Confidential report from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(Confidential)

The Israel crisis is rapidly coming to rank as one of the most extraordinary episodes in the diplomatic history of recent times, particularly the diplomatic history of the United States.

My last report, which was dictated in the forenoon of the 27th February,² described the position at that time. Ambassador Eban, having returned from Israel, was in Washington conferring with Mr. Dulles. The UN Assembly was marking time awaiting a US compromise proposal for the solution of the crisis, which was expected to be made in the Assembly that afternoon. No one, however, knew precisely what was happening or what the position was. It is said that during the morning Dr. Fawzi, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, asked the Secretary General what was going to happen at the afternoon session and the Secretary General, being completely in the dark as to what was going on in Washington, had to confess that he didn’t know. About 12.30 p.m., just as I had finished dictating the report, Mr. Crosswaite of the British delegation (who is usually very well-informed) came up to Miss Murphy and me and asked – apparently still under the impression that the US delegation intended to come forward with the expected proposal that afternoon – ‘Has anyone seen the US proposal yet? They haven’t shown it to us, but we believe they have one’. Just then, a press correspondent called me aside and told me that there had just been a newsflash on the tapes to the effect that Mrs. Golda Meir³ had joined Mr. Eban in his conversations with Mr. Dulles in Washington and that the US Secretary of State was conducting the conversations in consultation with Messieurs Guy Mollet and Georges Pineau who were in Washington on an official visit. (I put this information into the postscript to my report). The correspondent added that it was understood in the press gallery that there would be no US proposal made that afternoon. In fact, the Assembly meeting fixed for that afternoon was cancelled a few minutes later.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the amazement with which UN circles heard during the afternoon the news that the US Secretary of State had brought the French Ministers in on his conversations with the Israelis. To understand this, it is only necessary to recall the background. Israel, which had invaded Egypt, had failed to comply with repeated resolutions of the Assembly calling on her to withdraw her forces to the armistice demarcation lines. France supported Israel in this attitude and was the only country, apart from Israel, to vote against the resolution of February 2 calling on Israel to withdraw. Outside the Communist and Afro-Asian blocs, no delegation in the Assembly had been more outspoken in asserting the necessity for Israel’s unconditional withdrawal, and the inevitability of sanctions if it didn’t take place, than that of the United States. The Assembly had actually before it a draft resolution put down by the Afro-Asian bloc proposing economic sanctions against Israel for her failure to withdraw. The European, Latin-American and Commonwealth delegations were waiting for the US proposal to see how the necessity for sanctions – for which there was no enthusiasm and a fair amount of opposition among them – could best be countered. Their only fear was that, in view of what had been said on behalf of the US administration both in public and privately in the corridors of the UN, the US was likely to want to go further in the imposition of sanctions than their governments would feel able to follow them.

On the basis of the public utterances of President Eisenhower and Mr. Dulles and the explanations given to delegates here by Ambassador Lodge, everyone at the UN understood the policy of the United States in relation to the Israel problem to be strongly attached to certain principles. The first of these was the idea that the problem was essentially one for the United Nations. President Eisenhower had originally adopted this attitude during his election campaign; but US policy continued to adhere to it obdurately, even when many delegations here (including, I think, our own) had reached the conclusion that it was being pushed too far – that UN speeches and resolutions had achieved all they could and the time had come for some quiet, old-fashioned diplomacy. Secondly, the US had been adamant from the beginning in the attitude that Israel’s withdrawal must be absolutely unconditional and that any question of guarantees could only be discussed after Israel had agreed to withdraw. It was on this very point that Ambassador Lodge and Mr. Lester Pearson had parted company. Thirdly, the US administration’s firm statements about the necessity for sanctions if Israel didn’t withdraw had been understood by everyone to be based on the view that, however unpalatable the idea of one-sided pressure or sanctions against Israel might be to some delegations, there was really no alternative if the Eisenhower doctrine for the Middle East, which was so vital for world peace, was not to be shipwrecked on the resentments which Israel’s aggression had created in the area.

