Office of the Historian

139. Memorandum From the Counselor of the Department of State (MacArthur) to the Acting Secretary of State1

Washington, November 14, 1956.

At my daily liaison meeting at the White House this morning, the President referred to the Middle East situation and said he thought we ought to draw up a brief piece of paper which would establish the line we would take with our Arab and Middle Eastern friends.2 The purpose of this paper would be so that the same general line would be taken by the interested Agencies of the Government in our conversations with our Middle Eastern friends whether here in Washington, at the UN, or in their respective capitals. It would be designed to influence them to take a more constructive position with respect to the serious situation in the Middle East.

The President said there were three thoughts which we might get across to them which he believed might be constructive. These were generally as follows:

1.
The tremendous risk and threat for any nation to get into close and intimate contact with the Soviet Union.
2.
The equally great threat to the Middle East in the event of another world war, since each side would be determined that the other side not have access to the oil and riches of the area, and therefore massive destruction of oil and other resources, cities, etc., might come about.
3.
That the US stands ready to extend economic friendship and assistance with no political strings attached. Thinking out loud, the President said he had in mind that we might tell them we would encourage private investment and loans, including soft loans, to assist in their economic development, on the basis of their cooperating fully with the UN and bringing about an equitable solution to the problems, with peace and justice.

I mentioned this to you briefly this morning after my meeting and you suggested that another thought which might be included would be the fact that the Soviet Union, which has oil for export, cannot absorb Middle Eastern oil, and that therefore if the states which have oil in the Middle East follow a course which leads to non-cooperation with the West and are oriented toward the Soviet Union, they will be in serious financial and economic difficulties in terms of disposing of their greatest financial resource, which is oil.

In view of the urgency which the President attaches to this task, I assume you will have this memorandum shown to those top officials in the Department who should be working on the paper which the President has requested.

DMacA
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.80/11–1456. Secret. Between November 3 and 18, Secretary Dulles was confined to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington following major surgery. He convalesced in Key West, Florida, and returned to the Department of State on December 3. (Princeton University, Dulles Papers, Dulles’ Appointment Book)↩

  2. President Eisenhower referred to the need for such a study during two conversations on November 13. According to a memorandum from MacArthur to Hoover, November 13, President Eisenhower told MacArthur during an 8:30 a.m. briefing: “we should be putting our best minds to work on the problem of what we might do, particularly with respect to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, to keep them from gradually falling under Soviet domination.” (Department of State, Central Files, 711.11–EI/11–1356) Portions of MacArthur’s memorandum are printed in vol. XVI, p. 1120.

    At 11:56 a.m., Eisenhower, mentioned the subject again during a telephone conversation with Acting Secretary Hoover. The memorandum of telephone conversation is in the Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. The portions pertaining to the Middle East are printed in vol. XVI, p. 1122.

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