414. Memorandum of a Conversation, White House, Washington, October 25, 1957, 2:50–3:45 p.m.1
PARTICIPANTS
- The President
- Prime Minister Macmillan
- Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Secretary Dulles
We discussed the position in the Middle East, particularly Turkey and Syria. I said that I interpreted the extraordinary activities of the Russians in their radio, press conferences, speeches, appeals to Socialist Parties, United Nations activities and the like as being due to a genuine fear on their part that they might be confronted with either backing down or fighting in the Middle East, and that they did not want to fight at the present time. Perhaps in two or three years from now it might be different. I said this offered a tempting opportunity to force upon the Russians a serious loss of prestige. On the other hand, if this did happen it would certainly give the Russians a powerful incentive to attempt elsewhere or hereafter to regain that prestige at our expense and we might have started a cycle of challenge and response which would lead to general war.
Furthermore, the situation was not conducive to military action, although, of course, it might become so as a result of Soviet-Syrian-Egyptian tactics. If Turkey were provoked into war with Syria the Arab neighbors of Syria, whatever their governments really felt, would feel compelled to rally to Syria’s support and it would be difficult to see how Turkey could extricate itself without leaving the Arab world united and strongly backed by the Soviet Union against all manifestations of Westernism.
The situation was not like Czechoslovakia where France and Britain were pressing Czechoslovakia to back down and consent to dismemberment, France doing so despite formal treaty obligations with Czechoslovakia.2
I said on the other hand I considered it essential to take no action which could be misinterpreted by the Turks as indicating that we had lost our nerve or become frightened by Soviet bluster. The situation in this respect called for the most careful handling.
[Page 733]I mentioned in this connection that I learned that it was planned to send our Fleet to the Western Mediterranean and that I had asked that this not be done.
The President and Mr. Macmillan indicated agreement with my diagnosis.
Mr. Lloyd then brought up the question of … support the friendly governments of Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. He felt that the latter two in particular ought to be told what military help they could count upon if they felt that they were in trouble and how quickly it could be brought to them.
It was agreed that this would be urgently studied and appropriate assurances given by the two of us wherever we could feasibly act.
Mr. Lloyd brought up the question of economic assistance as in the case of Lebanon apples, Sudan cotton, etc. It was agreed that this would be jointly studied as a matter of urgency.
[Here follows discussion of how the question of China would be handled in the Anglo-American communiqué to be issued later that day.]
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Meetings with the President. Top Secret; Personal and Private. Drafted by Dulles. The time of the meeting is from the record of the President’s Daily Appointments. Prior to this conversation, Dulles and Macmillan discussed the Turkish-Syrian matter and agreed that it should have serious consideration with the President before Macmillan left Washington. (Memorandum of conversation by Dulles, October 24; ibid., General Memoranda of Conversation)↩
- Reference is to Anglo-French dealings with Germany over the status of Czechoslovakia in 1938.↩