What astounded UN circles as the story of the Washington conversation began to percolate through on Wednesday evening and Thursday was not that the US seemed to be departing from one of the principles of her previous policy, but that at one sudden heave, she seemed to have jettisoned all of them! That she had discussed and agreed on the terms of a settlement with Israel outside the UN was no great surprise. As I say, a considerable volume of feeling had grown up here that some form of unobtrusive diplomatic action had become essential at that stage. Nor was there much criticism of the fact that the US, having apparently ceased to insist that Israel’s withdrawal must be unconditional, was negotiating with the Israelis about the ‘assumptions’ on which the withdrawal would take place. No doubt that was wounding to the susceptibilities of the Afro-Asians who had hitherto been supported by the US in the demand that the withdrawal should be unconditional; but many other delegations had felt for a long time that it was quite unrealistic and, indeed, unfair to expect Israel to withdraw without some assurance that there would be no return to the status quo which existed before the Suez attack. What was astonishing, however, was that the US administration should have not only negotiated with the Israeli Foreign Minister and Ambassador while leaving the Egyptian Foreign Minister humiliatingly in the dark here in New York, but should have invited to take part in the negotiation the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of France, which was not only guilty of aggression against Egypt herself but is at the moment, of all countries in the world, the most hated among the Arab states as a whole. There was much discussion on this point as the facts became known at the UN, and the universal opinion was that the US Secretary of State had been guilty of a piece of incredible gaucherie, likely to entail unfortunate consequences.

When the Assembly met on Thursday afternoon, full agreement on the proposed settlement had not yet been reached. Mr. Ben-Gurion hadn’t yet been able to get the assent of his cabinet. Mr. Kidron of Israel made a short statement in the Assembly saying that his government hoped to make an announcement at the meeting the following day. He was followed by 4 or 5 other speakers, including Dr. Fawzi of Egypt and Dr. Jamali of Iraq, both of whom expressed the extreme bitterness and resentment they felt at the new turn of events. It is reported that Ambassador Lodge had seen Dr. Fawzi somewhat belatedly that morning and had given him an account of what had been discussed and agreed upon in Washington. If so, it didn’t deter Dr. Fawzi, who is usually dignified and moderate, from conveying in what he said an intense sense of indignation and outrage.

When the Assembly met the following morning, the broad outlines of the arrangement agreed upon in Washington were generally known. Even outside the Communist and Afro-Asian blocs, there was much scepticism and criticism. The feeling of scepticism was summed up in Lester Pearson’s remark to me: ‘It’s all right if it will work, but it simply won’t work’. Among the difficulties foreseen in operating the plan were, the lack of any clear legal basis on which UNEF could be retained in the Gulf of Aqaba and in the Gaza strip with, in the latter case, civil as well as military duties; and the risks that Indonesia, India and Yugoslavia would withdraw their contingents from UNEF out of opposition to the plan. It was also pointed out that even if the US were right in thinking that the plan didn’t require a fresh Assembly resolution and therefore could not be held up by an adverse vote by the Afro-Asian bloc, the presence of UNEF on Egyptian territory would still be dependent on the consent of the Egyptian government and the Arab states could express their opposition to the plan as a whole in other ways, e.g. by slowing up the clearance of the Canal or the repair of the Syrian pipe-line. The criticism was mainly directed to the conditions in which the arrangement had been negotiated. Granted that the need for getting the Middle Eastern resolution through Congress and the opposition to sanctions on Capitol Hill were good and adequate reasons for throwing the idea of unconditional withdrawal overboard and trying to negotiate an arrangement with Israel, people felt that this might well have been accomplished without gratuitously humiliating the Egyptian Foreign Minister and exacerbating the feelings of the Arab states by openly bringing France into the deal. In other words, quite a good and promising conception had, it was felt, been prejudiced from the beginning by a bad and unpsychological mode of execution.

A caucus meeting of the European and Commonwealth members of UN was held on the morning of Friday. The head of the French delegation, Monsieur Georges-Picot, explained the outlines of the agreed arrangement and emphasised that, while no resolution was contemplated, Israel had accepted it on the understanding that leading members of the UN, principally the leading maritime powers (US, Britain, France, Netherlands, Norway, etc.), would indicate in their speeches their concurrence in the assumptions on which Israel’s promise to withdraw was based. Mrs. Golda Meir would specify these in her speech. The discussion at the caucus was vague and tentative because no one had seen either Mrs. Golda Meir’s speech or the speech which Ambassador Lodge intended to deliver immediately after it. But several of those present, notably Mr. Lester Pearson and Ambassador Engen of Norway (who is chairman of the Secretary General’s Advisory Committee on UNEF), asked pertinent questions indicating grave doubts about the workability of the plan.

When the Assembly met that afternoon, the President called at once on Mrs. Golda Meir. I enclose the text of her speech as well as the texts of the speeches of Ambassador Lodge and Monsieur George-Picot of France which followed it.⁴ The exact texts are important in view of the difficulties which subsequently arose.

