Office of the Historian

PPS Files: Lot 64 D 563: 723 Near and Middle East

Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs (Jones) to the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Nitze)

top secret
Washington, May 23, 1951.

Subject: Working Paper re Command Structure in the Middle East1

I think we will get further faster with the British if we make it very clear that our ideas with regard to the Middle East Cooperative Defense Board are put forward only as a basis for discussion. The NECDB2 represents an ideal toward which we might work in correlation with the British if the British buy the general cooperative concept.

At this stage of NE politics, NE cannot assert that even one of the Arab States would at the outset jump on the NECDB bandwagon. We know that most of them would like to do so, but Arab League solidarity is such that a snap reaction might be to boycott the NECDB, and it would take a long time to unstick this boycott.

It will obviously be highly desirable to have the British announcement (page 4 of Working Paper) refer to the concurrence of Turkey, Pakistan, the Arab States and Israel in the appointment of a British “Supreme Allied Commander”. These are the states vitally concerned and they will be quick to resent the imposition of a command structure prior to consultation with them.

If the British show themselves willing to study seriously the idea of the NECDB, the following action would be indicated:

1.
U.S. and UK should seek from their Missions in the area an estimate of the reaction in each country to the ideas in the Working Paper without a direct approach to the governments concerned.
2.
Reactions from Missions should be pooled with a view to tailoring the concept more precisely to the political problems in the area.
3.
The revised U.S.–UK Working Paper should be discussed with the French.
4.
U.S., UK and French should begin in concert to lay a careful diplomatic and military foundation in each of the states of the area in order to assure in advance their favorable reaction both to the Supreme Allied Commander and the NECDB. This stage managing in advance is of the utmost importance.
5.
UK announcement would be made.

Time is an important element, but this, in the light of inter-Arab frictions as well as Arab-Israeli frictions, is going to be a delicate political operation which could fail abysmally unless it is well handled. [Page 150] I doubt whether the program we suggest in the Working Paper could be brought into being in much less than two to three months.3

  1. Supra.↩
  2. Near East Cooperative Defense Board (NECDB) appears to be used here and elsewhere in this memorandum as an alternative usage to Middle East Cooperative Defense Board.↩
  3. The establishment of a Middle East Command within the overall NATO Command structure became the subject of intense debate and discussion between United States, British, and French civil and military officials during the latter half of 1951. For documentation on the development of the Middle East Command proposal within the NATO framework, see vol. iii, pt. 1, pp. 460 ff.↩