501.BB Palestine/9–3048
Mr. Robert M. McClintock to Mr. Dean Rusk, at Paris
Dear Dean: Since the decision of Committee Ito debate the atomic energy and Soviet disarmament proposals before taking up Palestine, it seems apparent that several weeks, if not a month, will go by before the Bernadotte Plan is discussed in the Political Committee.1
Meanwhile, the pressures are building up at home. The American Zionist Emergency Council is running full-page ads in the metropolitan papers, decrying the Secretary’s support of Bernadotte’s conclusions and calling on the President to stick rigidly to his party platform. It declares:
“We approve the claims of the State of Israel to the boundaries set forth in the United Nations Resolution of November 29 and consider that modification thereof should be made only if fully acceptable to the State of Israel.”
Needless to say, this special pleading has resulted in some strenuous moments in the Department of State. I do not know what the outcome will be but so far Mr. Lovett has done a magnificent job in keeping the train on the track.
I do want to suggest for your consideration the probability that we shall have to adjust our sights at least to the point of agreeing that the territorial recommendations of the Mediator be modified in favor of Israel to the extent of giving the Jewish State a salient into the Negev which would include most, if not all of the Jewish settlements in that area. Such a salient would not extend further than the Gaza–Beersheba Road and would in fact put us in precise accord with the proposed territorial settlement which was approved by the President on September 1. I do not suggest that you take any action on this information but wanted you to have it in advance for background in your conversations in Paris. As you know, I was very careful to warn Bernadotte that our government would probably have to modify its views regarding the Negev salient and I took a similar line while in London in my conversations with Michael Wright. I am sending a copy of this letter to Louis [Lewis] Jones in London for his most private information.
Cheers,
- The General Assembly, on September 24, had referred Count Bernadotte’s progress report as a whole to the First Committee and part three, concerning the refugee problem, to the Third Committee (United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, 3rd session, Part I, Plenary Meetings, Summary Records, 21 September–12 December 1948, hereinafter identified as “GA, 3rd sess., Pt. I, Plenary”, p. 110.↩