Office of the Historian

Secretary’s Daily Meetings, Lot 58 D 609

[Extract]

Memorandum by William J. McWilliams , Assistant to the Director of the Executive Secretariat

secret
[Washington,] August 26, 1949

Subject: Summary of Daily Meeting with the Secretary

Participants: The Secretary
The Under Secretary
Mr. Rusk
Mr. Kennan
Mr. Thorp
Mr. McWilliams
Mr. Nitze

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Item 3. Israeli Loan Application

Mr. Rusk reported the difficulties in which we found ourselves as a result of action by the Export Import Bank in advising the Israelis of the delay in consideration of their loan application. In accordance with the President’s directive, our object had been to drag our feet. However, the Export-Import Bank had advised the Israelis that they were agreeable to going ahead with the loan application but that the State Department had ordered it held up. Mr. McGhee was to talk to Ambassador Elath this morning and the Secretary said that he would take it up with the President at the Cabinet meeting since Mr. Niles1 had already approached the President about it.

Note: The Secretary took the matter up with the President and talked to McGhee after his return from Cabinet meeting.2

  1. David K. Niles, Administrative Assistant to President Truman.↩
  2. The editors have been unable to find any evidence of what Secretary Acheson told Mr. McGhee after the Cabinet meeting.↩