304. Telegram From the Department of State to the Mission at the United Nations1
Tedul 3. Eyes only Secretary and Phleger from Acting Secretary. I showed your Dulte 1 to the President this morning and he was most appreciative.2
He was in full accord with your actions and particularly with the line you had taken with Shepilov.
After he finished your message he expressed the opinion that (a) the present proposal represented the views which we had been able to get the UK and France to go along with, and not necessarily [Page 653] the views of the US alone; (b) if Egypt, in the process of rejecting this proposal (which it probably will do), should indicate any “give” in its position, then we should press urgently for a negotiation and not allow the situation to deteriorate further. I gathered that you had had previous discussions with him along these lines and I made no comment.
The President said that he leaned very much toward an ultimate solution, when the appropriate time arrived, involving a private organization of commercial users of the canal, which would operate under contract with the Egyptian Government and which could finance necessary improvements to the canal. I pointed out that there were many hurdles to get over first, among them being an agreement and a treaty which would prevent the Egyptians from doing to a new entity what they had done to the old one. He went on to say, as he has on other occasions, that the general manager should have clear authority to conduct the operations without undue interference from the Egyptians. I believe he envisioned a council or board of directors on which user countries would have representation.
The President told me that he may have been partly responsible for the rash of stories started by Schmidt of the NY Times and Higgins of the Herald Tribune a few days ago. He said he had propounded his solution to several of his friends and it probably leaked out. I told him of our knowledge that the Egyptians had sent up a similar balloon.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 974.7301/10–656. Top Secret. Drafted by Hoover, cleared by Goodpaster, and approved by Kirk who signed for Hoover.↩
- See supra. Dulte 1 transmitted Dulles’ message to Eisenhower, Document 302.↩