Secretary’s Letters: Lot 56 D 459: “Palestine”
Memorandum of Conversation, by G. McMurtrie Godley of the Office of Western European Affairs
| Participants: | French Embassy | —Mr. Daridan |
| Mr. van Laethem | ||
| Mr. Rosaz | ||
| Lt. Col. Maniard from Gen. Ely’s staff | ||
| Defense Department | —Capt. G. S. Patrick—OSD | |
| State Department | —Mr. G. Lewis Jones—NE | |
| Mr. G.M. Godley—WE |
Mr. Lewis Jones opened the meeting by referring to the discussion, on May 17, 1951, in Admiral Sherman’s office,1 between the French Ambassador, Admiral Sherman and Mr. McGhee at which time the proposed American program to assist the Near East economically and militarily was discussed in general terms. A part of this discussion dealt with the question of the supply of arms to the Arab States and Israel. Since that time the Department of State and the Department of Defense have been giving considerable thought to this problem and have put down on paper some preliminary thoughts on how the supply of arms to the Arab States and Israel might be correlated between the U.S., France and the U.K. Mr. Jones gave a copy of this paper (enclosure A)2 to Mr. Daridan and said that we would be extremely interested in receiving at an early date the reactions of the French Government. Meanwhile did Mr. Daridan have any questions?
After reading the document carefully, Mr. Daridan thanked Mr. Jones for making it available and said that he would refer it immediately to Paris. He continued that neither he nor the other French representatives present were in a position to make any substantive comments on the points set forth but that there might be a few paragraphs on which they would like further information. In this connection he referred to paragraph B(2) which indicated that [Page 169] impartiality consistent with strategic considerations must be preserved between the Arab States and Israel. Reverting to Admiral Sherman’s discussion with Ambassador Bonnet Mr. Daridan asked if we were thinking of a 50–50 distribution between Israel on the one hand and the Arab States on the other.
Mr. Jones replied that this, of course, was an extremely delicate and difficult matter which would have to be examined with great care and discretion. We, therefore, proposed a tripartite exchange of views as outlined in Section C of the paper, for not only must we maintain strategic balance in the area but also it was felt necessary to arm the area as a whole for the reasons set forth in paragraph A.
Mr. Jones offered to explain to Mr. Daridan the criteria we considered in determining the amount of economic aid in the M.S.P. and Mr. Daridan said he would be grateful if Mr. Jones would do so.
Mr. Jones continued that we envisaged 23.5 million dollars to the Arab States, 23.5 million dollars to Israel, plus 50 million dollars to be accorded to the Arab refugees which latter sum would be largely spent in the Arab States. This would permit us to point out to the Arab States that they would be receiving 23.5 million dollars plus 50 million dollars to be spent on refugees. At the same time Israel could be advised that it would receive 23.5 million dollars and that 50 million dollars would be spent on the Arab refugees who constitute a direct threat to Israel’s security. In addition to these sums the House of Representatives had recently, on its own, added 50 million dollars to be spent as the President deemed advisable on behalf of refugees entering Israel. As this figure was not included in the administration’s request, we did not know whether it would survive further Congressional processes.
As regards economic assistance, Mr. Jones said this could not be granted on the basis of population; a much sounder basis is the capacity of countries to absorb economic assistance and this bears little or no relation to the number of their inhabitants. While we do not believe the Arab States could absorb more than 23.5 million dollars in aid Israel had asked for 150 million dollars. On the basis, however, of balance-of-payments factors we judged that 23.5 million dollars is the correct figure for Israel.
Mr. Daridan then referred to the question of correlating our military assistance and alluded to the rather special military and political relation that exists between France on the one hand and Syria and Lebanon on the other. He added that his Government was more and more aware of the necessity of tripartite cooperation in the area and that only by such collaboration could a serious crisis be averted.
Mr. Jones concurred with these views and stressed that this collaboration must be with rather than against the States involved and that [Page 170] the undercover nature of the collaboration was essential. Mr. Daridan concurred. Mr. Jones again referred to the political objective of our aid program, pointing out that it must be clear to recipients that we are trying to assist them rather than “gang up” against them.
Lt. Col. Maniard inquired whether Mr. Jones would elaborate on the question of the control or exchange of information organization, to which Mr. Jones replied that it is intentionally left vague in that we desire to receive French and British thoughts on the question and also their views as to where the body might be located most usefully. Speaking purely for himself Mr. Jones said he personally thought the mechanism might be quite simple and might consist of one or two officers from each of the countries, keeping records, exchanging information, and making recommendations. He and Mr. Daridan agreed that this would be a delicate matter in that under no circumstances should either the Arabs or the Israeli suspect that information regarding their arms requests were being exchanged: security would have to be strictly maintained.
Mr. van Laethem asked whether we envisaged any tie-in between the correlation agency and the Standing Group.3 Mr. Jones and Capt. Patrick replied that there are obviously many theater, command, and regional decisions to be made: at this meeting we were interested principally in having the tripartite arms agency established as soon as possible. It might be adopted as a going concern by some larger command set-up.
Colonel Maniard inquired what arms we thought of giving and to whom and Mr. Jones said that this obviously had not yet been decided. We were principally concerned with improving the political and economic stability of the area, partly as a means of checking Soviet infiltration of the area but mostly for its own sake. It was necessary to reduce the gulf created by the Palestine problem. Our principal object now was to get ahead with the job of establishing some sort of a tripartite arms body.
In concluding Mr. Jones emphasized that the paper given to the French was in no way rigid and that it was merely meant to serve as a basis for future discussions and exchange of ideas with the French and British.
Mr. Daridan thanked Mr. Jones for what he called “an extremely interesting document” and said he hoped to have views of his Government in the near future.
Mr. van Laethem subsequently asked Mr. Godley what control mechanism we envisaged establishing in recipient countries. He was informed that this would depend no doubt on provisions of the legislation and also on the size and types of military equipment made available [Page 171] to the various nations. Some type of MAAG arrangements might be established but this would depend not only on the legislative provisions but also the results of the tripartite discussions.
- See memorandum of conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs, May 17, p. 130.↩
-
Same as Enclosure A to memorandum of conversation, May 17, p. 139, with the addition of the following sentences to the end of the final paragraph:
“The procedure under which the tripartite agency would operate would be:
- “1. States applying for arms would submit their requests to the government of the supplying country concerned;
- “2. The government of the supplying country would dispatch a copy to its own representative on the tripartite agency;
- “3. That representative, after giving copies to the other representatives on the agency, would obtain an agency recommendation on the request;
- “4. The appropriate representative on the agency would submit the recommendation of the agency to his government.”
- Reference is to the Standing Group of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.↩