Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Abraham Feinberg, and John A. Waldo

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 5154926 Memorandum of Conversation 811 DATE: April 5, 1951 SUBJECT: Grant-aid to Israel 95 THUMAN PARTICIPANTS: 3. ARCHIVES 'NATIONAL RECOROS AND 3 The Secretary SERVICK Mr. Abraham Feinberg NE - Mr. Waldo COPIES TO: s/s Tel Aviv PROBLEM: To inform Mr. Feinberg of the Department's position on the $150 million Congressional aid bill for Israel. ACTION TAKEN:As noted ACTION ASSIGNED TO: S, NEA U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 16-61120-1 Mr. Feinberg called in accord with a suggestion from the President that he see me so that I could explain to him some of the problems faced by the Department in connection with the Congressional bills of April 2 to authorize grant-in-aid of $150 million for Israel. I told Mr. Feinberg that the principal problem facing us in the Near East was one of security. Our first line of defense in that area was the states of Greece, Turkey, and Iran; behind these countries the Arab states and Israel provided the only defense in depth. The Arab states, however, were not very secure. At the present time they could not defend themselves against the Soviet Union. A year ago these states had expressed the conviction that Israel was preparing for aggressive action against them. Israel had held similar views with respect to the Arab states. As a result of the uneasiness in the NE the US, the UK, and France had issued a declaration, May 25, 1950, which assured all of the states of the Near East that these three countries would be prepared to supply them with arms adequate for internal security and for necessary self-defense on receiving assurances from the individual states that these arms would not be used against one another. The declaration also indicated that we wished to strengthen these countries and permit them to play their part in the defense of the area. As a further implementation of the policy set forth in the declaration, the Department had been studying means whereby individual states of the Near East could be strengthened in order that they might be in a position to defend themselves against aggression from the Soviet Union. At present none DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (E) -8-76 Dept. of State letter, 108-9,1973 8x NLT H NARS Date 6-24-26