88. Editorial Note
On December 22, at the 271st meeting of the National Security Council, Allen Dulles, in his review of developments affecting United States security, presented a report on the Baghdad Pact and the latest developments in the Buraimi area. The memorandum of discussion reads in part as follows:
“Mr. Allen Dulles said that he would next comment on developments in the Middle East. The British, he said, had been lately flexing their muscles in this area and, as a result, creating certain problems for the United States. In the first instance, they had pressured Iran into joining the Baghdad Pact. This had been followed by the quarrel with the Saudi Arabians in the Buraimi area. Now they have been trying to push Jordan into the Baghdad Pact. The results had been a failure, as indicated by the riots which had broken out in Jordan on the 15th of December. The riots had been stimulated in part by bribes from Saudi Arabia and in part by inflammatory broadcasts by the Cairo radio. The results had been a severe blow to the British and, to some extent, to Western prestige.
“Secretary Dulles pointed out that he had strongly urged Foreign Secretary Macmillan not to put pressure on Jordan to join the Baghdad Pact. Agreeing with Secretary Dulles that this had been a very unwise move, the President said that, unlike the British, we had always gone on the theory of not getting any country having common frontiers with Israel into the Baghdad Pact. Mr. Allen Dulles commented that the only explanation was the hope of the British to restore something of their lost prestige in the Middle East.
“Mr. Dulles then reported the latest developments in the Buraimi area, commenting that the British move was designed to bring the disparate sheikdoms all under the control of one pro-British sheik, thus enabling the British to maintain their oil rights against the claims of Saudi Arabia.
“The Vice President wondered whether General Templer could have influenced British policy as a result of his position in the Middle East. The Vice President added that when he had visited the Far East, he had encountered few people who had a keener understanding of Communism or who had dealt with it more effectively than General Templer. It seemed to the Vice President impossible that Templer could have carried out such stupid courses of action as described by Mr. Dulles, unless he had been under direct orders from the British Government in London. The President pointed out that the British Chiefs of Staff were even more tightly meshed in with the civilian elements of the government in Great Britain than the Chiefs of Staff were in the United States. He shared the Vice President’s estimate of Templer’s qualities, and was sure that in the Middle East Templer was carrying out the orders of his civilian superiors.” (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records)