501.BB Palestine/12–649
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Secretary of State
Subject: Voting in the UN on Jerusalem
The Secretary called Mr. Connelly at Key West this afternoon to report on the situation which would take place this afternoon in the United Nations on Jerusalem. He was doing this not to bother the President or to get any decision from him, but to explain what might seem a course by the United States delegation contrary to the President’s clear instructions. The Secretary said that he did not think that the proposed course was contrary to the instructions but thought that perhaps early press reports might look as though it were.
The Secretary said that his clear basic instructions from the President on this question of Jerusalem were that the United States should stick with the Palestine Conciliation Report unless and until something better comes along. If an agreement could be worked out between [Page 1523] the Jews, some of the Arabs, and some of the Christian countries, the United States would be for that, but for the present, it is clear that we should not abandon the Committee Report in which we participated.
However, a subcommittee had been created which had made a report in the Committee of the whole. In this report, some of the South American countries and some of the Arab countries not involved directly, want to go back to the idea of a separate state for Jerusalem. The Secretary said that that had not been possible last year and it would not be possible now since neither the Jews nor Transjordan would accept it. However, the proposal has a majority of two. The Secretary said that we would vote against this.
The Swedes and the Dutch have brought up a proposal which may have a good deal of merit. Their proposal is to work out something along the lines of the PCC report, but less formal and less complicated. The United States position on this will be that we are not going to vote for that in the Committee but if, between the time it leaves the Committee and reaches the floor of the United Nations, the delegates could get together on this or some modification, the United States might be inclined to go along. At this point, however, if we voted for it, we would have everyone down on us; if we voted for the subcommittee report we would have the Jews down on us. The Secretary pointed out that we are now for the first time in the fairly good position when we can say to the Vatican and the Jews that they should get together and talk to each other, but that we were not going to coerce them.