641.74/7–2253: Telegram
No. 1208
The Secretary of
State to the Embassy in
Egypt1
priority
96. Confidential for Caffery from Secretary. Your 112.2
Robertson’s statement reflects wishful thinking. We are not “backing” either Britain or Egypt. We are anxious to get the result which I specified in my public statement made in Cairo.3 In certain respects we share the British position. In other respects we share the Egyptian position and in many respects we strongly backed Egyptian viewpoint in our talks here with British.
With reference to Department’s 66 it perhaps does not sufficiently make clear that while we are concerned as to “availability” or “duration” this does not mean that we support the British formulae. On the contrary I emphasized to Salisbury that while we felt that the Egyptian formulae were too restrictive we doubted that a Brit formula should be insisted on and we assume Robertson now has some flexibility on this point. If Egyptians feel we have “let them down” remember British also disappointed we are not fully [Page 2125] backing them. Difference is British conceal their disappointment and pretend greater degree of agreement than in fact exists.
- Drafted and approved by the Secretary of State.↩
- Ambassador Caffery in telegram 112, July 21, not printed, reported that General Robertson had told him the previous evening that the British felt that, as a result of the Washington talks, the United States was supporting the United Kingdom. Robertson said, “British point of view is that as Great Britain stands behind United States in Korea, United States stands behind Great Britain in Egypt.” (641.74/7–2153)↩
- See footnote 3, Document 1179.↩