Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1955, Volume XIV

205. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Secretary of State and Francis H. Russell of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs, Washington, August 20, 1955¹

Washington, August 20, 1955

SUBJECT

• Alpha Operation: Points Discussed with Secretary

Mr. David Muirhead of the British Embassy delivered to me about 4 p.m. today Mr.Macmillan’s reply² to the Secretary’s letter of yesterday to him.³ I called the Secretary and he asked me to come to his home. The following points were discussed there.

With respect to Macmillan’s suggestion that the British and American Ambassadors in Baghdad inform Nuri in confidence that we have agreed that the Iraq forces should be equipped with British tanks and that we are providing 12 to begin, I told the Secretary that our communications to date had merely dealt with the specific 10 tanks and had not committed us to the broader proposition that “Iraq forces should be equipped with British tanks.” The Secretary said that he knew that the President’s thinking was along the line of approval of the proposition suggested by Macmillan and he told me that I should inform Mr. Muirhead that we concurred in the British Ambassador making such a statement to Nuri but that we felt that it would be better for our Ambassador not to make the statement at this time unless queried by Nuri, in which case he might confirm it.

I was also to inform Muirhead that the Secretary is agreeable to omitting the phrase “land and buildings”; that the Secretary feels that if that change is made the word “full” in the following sentence should be changed to “adequate.”⁴

With respect to Macmillan’s suggestion for the omission of “the first sentence”, it is not clear to which sentence he is referring as the paragraphing, due to telegraphic transmission of the text used by Macmillan, may be different. The Secretary thought, however, that Macmillan might be referring to the sentence beginning “The existing lines separating Israel” and possibly the following sentence “They were not designed [etc.].”⁵ If that is so, the Secretary is inclined to agree but feels that it may require a little further redrafting of the section. We will give to the British Embassy on Monday our suggestions in this respect. (It later developed that the Macmillan suggestion was different from this and I so informed the Secretary.)

The Secretary also asked me to request the British Embassy to convey to Macmillan his appreciation for the UK accommodation to the Secretary’s time schedule.⁶

The Secretary authorized me to tell the Council on Foreign Relations to send out the letters of invitation to the Friday afternoon meeting.

The Secretary said that he would have no objection to his speech being carried by radio and thought that would probably be a good idea.One of the local New York stations would probably be glad to carry it if the national hookup did not. The Secretary thought that in any event USIA should arrange to make a recording of it.

I told the Secretary that I thought that it was desirable that he inform Ambassador Lodge of his forthcoming speech now that it was definitely decided to go ahead with it. The Secretary said that he would put in a call for Lodge right away.⁷ He also said that he was seeing Lyndon Johnson tomorrow (Sunday) and intended to say something to him about it.⁸

1. Source: Department of State,S/S–NEA Files: Lot 61 D 417, Alpha Volume 7. Top Secret; Alpha. Drafted by Russell.
2. Document 203.
3. Document 201.
4. Dulles, like Macmillan, was referring to his draft statement of August 19; see footnotes 3 and 4, Document 203.
5. Brackets in the source text.

6. A memorandum of August 22 from Russell to Dulles states that on August 21 the British Embassy had given him a message from Macmillan replying to the oral message from Dulles which Russell had given to the Embassy the previous day. The message reads in part as follows:

   “With regard to the date, I confirm that I agree to work to August 26th.

   “With regard to the tanks, I will instruct H.M. Ambassador to speak accordingly to the Iraqi Prime Minister and say that he does so ‘with the knowledge and approval of the U.S. Govt’.” (Department of State,S/S–NEA Files: Lot 61 D 417, Alpha Volume 7)

7. The Secretary telephoned Ambassador Lodge at 11:23 a.m., August 22, and informed him that the speech would be given on August 26 and that it would “be about the Middle East.” (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations)
8. Dulles informed Senator Johnson on August 21 of his impending statement.Johnson in turn, according to Dulles’ memorandum of the conversation, “indicated that he thought it was appropriate for us to make our position clear.” (Ibid., General Memoranda of Conversation)