890E.01/12–3145: Telegram
The Chargé in Lebanon (Mattison) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:54 p.m.]
443. Information re progress of Franco-British military conversations now taking place in Beirut increasingly difficult to obtain. This is, I suspect, at least partially due to the lack of progress in these conversations.93
I have talked with one of the British members of the committee and, while obtaining little factual information, I found him somewhat pessimistic as to results achieved to date and also resentful of the fact that what were supposed to be purely military conversations have become political in nature owing to the difference in instructions received by British and French delegations.
Sent Dept as 443, repeated Paris as 114 and London as 23.
- In several telegrams sent by the Missions in Paris, London, and Beirut, the Department was informed that the British delegates were pressing for transfer of British troops from Syria to Lebanon while the French delegates were maintaining that such transfer should be made to Palestine, Transjordan, or Iraq.↩