890D.00/916: Telegram
The Diplomatic Agent and Consul General at Beirut (Wadsworth) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:14 p.m.]
465. Reference telegram No. 458, November 18, 9 a.m. At the ceremony of my reception yesterday by President Naccache the well ordered formality was tempered by cordial, evidently sincere, welcome. Lebanese gendarmerie supplied a smart guard of honor and band.
This morning’s press features the event with photographs and full texts of my remarks and the President’s reply. Editorial comment is limited largely to expressions of welcome and satisfaction that this “appointment is a new confirmation of our independence”. The Foreign Minister informs me he has sent an appreciative account to representative [of] Lebanese in New York, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.
The President, whom Gwynn esteems as an earnest, honest servant of his country, was obviously moved when reading his reply, full text of which has been reported by Office of War Information (telegram No. 462, November 1934). Its most effective passages were those expressing confidence in the victory of the United Nations and their purpose to establish a just and fruitful peace. He interpreted the appointment of an American diplomatic representative as “a further pledge of his country’s better future, of the safeguard of its traditions and of its independence”.
Highlights of our ensuing conversation follow:
[Page 668]At least 80% of the Christian majority of Lebanon, he said, hoped for United Nations’ victory, whereas this proportion was unhappily reversed among its Moslem minority. Our successes in North Africa and the Solomons had done much to convert this hope into faith. There was growing recognition of the necessity for personal sacrifice to meet war-born problems of scarcity. His policy was to foster this trend. Thus might Lebanon show itself worthy of promised independence.
He spoke in this connection of the country’s motor transport problem. Strict controls were being put into force (see telegram No. 416 at [of] October 28, noon35). They were far from popular, especially as public transport was primitive and inadequate. [Apparent omission] as murmuring that America from whence spare parts and tires must come was ill-informed as to the situation.
I told him of our own radical control measures designed to conserve rubber for war industries but he seemed more impressed by my description of Italy’s increasingly acute transport problem and of growing Nazi strangle hold on that country’s economy. He commented, “You would do well, I believe, to use such an approach in your propaganda in this and neighboring countries”.
Elections in Lebanon he felt would be unwise at this time. The threat of German invasion was not wholly removed. Lack of transport was a practical impediment. Candidates could not freely voice their views, e. g. on such vitally important matters as the country’s political future. The bulk of the population was a worthy non-politically minded peasantry interested today primarily in questions of supply. The thin crust of small politicians too often fished in troubles for personal gain. Probably only some 15% of the electorate could be gotten to the polls.
In Syria he said the problem was different.
There, among political leaders, there was a growing demand for elections. But such leaders felt sure of their constituencies. They would stop at nothing—money, favor, and false promises—to gain their ends. There was little of real democracy in their demands.
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