Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, The Near and Middle East, Volume IX, Part 1

684A.86/4–1854: Telegram

No. 803
The Ambassador in Iraq (Berry) to the Department of State¹

top secret
priority

Baghdad, April 18, 1954—11 a.m.

623. Regarding Deptel 574, April 15.² As seen from Baghdad Mr. Eden’s suggested course of action to “nibble at edges of problem seeking first frontier control” is most feasible approach. At local level without benefit of wide publicity we can make progress even on Palestine problem whereas when issues are spotlighted both sides take inflexible positions.

Unfortunately, Iraqis are convinced that actions looking toward getting the Arabs and Israelis together in UN at high level is Zionist inspired to meet Israeli needs. Unfortunately, too, the greater the pressure to bring about such a meeting the greater resistance set up.

As for getting parties together through other means, Embassy suggests that failure to act through UN would convince Arabs that western powers share Arabs lack of confidence in UN and therefore by-pass it when it does not serve their interests. Embassy not in position to comment fruitfully on (2) since it has had no direct experience with these problems.

Berry

1. Repeated to Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Jidda, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, London, and Paris.
2. Printed as telegram 407 to Amman, Document 796.