Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

DEPARTMENT OF STATE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY WASHINGTON April 11, 1949 It SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS BALKANS Pointing out that the ouster of Deputy Prime Minister Kostov in Bulgaria completes the "purgative encirclement" of Yugo- slavia by the USSR, Ambassador Cannon in Belgrade states that Moscow intends the liquidation of all Balkan leaders who might believe their prominence brought about by their own efforts and not by subservience to the USSR. The USSR also intends to establish increasingly throughout the Balkans the leadership of a corps of quasi-Russian, Moscow-trained satraps, with the personal merit or popular following of officials no longer being considered. Cannon says that the Kremlin is determined to seal Tito off and to turn against him the propaganda for the plan of a united Macedonia. Cannon contends that the USSR should not be left to feel that we regard the Macedonian question as a squabble over a remote territory by three Soviet satellites; our action should make clear that the USSR cannot successfully carry out overt or camouflaged aggression in Macedonia through world indifference. ISRAEL Our representative on the Palestine Conciliation Commission reports that Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion said in con- versations with the commission that the creation of the Arab refugee problem was an organized plan "by the Arab states or the British or both". Ben-Gurion remarked that if the refugees were repatriated before a peace settlement, Israel might be attacked; as a consequence Israel would not undertake a program of repatriation before such an over-all settlement. Ben-Gurion also told the commission that Israel is unable to accept as valid the principle of internationalization of Jerusalem as envisaged by the General Assembly. Ben-Gurion contended that the destruction in Jerusalem was caused by the Arab states which defied the UN, and that "Jerusalem is to the Jews what Rome is to the Italians." Ben-Gurion said, however, that Israel would accept internationalizatior of the Holy Places. DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402 State Dept. Guideline, June 12, 1979 By NLT- HL NARS, Date 11-13-to