Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V, Part 2

501.BB Palestine/5–2548

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. John C. Ross

secret

[New York,] May 25, 1948.

Participants:	Secretary of State Marshall
	Ambassador Austin—U.S. Mission
	Ambassador Alexandre Parodi—Representative of France
	Mr. John C. Ross—U.S. Mission

Ambassador Parodi said that while he did not express any opinion on the lifting of the United States arms embargo, he felt that it would be desirable if we do lift the embargo to get assurances from the Jews that they would not indulge in excesses such as bombing cities in the Arab States.

The general line stated by the Secretary, not for repetition, was as follows:

1. The Secretary emphasized the continued great importance we attach to getting a cease-fire.

2. He thought that it might be possible to get a cease-fire in Jerusalem first and spread it out from there.

3. He was doing and would continue to do everything he could to have this case dealt with through the Security Council but action was necessary.

4. Making clear that he was not implying that we were likely to lift the arms embargo, he said that if we did, this act might have a strong psychological effect but it would be at least a month before it would have any material effect.

5. The Secretary wanted to correct what seemed to be a wide misunderstanding. The United States had maintained a strict arms embargo for some months past, while other nations had in fact been shipping arms into the area. The fact that other nations had been doing this while we had not made his task in developing the United States arms embargo policy an extremely difficult one. With a tremendous political pressure in this country to have us do so made our position extremely difficult and the maintenance of the embargo by us an impressive fact.¹

6. There were three factors which stiffened the Jewish position before May 15 and may have caused failure of truce efforts at that time, namely, (a) initial military successes of the Jews; (b) the bait held out by Creech Jones concerning a possible compromise solution along the Abdullah lines, and (c) the fact that a Colonel on Brigadier Glubb’s staff (Arab Legion) had visited the Jews and talked about a possible compromise.

7. The Secretary said that the British seemed to be better aware of their position and seemed to be active in a constructive sense. He thereby had some hope that practical proposals might be forthcoming.

John C. Ross

1. The overlined words were included in the memorandum as prepared by Mr. Ross. Marginal notations indicate that the Secretary of State deleted these words and supplied the remainder of the sentence.