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

501.BB Palestine/12–148: Telegram

The Acting Chairman of the United States Delegation at Paris (Dulles) to the Acting Secretary of State

secret
urgent

Paris, December 1, 1948—6 p. m.

Delga 1013. Last night I explained our position on Palestine to delegates of Panama, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

Briefly, I said that

(1) We had at least reached a common position with the British and were entirely in accord with the revised British resolution which was presented in Committee One yesterday. We had only reached this position after considerable discussion and compromise on both sides.

(2) By reaching this common position, we felt that we had removed the belief, which had undoubtedly been held up to present, that Arabs could count on British support and Israelis on the support of US, enabling them thus to play one against other. We also felt that present resolution gave as much consideration as possible to conflicting views of parties concerned.

(3) We felt that there was considerable chance of adoption of this resolution in toto, but that if there was continued lengthy debate and amendments were introduced, situation would become more confused and the matter might drag on in Committee One indefinitely; however, if there were sufficient support for this resolution, we felt that matter would be removed from GA, an objective which we all desired.

(4) The difficult position in which Arabs find themselves is well known. From this they can probably only extract themselves through pressure brought to bear by UN”. We have reason to believe they would acquiesce in such action.

(5) The delegates present discussed problem at length and I gathered impression that majority of them at least intended abstaining when matter came to final vote. They said, however, that what we all wanted was a solution to this long-standing problem and that if joint British-American resolution gave that, they were inclined support it, although instructions to abstain and other commitments already bound them to different course. Most of them indicated they would communicate immediately with their governments, requesting new instructions. As this cannot be counted upon, would urge Department immediately to instruct our missions in the other American Republics to communicate urgently with respective governments, urging support Anglo-American resolution by Latin American delegates here. Instructions to delegates here should be sent immediately as vote on Palestine may be reached today.

Do not consider advisable communicate with the following—Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala.

View urgency suggest Department repeat this message immediately other Latin American missions.¹

Dulles

1. The Department, by circular telegram on December 1, transmitted the text of Delga 1013 to American Ambassadors in Panama, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The Department directed that Mr. Dulles’ views be communicated informally to the respective foreign offices and authorized the Ambassadors to add that the United States Government was giving full support to the revised United Kingdom resolution on Palestine (501.BB Palestine/12–148).