Office of the Historian

684A.85322/1–1454: Telegram

No. 767
The Ambassador in Syria (Moose) to the Department of State1

secret
priority
Damascus, January 14, 1954—7 p.m.

278. Embassy telegram 275, January 13. In two hour conversation January 13 Shishakli outlined GOS position re Security Council resolution (Embassy telegram 275) US economic aid and unified plan (see accompanying telegram) and source area tensions. Syrian President appeared rested showing no evidence rumored paralysis [Page 1478] or eye operation (see Embtel 265 January 9).2 He spoke without emotion but was unyielding throughout.

Queried at outset re Syrian engineering study Banias diversion possibilities (Embtel 245, December 17),3 Shishakli stated completed report now being examined by Syrian authorities. Despite earlier promise furnish copy promptly he said Secretary General Public Works now in Cairo and could not give Embassy text until his return “in week or so”.

When informed relationship between US economic aid and GOS attitude unified plan (Deptel 259 December 18)4 Shishakli reiterated Syrian inability participate in plan until existing UN resolutions re Palestine made effective (cf Embtel 245). Declared USG increasing area tensions by pressing for plan and persistence in this policy would more than offset any good done by economic aid.

I asked whether Shishakli desired reduce regional tensions. President said yes, but proper approach was for USG eliminate cause tension, namely US aid Israel. He denied aid and unified plan advantageous Syria, asserting Israel principal beneficiary plan, with Syria receiving virtually nothing. Furthermore “tying” aid to plan seemed to him show present administration just as subject Jewish influence as its predecessor.

Comment: Embassy believes Shishakli’s attitude represents considered policy partially worked out in long conversation with Zeineddine January 10 (Embtel 271 January 12). That Syrian President ready see Ambassador Johnston again is possibly favorable factor. Shishakli’s reason for delay in supplying copy Banias engineering study is not convincing.

Moose
  1. Repeated to Amman, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Jerusalem, Jidda, London, Moscow, Paris, and Tel Aviv.↩
  2. Not printed, but see footnote 2, Document 762.↩
  3. In telegram 245 from Damascus, Dec. 17, Ambassador Moose reported on a conversation of Dec. 12 with Shishikli, in which he informed the Syrian President that the Department hoped Syria would not take a rigid position with respect to the reuse of Banias waters in Syria. Shishikli noted that the TVA plan had both political and technical aspects, declaring that an arrangement between Israel and the riparian Arab states was implicit in the proposals even if an international agency acted as an intermediary. These states, he said, could not undertake such an arrangement with Israel until existing U.N. resolutions with respect to Israel were carried out. (783.5 MSP/12–1753)↩

  4. Telegram 259 to Damascus, a joint State-FOA message dated Dec. 18, stated in part as follows:

    “While we wish to ‘relate’ economic aid to unified plan to extent of at least reiterating US interest from time to time during negotiations and while we may in number cases eventually make such aid conditional upon acceptance plan, we do not intend make acceptance prerequisite for allotment fiscal 1954 funds for Latakia, Ghab and Jezirah projects which were proposed Sept. 29 before development present US position.”

    The telegram then stated that it was essential that the Syrian Government not be informed of this position at this time. (783.5 MSP/12–1853)

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