501.BB Palestine/3–1148: Telegram
The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State
273. For Lovett from Austin. Following is account of meeting of permanent members held in my office from 10:30 to 12:30 this morning1 pursuant to SC resolution of last Friday. Parodi, Tsiang, Gromyko and SYG Lie were present during the whole meeting and Cadogan came in on our invitation during last hour. Tsiang opened the meeting by asking if we should invite Cadogan to join us. I said I had been talking with Rabbi Silver2 earlier in the morning and raised the question whether we should not invite him also to appear before us to answer questions.
Gromyko said he wanted to make his position perfectly plain: he cannot participate in consultations with the Jewish Agency, Arab Committee, Palestine Commission or mandatory power. In support of this position he repeated all of the arguments he used during our first meeting on Monday (mytel 256, March 83).
Gromyko went on to say that if other delegations mentioning France, China, and the US by name, wished to invite anybody to participate they must take responsibility for doing so.
I then suggested that we review proposed questions to be directed to the Jewish Agency. Copies of these questions, as well as those proposed to be directed to the Arab Committee, mandatory power, and Palestine Commission, as revised in consultations at staff level with [Page 708] Chinese and French representatives yesterday afternoon, had been distributed and Gromyko as well as others had read them. (Text of these questions follows in next telegram.4) Gromyko observed that all of these questions have been clarified many times both by Jews and Arabs. I asked him if he thought that question “do you believe that the partition plan can be implemented by peaceful means by agreement between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine?” had been answered. He replied that this question had been answered, strongly implying that on the record there was no possibility of the plan being implemented by peaceful means.
I asked him whether he thought the question “would modifications in the proposed partition plan make agreement between the Jews and Arabs more possible of attainment?” had been answered. He replied that it has been answered at least ten times. The Jews, he said, have made it clear that the partition plan is the minimum they will accept.
I asked him whether he thought the question “do you consider the principles of the proposed economic union essential to the economic life of Palestine as a whole?” had been answered. He replied in the affirmative saying that both Jews and Arabs so far as he knows consider economic union essential.
Gromyko then asked whether questions of this sort were aimed at changing the recommendations of the GA. I told him that what we were after is to find out whether there are any modifications that would make possible implementation of the partition plan by pacific means.
At this point I said that I did not think there was any sense in pursuing any further the procedural point of whether or not we were going to consult with the Jewish Agency and others.
We returned to the question of asking Cadogan to come in. Gromyko finally agreed to this on the clear understanding that Cadogan would be coming not as the beginning of consultations with the mandatory power but merely as a continuation of the questioning of Cadogan which began at our meeting on Tuesday afternoon when we put to Cadogan a number of questions concerning the security of Palestine.5
After some further discussion Gromyko finally agreed that we might also put to Cadogan the questions we had prepared for today concerning peaceful implementation of the partition plan. I thereupon telephoned Cadogan and asked him to join us.
During the interval before Cadogan arrived we discussed the proposed questions for the Palestine Commission and Gromyko finally agreed, although reluctantly, that these questions might be put to the Palestine Commission through SYG Lie.
[Page 709]During this interval, I also served notice on Gromyko that I intended to invite Rabbi Silver to the next meeting of the group and I hoped Gromyko would stay. He merely repeated that he could not participate.
I questioned Cadogan closely along the lines of the proposed questions directed to the mandatory power and those directed to the Palestine Commission as follows.
In response to our first question, in effect requesting clarification of the meaning of “acceptance” by the mandatory power of the partition plan Cadogan said that his government wants to avoid doing anything that might be considered obstructive, but on the other hand they wanted to avoid participating in putting any plan into effect against the wishes of either party. They were trying to steer a course empirically between these two points and he could not furnish any general rule which would answer all questions. This was not very satisfactory to the rest of us perhaps but they were doing the best they could according to their lights. I asked Cadogan if in effect this meant that acceptance of the plan by the mandatory government was conditional upon its acceptance by both the Jews and Arabs. I stressed that all of us were trying to implement this plan by peaceful means. I asked if it might be assumed that failing agreement between the Jews and Arabs if there were acquiescence by both if the mandatory government would then not be inflexible.
