Office of the Historian

874.00 TA/11–1253

No. 1244
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant) to the Secretary of State1

secret
Washington, November 12, 1953.

Subject:

  • Economic Aid to Egypt.

Discussion:

Reference Mr. Byroade’s memorandum to you of today’s date in which he recommends that you or General Smith call in the British Ambassador and inform him that we plan to initiate discussions with Egypt in the immediate future with a view to granting $27.5 million in economic assistance. It is evidently proposed to tell the Ambassador that although we will consider any comments the U.K. may wish to make, we have taken our decision and feel obliged to move forward immediately.

EUR feels strongly that, as the Embassy at London reported in its telegram No. 2030 of November 10, “the British would regard it as gross breach of faith if we went ahead with economic aid to Egypt without prior consultation with the U.K.” We do not expect, nor does the Embassy, that the British will oppose aid in principle unless it appeared that we were trying to use it to encourage Naguib to resist some given British proposal. The Embassy says, and this is also our judgment, that the nature of the British reaction will undoubtedly depend on the timing rather than on the substance of our program.

We fully appreciate the value of the program of economic aid to Egypt and we raise no question whatever in this regard. We do seriously question, however, NEA’s recommendations that the British [Page 2163] should be told in effect that we have taken our decision and intend to proceed immediately without regard to their views. It has not seemed to us that the situation in Egypt has reached the point which would justify us in risking what the Embassy describes as a “gross breach of faith” in failing to consult, in the true sense of that word, with the United Kingdom. We have in mind among other things our present efforts to persuade the British to modify their position with regard to availability and uniforms, as well as their considerable sensitivity on the Egyptian problem by reason of the domestic political situation in the U.K.

Recommendation:

The U.K. should be consulted, rather than merely informed, about our plans to grant economic assistance to Egypt.

  1. This memorandum was drafted by Andrew B. Foster, Deputy Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs.↩