Office of the Historian

240. Telegram From the Embassy in Saudi Arabia to the Department of State1

Jidda,August 30, 1955—8 p.m.

88. Supplementing my telegram 82, August 27 [28].2

1.
Embassy Arab consultant3 reports that when handing Prince Faisal copies English and Arabic texts Secretary’s statement His Highness spoke with unwonted fervor substantially as follows:

“Why should I read it; let those whose task it may be to comment do so. Did I not give your Ambassador my personal view?: We can never live with Israel. Will Americans ever understand this fact; nothing they can do can change it.

“They will probably say in Washington I am their enemy, as an officer in their Near East section recently said. But why; I am simply speaking truth, truth which every Arab feels.

“No such statement can really help. Why should America concern itself with us or with Israel; let it pull out and leave us alone. Such interference can only injure Saudi-American relations.

“What they are doing is against nature. It may have temporary result; but in last analysis only one of us can be sovereign in Palestine”.

2.
As yet there has been no editorial comment in only Saudi daily newspaper, semi-officialBilad Al-Saudiyah. It did however publish factually accurate news story August 28, and we may expect something in its weekly political commentary next Friday.
[Page 423]

Further on August 30 it published brief news roundup of comments by Jordan Prime Minister Mufti and Syrian President-Elect Quwatli, Prime Minister Asali and Faris Khouri—all non-commital except Khouri’s which warned Arabs against “this new danger in American policy.” One Cairo item added that Arab Foreign Ministers would meet there September 3 to discuss Dulles statement.

Roundup ended “statement is being studied carefully by high (Saudi) authorities to end Saudi views may be communicated other Arab States with view reaching unified decision.”

Wadsworth
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 684A.86/8–3055. Secret. Received at 6:47 a.m., August 31. Repeated to Amman, Ankara, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Tel Aviv, Tripoli, London, and Paris.↩
  2. Document 231.↩
  3. Mohammed Massoud.↩