Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Arab-Israeli Dispute, January 1–July 26, 1956, Volume XV

121. Telegram From the Embassy in Egypt to the Department of State¹

Cairo, February 23, 1956—midnight.

1665. This is message number 1 referred to in Embtel 1664.²

Verbatim text.

I spoke to Nasser about the aides-mémoire³ today. He said that their only concern was with questions of form and arranged for me to go on and see Vice President⁴ who gave me detailed comments in presence of Minister Production.⁵

2. The Vice President detailed comments amounted to proposal of following alternatives:

(a) That HMG and USG should write brief letters to Egyptian Government in which they would propose make grants-in-aid for High Dam of amounts specified in aides-mémoire without mentioning any request from Egyptian Government for grants. Grants should be specified as initial grants without any reference to promises of subsequent grants or to division of work into two stages. (See paragraph 4 below) The Egyptian Government would reply to letters. He did not absolutely rule out form of aides mémoire but preferred letters.

(b) That two governments should write to bank proposing make grants-in-aid to bank to be spent on project in accordance with bank’s conditions and that bank should deal with these grants in same way as money to be lent by bank. Two governments would then write letters to Egyptian Government saying they had decided give these grants and would put them directly into bank to be spent by bank under arrangements between bank and Egyptian Government.

3. Vice President explained there were three main conditions laid down by bank:

(a) The legal point i.e. [re?] division of waters. They had definitely decided they would neither start any of work except preparation of site nor require any amount from grants in aid until agreement had been reached with Sudan Government. He was most anxious reach this agreement as early as possible in way which would help maintain good relations between Egyptian and Sudanese governments.

(b) The availability of foreign exchange. Division of project into two stages had been given up for purpose of agreement with bank. The grants should not therefore be specifically allocated to first stage which need not be mentioned. So far as subsequent grants were concerned bank was safeguarded by provision that they would not lend any money unless foreign exchange was available;

(c) Nature of Egyptian economic policy. The two governments would be safeguarded on this matter through bank.

4. He went through aides-mémoire and made his detailed comments subject to the general considerations set out above. These would be the basis of the letter proposed in paragraph 2 (a) above. I made no comment. My following telegram contains Vice President’s detailed comments.⁶End verbatim text.

Byroade

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 874.2614/2–2356. Confidential; Priority. Received at 10:15 a.m., February 24.
2. In telegram 1664, February 23, Byroade informed the Department that he was sending the verbatim text of four messages concerning the Aswan High Dam negotiations that he had received from Trevelyan. Trevelyan was sending these messages to the British Foreign Office. Byroade noted that he was in general agreement with Trevelyan’s comments as transmitted in Document 123. (Department of State, Central Files, 874.2614/2–2356)
3. Reference is to U.S. and U.K. aides-mémoire provided to Egypt on December 16. A copy of the U.S. aide-mémoire was transmitted to the Embassy in Cairo in telegram 1282 (vol. XIV, p. 868). No copy of the U.K. aide-mémoire has been found in Department of State files, but, according to telegram 1282 to Cairo, it was similar to the U.S. version. In telegram 1729, December 31, the Department transmitted to the Embassy in Cairo textual revisions that the U.S. and U.K. Governments and the IBRD had agreed on.
4. Wing Commander Gamal Salem.
5. Wing Commander Hasan Ibrahim.
6. Infra.