741.56374/1–2654: Telegram
No. 1275
The Ambassador in Egypt (Caffery) to the
Department of State1
priority
836. I showed Nasir yesterday evening a close paraphrase of Department’s 820 (repeated London 3805, Berlin unnumbered). It did not make him happy. He rehearsed usual charges that when he satisfies British on one point they always bring up another, lack of confidence, bad faith, et cetera. However, after considerable conversation he said that if US sets such store by availability he would recommend to RCC (with good prospect of RCC acceptance) that formula be extended to permit immediate availability of base in event of an attack on Arab States or Turkey. (Hitherto Egyptians have firmly refused to include Turkey). He said he could not accept formula on uniforms as drafted by British; people would say he had agreed to British simply reducing their garrison from 10,000 troops allowed by treaty to 4,000 troops.
Nasir’s views reported above refer to availability and uniforms only. Egyptians have not seen draft heads of agreement paper and consequently there was no discussion thereon.
I am convinced that if UK sincerely desires achieve an agreement step in this direction would be the preparation of new and more realistic draft (taking into account recent developments including above important Egyptian concession on availability) with [Page 2209] view to showing this to Egyptians. Also it is all the more important to go ahead with joint estimate without delay.2
- Repeated to London as telegram 282 and unnumbered to Berlin.↩
- See telegram 871 from Cairo, Document 1277.↩