253. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, July 12, 19571
SUBJECT
- The Middle East
PARTICIPANTS FOR PAKISTAN
- The Prime Minister
- Mr. M. S. A. Baig, Secretary of Foreign Affairs
- Mr. A. Husain, Secretary of Defense
PARTICIPANTS FOR THE UNITED STATES
- The Secretary
- The Under Secretary
- William M. Rountree, NEA
- Ambassador-designate James Langley
- Robert R. Bowie, S/P
- J. Jefferson Jones, III, SOA
- Charles D. Withers, SOA
- John M. Howison, SOA
The Baghdad Pact
The Secretary referred to the Prime Minister’s suggestion that Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan join the Baghdad Pact and said the United States would be happy to observe such a development. However, we estimate that Saudi Arabia is not yet ripe for membership in the Pact. We agree that the three should come in together. They might eventually approach membership by the process of associating with one of the committees of the Pact, possibly the economic committee first. The United States would not wish to bring pressure upon anyone to join the Pact as the British had done in Jordan with unfortunate consequences. Mr. Rountree observed that the key country in this situation is Saudi Arabia, and the Prime Minister agreed.
Mr. Suhrawardy noted in passing that he considered the natural regional grouping to be that of the Muslim states rather than the Arab states alone.
Jordan
The Secretary observed that we attach much importance to the Prime Minister’s prospective visit to King Hussein and the Prime Minister asked what he should tell Hussein. He stated that President [Page 560] Eisenhower had told him we had difficulty in finding money for Jordan. According to Mr. Suhrawardy, Jordanian representatives had been telling him that Jordan would look to the US for money.
The Secretary agreed that the situation of the Jordanians was serious. The US would not wish them to fall back into the clutches of Egypt. Neither could we give them money indefinitely. The British had withdrawn their subsidy partly because it represented a drain upon their resources. The US simply could not try to balance the budget of every country with financial difficulties.
Jordan had never been a viable state, the Secretary continued. Ernest Bevin had told him with much satisfaction of the creation of Jordan; it was to be a British base to remain useful after Suez had gone. Clever plans such as this one sometimes failed to work out. People got independence-minded. Jordan’s only source of income was the rental of its real estate for military bases.
Mr. Suhrawardy observed that the Jordanians could rent their real estate to Russia or Egypt, to whom it would be most useful.
The Secretary declared that the fact that the US had found $30 million for the Jordanians showed that we were serious about Jordan but that we could not supply funds indefinitely.
The Secretary suggested that Mr. Suhrawardy tell Hussein he had acted with courage and skill and with good judgment in his choice of people to rely on. We showed our sympathy at a time Hussein was afraid of foreign intervention by sending our fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean. But neither a fleet nor money constituted a permanent solution of Jordan’s problems and the US would welcome suggestions from Mr. Suhrawardy and from King Hussein as to what the future of Jordan should be. The Prime Minister put forward the thesis that there should be a federation of Jordan with Iraq to form a “greater Iraq”. Faisal and Hussein might rule jointly.
The Secretary asked how King Hussein sees his own future and emphasized that he would like to have Mr. Suhrawardy’s conclusions after his visit to Amman. Mr. Suhrawardy said he would ask King Hussein for his views concerning the future. The Secretary urged that the US and Pakistan work together in the matter.
The Secretary said that Jordan is wretchedly poor. Perhaps development of water resources or settlement of refugee problems would help. Mr. Rountree concurred, noting that with less population Jordan could be made viable but that there did not seem to be the possibility of enabling Jordan to support its present population, including refugees. The Secretary observed that the refugees were a continuing menace to the stability of Jordan. Mr. Suhrawardy responded that the refugees lived on the hope of returning to Palestine. The US position had been set forth in an August 1955 address made by Secretary Dulles, a copy of which was made available to the Prime Minister.
