501.BB/11–2447
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State1
- Subject: President Truman’s Instructions on Palestine Position
| Participants: | The Acting Secretary, Mr. Lovett |
| Ambassador Herschel Johnson | |
| General Hilldring |
Mr. Lovett telephoned Ambassador Johnson and General Hilldring at 2:20 p. m. today. Messrs. Thompson2 and McClintock of SPA were present in the Acting Secretary’s office.
[Page 1284]Mr. Lovett said that he had gone to the White House before lunch to ascertain the President’s decision on the specific question raised this morning by the Delegation on whether or not the United States should participate in a Commission to implement partition in Palestine.
The President had said that he would be most reluctant to see the United States on such a Commission. It would only be in the event that the USSR were very likely to be placed on such a Commission that the President would agree to the United States accepting a similar post.
The second point made by the President, said Mr. Lovett, was on the question of the implementation. The President had reiterated his original position: that the United States would participate in enforcing a plan for Palestine only as a Member of the United Nations and jointly with other Members. It would not be a protagonist. If American forces were used they would merely be part of an overall United Nations force.
Mr. Lovett said that the President did not wish the United States Delegation to use threats or improper pressure of any kind on other Delegations to vote for the majority report favoring partition of Palestine. We were willing to vote for that report ourselves because it was a majority report but we were in no sense of the word to coerce other Delegations to follow our lead.
The President felt that the U.S. Delegation should scrupulously live up to any commitments which had been made to the Arab Delegations. Mr. Lovett asked if the Arab Delegations knew that the United States had fought to see their view on the Negeb accepted by the subcommittee. He thought that also within the President’s orders to adhere to our commitments to the Arabs lay the general requirement that the United States was not to be an advocate and was not to use improper pressure on other Delegations.
The Acting Secretary said that the President had told him of his keen awareness of the extraordinary difficulty of the tasks faced by Mr. Johnson and General Hilldring and of his great appreciation for the job they had done in these very trying circumstances.
The conversation concluded with the remark of Mr. Lovett that the President had said he did not wish General Marshall to be embarrassed in London should Mr. Bevin “blow his top” because of any implied suggestion by our Delegation that the British had been non-cooperative on the Palestine issue. Mr. Lovett thought that this theme could conveniently be soft-pedaled.