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The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Department of State
108. Re Suez. Yesterday Fawzi (Egypt) at his request called on Gross and spent over an hour with Gross, Ross and Maffitt. He said he wished to do his personal best to help in present situation regarding Egyptian restrictions on trade and communications with Israel. He assured us Egypt did not fear SC meeting on Suez matter since it has done and is doing nothing which a govt in state of war with another could not do. To contrary, restrictions considerably short of maximum permissible and are being cut down. Egypt had to safeguard its sovereignty and security. Need to protect its security required Egypt to prevent Israel obtaining oil. At same time Egypt did not want to deny oil to nations of free world. Fawzi hoped some way might be found out of this paradox. He seemed concerned at possibilities presented by forthcoming SC debate and urged that nothing be done in council that would undermine Egyptian sovereignty since Egypt would be unable accept such action. He cautioned against (1) our entering SC debate without clear idea of what we wanted done and (2) “railroading through” res without giving parties chance to make their views known. He hoped there could be res agreed upon in free consultation outside of council before debate joined.
Fawzi went on to say that if anything could be done to “alleviate” burden caused us by present restrictions, he would be very happy. He suggested we explore possibilities and he asked whether SC meeting very imminent. He seemed to have in mind placating us by some gesture or other before council meeting to hear Israeli complaint. At same time he was confident we realized debate would not be confined to Suez Canal restrictions since it would be difficult to prevent whole range of UK-Egyptian problems such as 1936 treaty, Sudan, etc., from coming up.
Referring to views he expressed last autumn, Fawzi said US must attend to bolstering up of NE. He had heard our policy was to give only such military assistance to all Arab states together as we gave to Israel alone. He deprecated this. He felt we should seek to build up Arab world and regain its confidence. In this connection he made obscure recommendation that if we cannot give Arabs exactly what they want we offer them something else, to show them we are friendly. Fawzi put in disclaimer of any intention to bargain and said he was simply giving us his friendly personal advice.