196. Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Dulles in Washington and Secretary-General Hammarskjöld in New York, March 6, 1957, 12:55 p.m.1
TELEPHONE CALL TO SEC. GEN. HAMMARSKJOLD, NY
The Secretary said Lodge had told him he had been rather disturbed after his talk with Mrs. Meir, the Israeli For. Min. The Sec. said he was not surprised since we had had similar talks in a strong effort on the part of the Israelis to commit us to the proposition that if Egypt should come back, that would automatically give the Israelis the right to reoccupy the area by force. The Sec. said the Israelis had struggled very hard to get him to agree to that. He had kept rigidly to the proposition that it would have to be worked out within the terms of the Armistice Agreement. I said I had thought it probable that Egypt would want to have someone back there in at least a token capacity to [Page 370] symbolize their rights there. I said I hoped very much that the actual administration would be done through the UN because actually it was primarily a task of taking care of the refugees there.
The Sec. said it was quite true we saw in advance Mrs. Meir’s statement in the UN. Her statement as given was quite different. Hammarskjold thanked the Secretary for his clarification and wished him well on his trip. Hammarskjold said that while he discounted what he had heard he did want to check.
The Sec. said the thing to do was to ignore these private statements and go ahead. If we get them out and if Egypt is decent, probably these terrible things will not happen.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations. Transcribed by Asbjornson.↩