883.20/7–2349: Telegram
The Chargé in Egypt (Patterson) to the Secretary of State
704. Supplementing Embtel 692, July 19, recording observations British Ambassador Cairo on subject status Anglo-Egyptian military talks, Minister Chapman-Andrews recently returned from London and now in charge of Embassy stated development had occurred following my conversation with Sir Ronald, July 15.
British Embassy had ascertained on 16th that agreement had been reached on military level between British and Egyptian negotiators on general plan which had been formulated on premise of existing danger of international hostilities.1 (My informant stated this did not imply hostilities actually envisaged but that a military plan to have any validity must make such assumption.) Agreement on military level had also been reached on establishment perhaps ten subcommittees for implementing details above mentioned basic agreement. However, Egyptian military fearful of risk of leakage through naming additional Egyptians to serve on these sub-committees, preferring present group (which I understood to be three negotiators including Colonial [Colonel?] Gazarine2) should handle all details. British military had refused this impractical project since implemention of basic agreement through sub-committee discussion would involve introduction number of technical experts in addition to few high-ranking military who have formulated basic agreement.
Chapman-Andrews, without being specific concerning exact terms basic agreement, indicated Egyptians would not insist on British evacuation of troops from Egyptian territory, in view of thesis on which basic agreement predicated, namely that international hostilities should be regarded as matter of relatively near future.
Chapman-Andrews added that while King Farouk had mentally accepted basic agreement, which had been reduced to writing, his own task would be to sell agreement (plus means of implementing it through studies by technical Sub-Committees) in talks with Prime [Page 222] Minister and Foreign Minister which he had already requested. He definitely stated that in addition to HM and military negotiators, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister were conversant with Anglo-Egyptian military talks.
On my alluding to American unwillingness to enter tripartite military conversations on Egypt, Chapman-Andrews stated US position now understood and accepted. Above mentioned basic agreement specifically referred to “allies” of British and Egypt without naming either such allies or potential enemy.
Sent Department 704, repeated London 82.
- The Office of the Military Attaché at the Embassy in the United Kingdom, on August 5, reported to the Department of the Army that under the tentative agreement the Egyptians recognized the necessity for peacetime British bases in Egypt and the British agreed to sell equipment to the Egyptians for their ground and air forces (telegram 75366, 883.20/8–549). The telegram also set forth the British view that the talks proceed to the Egyptian Cabinet level after the October elections, to avoid having the treaty become a major political issue in the elections.↩
- Possibly Ibrahim Hasan Gazarine, a high official in the Egyptian Ministry of War.↩