[Page 561]The Arab-Israeli Question
The Prime Minister expressed the view that the key to settlement of the Middle East situation was the Palestine question. He asked for our thinking on any approach to its resolution. The Secretary responded that the refugee question was the first matter to be solved. This might mean in the first instance the development of water resources to provide useful livelihoods for the 900,000 refugees. Israel should take some back but obviously could take back only a token number, in view of recently increased immigration of Jews leaving Eastern Europe as a result of reviving anti-Semitism there. The Prime Minister asked why the US could not derive a propaganda advantage by pointing out that the Soviets were sending their Jewish population to swell the ranks of the Zionists. It was observed in response that some of the immigrants are Russians who come via Poland and enter Israel as Poles. In any case, Israel does not wish to offend the USSR, since it is anxious that the Jews there be permitted to leave.
Reverting to the refugee question, the Secretary suggested that if Israel chose to conduct a campaign in favor of the refugees, it could derive large sums of money from gifts by Jews abroad and from loans by international banking institutions. If the Israelis would thus compensate the refugees, they would no longer be so unwelcome as penniless beggars in neighboring countries such as Iraq. The US Government was prepared to help with money for the refugees.
The Prime Minister expressed the opinion that Egypt and Syria do not want the refugees to be resettled. The Secretary agreed that the Egyptians value this “running sore”, which provides an opportunity for communist propaganda as well as for exploitation by the Egyptians. During the recent Jordanian crisis, had not King Hussein acted wisely and the Egyptians unskillfully, Amman would have been overrun by the refugees. The King still sat on dynamite where the refugees were concerned.
The Prime Minister asked whether there was now any active question of a commission to settle Israel’s boundaries. The Secretary responded that he was not sure whether the position he had taken in August 1955 still met the situation; at that time he favored a sort of overpass-underpass arrangement of Israeli and Arab routes crossing at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Aqaba Question
In response to a question about the Aqaba situation, the Secretary declared that since the birth of the nation the US had respected the three-mile limit of territoriality of the seas, as well as the principle that a body of water giving access to several sovereign entities is international. We cannot break with this tradition.
[Page 562]Mr. Suhrawardy expressed his understanding of these views, but asked whether the Saudis could understand them. The Secretary responded that the US is trying to explain them to the Saudis. Mr. Suhrawardy predicted that Saud would ask whether the Egyptians could understand them.
The Secretary responded affirmatively. The Egyptians had already, in 1950, publicly recognized the Gulf of Aqaba as open sea and in the present situation were being quiet, trying to set the Saudis and the Americans at odds with each other. The new factor in the situation was that within the last year the Israeli port of Elath had been opened. Previously the Gulf had been an Arab sea, and the head of the gulf an Arab crossroads on the route to Mecca, despite Israel’s technical sovereignty over Elath since 1948.
The development of Elath understandably irritates Saud, the Secretary continued. The Israelis have built an 8-inch pipeline from Elath to Haifa to carry petroleum for the refinery. There has been speculative talk about a big pipeline from Elath to a Mediterranean port, but it probably will never be built. The US Government has discouraged private American capital from participating in such a line.
The Israelis have recently put two frigates in the Gulf, the Secretary reported. He expressed the view that something could be done about the frigates, although the US had as yet taken no position on the question of military use of the Gulf. Otherwise the Israelis had no shipping of their own. They chartered ships from the US and from other countries. There was nothing the US could do to prevent private American shipowners from chartering their vessels to the Israelis. We can’t understand why the Saudis should consider that their particular quarrel is with the US, since the Israel-chartered ships plying the Gulf to Elath are of various flags.
An unfortunate development had occurred recently when, without the knowledge of the Secretary or Mr. Rountree, a routine Notice to Mariners of US Government origin had advised that the Gulf of Aqaba was international in status. This circular had come to the attention of the US press, portions of which were inclined to play up indications of US support for Israel, and had been made to appear as an important political development.
The US was trying to play down the whole question and to avoid disagreeing with Saud. We have advised the Saudis that if they wish to take the question of the status of the Gulf of Aqaba to the International Court of Justice, we should be glad to abide by its decision.
The Pakistan Prime Minister asked whether he could have copies of Saud’s recent letter to the President and the US reply and the Secretary responded that the US was still working on its reply. If it [Page 563] were completed while the Prime Minister remained in the United States, we would try to get something useful to him, at least before he left New York.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 780.5/7–1257. Secret. Drafted by Howison and Withers.↩