249. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the President and the Secretary of State, White House, Washington, April 6, 1956, 8:30 a.m.1
[Here follows discussion of prospective ambassadorial appointments; the President’s forthcoming address at the annual dinner of the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 21; and the appointment of Joseph M. Dodge, Special Assistant to the President, to undertake negotiations with the British about multilateral restrictions on trade with Communist bloc nations.]
4. I told the President that I would want at a later date to have a meeting with him and some of the appropriate Cabinet officers and Sherman Adams with reference to the political aspects of the Arab-Israel problem. The President reaffirmed that he did not want to be dominated here by local political considerations. As in the case of the Farm Bill,2 he wanted to do what he thought was best for the country and if this resulted in his not being reelected, that was all right with him.
We then went into a general discussion of the status of our program. I said I had spent Easter Sunday afternoon outlining our views to Sir Roger Makins3 and that yesterday I had received the reactions of the United Kingdom Government4 which, in the main, were favorable, although it looked as though Buraimi would be a sticking point.
The President said he thought the advantages the British would gain in other respects were so great that they should be willing to make a sacrifice here. He again emphasized the importance of splitting Saudi-Arabia from Egypt.
I spoke of the possibility of arms (planes) in escrow for Arabs-Israelis. The President thought this was an interesting idea but raised the question of whether or not we could be sure who was the aggressor. I said this would be difficult under certain circumstances but perhaps not difficult under other circumstances. I referred to a UN Resolution that a state which invaded another would be deemed an aggressor unless it returned to its borders within 24 hours.5 The [Page 482] President thought this might not be realistic in terms of the Arab-Israel situation where if Israel was attacked from the air, the Israeli Army might try to wipe out the Egyptian Army by land.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Meetings with the President. Secret; Personal and Private. Drafted by Dulles.↩
- Reference is presumably to H.R. 12, designated the “Agricultural Act of 1956”, which the President vetoed on April 16.↩
- See Document 232.↩
- See Documents 242 and 243.↩
- Reference is to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 378 (V) entitled “Duties of States in the event of the outbreak of hostilities”. The General Assembly adopted this measure at its 308th plenary meeting on November 17, 1950. For text, see U.N. doc. A/1775.↩