselves to affirmative arguments in the Greek case in public debate.¹

Lovett

1. In reply on October 22, the Secretary of State informed Mr. Lovett that “Rusk and I fail to find any affirmative arguments that would not be instantly and loudly proclaimed as insincere, especially in view of present activities in the Negeb. We think we or poor Austin must generally sit silent and grin and bear it.” (Telegram Martel 73, from Paris, 501.BB Palestine/10–2248)