Office of the Historian

420. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Israeli Ambassador (Eban) and the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (Allen), Department of State, Washington, July 3, 19561

Washington, July 3, 1956

SUBJECT

  • Resignation of Sharett; Israel’s Need for Fighter Planes

Ambassador Eban, who has just returned from a week in Israel, gave me interesting information concerning the resignation of Sharett. He said it had been entirely at the instance of Ben Gurion, who had “suddenly woke up one morning and decided to get rid of Sharett”. Eban compared it to a couple who had been living together for forty years and suddenly decide to divorce. Ben Gurion and [Page 770] Sharett have quarrelled over various matters for many years but nothing whatsoever has happened recently, according to Eban, to worsen their relationship. He declared that no policy question whatever was involved in the resignation and that it was purely a personal clash. Eban emphasized that any speculation that Israel might now go over to a preventative war policy was entirely incorrect. He said the resignation had caused very considerable internal turmoil in Israel, which has no written constitution and no basis for judging whether Ben Gurion was legally justified in requesting Sharett’s resignation… . Ben Gurion’s tendency toward dictatorial methods have apparently increased with age.

Eban said he was under instructions to take up two matters with the Secretary during his interview early next week.2 He had been told to avoid theoretical discussions and try to obtain practical results on obtaining F–86 fighter planes from either Canada or Italy. He asked my opinion whether Israel had any chance of obtaining such planes from Canada or whether he should concentrate on Italy. I said I thought there was still a possibility that Canada might sell.

The second matter was to get prompt action on the Export–Import Bank loan for developing coastal waters. Eban said that if the Secretary asked for assurances that Israel would not cut the canal at Banat Ya’qub “the day after the loan”, he could obtain such assurances readily.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 784A.13/7–356. Confidential. Drafted by Allen.↩
  2. Eban spoke Dulles on July 10; see Document 451.↩