573. Memorandum From the Counselor of the Department of State (MacArthur) to the Acting Secretary of State1
SUBJECT
- Briefing of the President, 8:30 a.m., November 13, 1956
Colonel Goodpaster and I met with the President this morning Pursuant to the new liaison arrangements. Following the intelligence briefing which Colonel Goodpaster gave, the President was briefed on pertinent items in the Top Secret summary.2 In the subsequent discussion, the following points were of interest:
[Here follows discussion of unrelated subjects.]
- 4.
- The President commented on one of the items in the Department’s daily Top Secret summary that Secretary General Hammarskjold did not want us to press ahead in the General Assembly on the Suez resolution until his return from Cairo next Sunday.3 The President said he felt we should do what we could to meet the Secretary General’s request and probably should not press the resolution itself in the Assembly until Hammarskjold’s return.
- 5.
- The President also talked a bit about the Middle East problem and seemed particularly concerned about the situation in Syria, which he described as bad. … He then went on to say that in the past our position in the Middle East has been difficult because we have been faced with the dilemma of trying to act there in consonance with the UK and France. This placed us in a very difficult situation. Now, however, we have taken a separate position with respect to certain aspects of the Middle East problem from Britain and France. While this might have some disadvantages in terms of our alliance with the UK and France, on the other hand it had some good effects in terms of the Middle East. He said that 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. He had in mind, as he had mentioned in the Congressional briefing the other day, that we should be thinking about things we might be able to do to assist them in their economies. He said we must take the leadership in trying to save these countries and orient them toward the West, because the British and French have forfeited their position there and have no influence. I commented that as a result of the British and French action, their position in the Middle East had been totally destroyed for many years to come, if not permanently. Therefore, the only power which could really exercise a constructive influence in the Middle East was the US, and that the burden of trying to prevent Soviet penetration would fall very largely on us. The President said he agreed, and therefore we must, as he had earlier suggested, be thinking constructively and imaginatively about things we could do.
I assume that you will have S/S show appropriate paragraphs of this memorandum to appropriate Assistant Secretaries on a need-to-know basis.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 711.11–EI/11–1356. Secret; Limit Distribution. A marginal notation reads: “Secty saw 11/13/56. H.H.Jr.”↩
- The Top Secret Daily Summaries are filed chronologically, ibid., Daily Summaries: Lot 60 D 530.↩
- Hammarskjöld had requested that the United States postpone action on its draft resolution on the Suez Canal during a conversation with Lodge on November 12. Lodge reported on the contents of this conversation to the Department of State in Delga 68, November 12, and advised that it would be imprudent to go against Hammarskjöld’s wishes on this matter. (Ibid., Central Files, 320.5780/11–1256) Hammarskjöld visited Cairo between Friday, November 16, and Sunday, November 18.↩