Cadogan dodged the question of whether UK acceptance was conditional on acceptance by both parties. He said that if, of course, anyone could find a way of bringing the parties together he was sure this would be most welcome to his government. In stating his position Cadogan used additional language which helped to clarify the UK attitude. For example, he said that “we could not ourselves be instrumental in putting into effect a plan which is not accepted by the parties” and again “we cannot take an active part in implementing a plan not accepted by the parties.”
In response to question number 2 concerning the possibility of implementation of the plan by peaceful means Cadogan replied that his government considered it very difficult to carry out a plan like this without the backing of force.
I asked him if he thought the plan could be implemented if the Jews could be provided with the militia contemplated in the plan and if they had the necessary arms. He replied that this was of course hypothetical. It was a matter of how much they had and how long they could hold out. He pointed out that placing arms in the hands of the Jews sufficient to permit the organization of a Jewish state would not of itself equal settlement.
[Page 710]It was obvious in Cadogan’s responses to the first two numbered questions that he did not see any real possibility of implementation of the plan by peaceful means.
In response to question number three concerning the possibility of modification of detail which would make the plan acceptable to both parties, Cadogan said that he could not think of any modifications of detail, stressing the word detail, which would make the plan acceptable to both parties. In response to the next question concerning modification of the timetable he replied emphatically that so far as the UK is concerned no change in the timetable is contemplated. He indicated that there is no willingness on the part of the mandatory government to modify the date (May 15) of laying down the mandate. He went on to say that “in accordance with his existing instructions those dates are fixed and irrevocable.” And he added that there were no modifications he knew of which would change the British view in this matter.
In response to the next question which concerned Creech Jones’ statement about finding a bridge across the gulf separating the two communities, Cadogan said that his government had no suggestions to make. He said his government had made no efforts to bring the parties together since they brought the matter to the UN a year ago which action was of course in a way a confession of failure. While they would welcome the success of any such efforts they had no suggestions to make.
Cadogan had very little to offer by way of comment on the questions directed to the Palestine Commission.
He said that the mandatory had had no further conversation with the Palestine Commission regarding piecemeal relinquishment of the mandate (question 5) and he said that he has informed the Palestine Commission that his government is standing by the May 1 date for arrival of the commission in Palestine (question 6).
[Here follows an account of the views of John Fleteher-Cooke, Financial Under-Secretary in the Palestine Government, on economic and administrative matters in Palestine.]
None of the other permanent representatives had any questions to ask Cadogan today beyond those covered above.
Before this morning’s meeting broke up Tsiang raised the question of our next meeting and Gromyko made some point of not wanting to meet before tomorrow afternoon. We therefore finally agreed on 2:30 tomorrow in Mr. Parodi’s office. I again said that I intended to invite Rabbi Silver to meet with us. Neither Tsiang nor Parodi objected; Gromyko merely repeated that he could not participate in such consultation. However, it may not be without significance that [Page 711] in response to a question from the UN press officer covering our meetings as to whether Mr. Gromyko would or would not participate in questioning of Dr. Silver, Gromyko replied that was a matter twenty-four hours away.
Before leaving Gromyko told me privately in response to the letter I sent him yesterday (mytel 267, March 10) that he had not changed his views concerning consultations.
- For an account of the meeting held on March 9, see telegram 288, March 13, from New York, p. 720.↩
- Abba Hillel Silver, member of the American Section of the Executive of the Jewish Agency and a spokesman for the Agency at the United Nations.↩
- Not printed; but see footnote 2, p. 700.↩
- No. 274, March 11, 8:15 p. m., not printed.↩
- See telegram 288, March 13, from New York, p. 720.↩