Mrs. Golda Meir’s speech created a favourable impression, even, I believe, on the Afro-Asian states. Coming out after the adjournment, I asked Mr. Arthur Lall⁵ of India his impression. He said: ‘If they only get out quickly, I imagine everything will be all right’. Ambassador Loutfi⁶ of Egypt told me almost exactly the same thing. The adjournment was followed by another meeting of the European-Commonwealth caucus. The general opinion was that the agreed arrangement had gone down better than anyone expected. Ambassador Lodge was particularly optimistic and jubilant. He left the room during the meeting to speak to Mr. Dulles on the phone and, no doubt, gave him the same impression. Even Mr. Pearson, who had been markedly sceptical earlier in the day, thought that things were looking brighter, although he still thought the difficulties ahead were being minimised. Ambassador Lodge said everything depended on the Israelis getting their troops moving out at the earliest possible moment, and he asked any of us who had contacts with members of the Israeli delegation to emphasise this when speaking to them.

I was barely out of the caucus when I met Ambassador Comay of Israel. He was extremely glum. Before I could say anything, he told me that Lodge’s speech had been a ‘complete let-down’ for them. He wasn’t sure that everything was not in the melting-pot again. Mrs. Meir was furious; she was trying to get through to Mr. Ben-Gurion on the phone; he asked me not to say anything about the matter in the meantime; it was possible that Mr. Ben-Gurion would take a different view from Mrs. Meir but he didn’t think so; the position was very serious. I asked Comay what Lodge had said wrong. He asked me not to press him on that, because the trouble might yet be fixed up. I would detect the trouble if I compared Lodge’s statement with that of Georges-Picot. The simple fact was that Lodge had not said things which Washington had specifically promised he would say and had said other things which Washington had equally specifically promised he would not say; and whether it was due to carelessness or deliberate duplicity he simply couldn’t make out. It was clear from his attitude that the Israelis were extremely angry.

You have probably since gathered from the press what the points at issue were. Briefly, the Israelis claim they had been given to understand in Washington that the US would publicly support the right of Israel to defend herself under Art. 51 of the Charter if Egypt tried to exercise belligerent rights against Israeli ships or cargos passing through the Straits of Tiran or resumed fedayeen attacks; and also that the US would similarly proclaim her support for the retention of effective (though not necessarily exclusive) civilian administration of the Gaza Strip by UN until normal, peaceful relations between Israel and Egypt were restored. M. Georges-Picot confirmed these assumptions in his speech, but Ambassador Lodge did not. He said that any future attacks or breaches of the Armistice Agreement would ‘create a situation for United Nations consideration’ and the future of the Gaza Strip ‘must be worked out within the framework of the Armistice Agreement’, which, of course, entrusts the civilian administration of the Strip to Egypt. How the misunderstanding arose is not yet clear. The US delegation says that the Israeli delegation was informed of the ‘contents’ of Ambassador Lodge’s speech before it was delivered. It seems clear, however, that the Israelis did not see the text and, in a matter in which the scope of the undertakings given to Israel obviously depended on the precise terms in which they were stated, this was to say the least an unfortunate omission.

The week-end was spent in an endeavour to unravel the wholly unnecessary difficulty which had arisen – a difficulty which could have easily been avoided if the obvious course of checking texts beforehand had been followed. As I write (Monday morning), the news messages suggest that, thanks to further messages from President Eisenhower, Mr. Ben-Gurion’s misgivings have been allayed and steps to withdraw the Israeli troops are now being taken. So far so good. What we have to see now, however, is the considered reaction of the Arab states and their friends. Before he left for India on Friday morning, Mr. Krishna Menon (who had learnt the full details at a meeting of the Commonwealth delegations the previous night) made a violent and deliberately mischievous speech saying that UNEF would have no right to remain in Egypt at all once the Israeli troops had been withdrawn and that Egypt was perfectly entitled to make what regulations she liked as regards ships and cargos passing through the Straits of Tiran as they were Egyptian territorial waters. The Arab states are hardly likely to take a more moderate line. Indeed, the more they consider it, the less likely they are to feel satisfied with the arrangement worked out between the United States, France and Israel. They are starting to realise that, by able diplomacy, Israel has managed to extract from the principal Western Powers guarantees of her security which, though not in treaty form, are really firmer and more valuable than any she could secure by a resolution of the Assembly, which as you know would only have a ‘recommendatory’ force.

The discussion on the new arrangement resumes this afternoon. Britain informed the European-Commonwealth caucus that she will announce her concurrence with the ‘assumptions’ outlined in Mrs. Golda Meir’s speech but ‘for obvious reasons’, she thought it would be more tactful if she waited until towards the end of the discussion before doing so. As we are not a leading maritime country, there is no necessity for us to make a specific statement in the discussion and we don’t propose to do so. Moreover, as the Afro-Asians are unlikely to proceed with their sanctions resolution and there will be no other proposal before the Assembly, we will not have to cast a vote.