Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
290017397
label
White House Press Release, Statement by President Harry S. Truman
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
290017397
contentType
document
title
White House Press Release, Statement by President Harry S. Truman
citationUrl
collections
President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)
Subject Files
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
290017397
levelOfDescription
item
productionDates
day
25
logicalDate
1948-03-25
month
3
year
1948
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
72b23dc1e9229c87
ocrText
NEW
ARCHIVES
1652
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RECORDS
SERVICE"
MARCH 25, 1948
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
It is vital that the American people have a clear under-
standing of the position of the United States in the United Nations
regarding Palestine.
This country vigorously supported the plan for Partition
with Economic Union recommended by the United Nations Special Committee
on Palestine and by the General Assembly. We have explored every possi-
bility consistent with the basic principles of the Charter for giving
effect to that solution. Unfortunatel ', it has become clear that the
partition plan cannot be carried out at this time by peaceful means.
We could not undertake to impose this solution on the people of
Palestine by the use of American troops, both on Charter grounds and
as a matter of national policy.
The United Kingdom has announced its firm intention to
abandon its mandate in Palestine on May 15. Unless emergency action is
taken, there will be no public authority in Palestine on that date
capable of preserving law and order. Violence and bloodshed will de-
scend upon the Holy Land. Large scale fighting among the people of that
country will be the inevitable result. Such fighting would infect the
entire Middle East and could lead to consequences of the gravest sort
involving the 'peace of this nation and of the world.
These dangers are imminent. Responsible governments in the
United Nations cannot face this prospect without acting promptly to
prevent it. The United States has proposed to the Security Council a
temporary United Nations trusteeship for Palestine to provide a govern-
ment to keep the peace. Such trusteeship was proposed only after we
had exhausted every effort to find a way to carry out partition by
peaceful means. Trustecship is not proposed as a substitute for the
partition plan but as an effort to fill the vacuum soon to be created
by the termination of the mandate on May 15. The trusteeship does not
prejudice the character of the final political settlement. It would
establish the conditions of order which are essential to a peaceful
solution.
If we are to avert tragedy in Palestine, an immediate truce
must be reached between the Arabs and Jows of that country. I am in-
structing Ambassador Austin to urge upon the Security Council in the
strongest terms that representatives of the Arabs and Jews be called at
once to the Council table to arrange such a truce.
The United States is prepared to lend every appropriate
assistance to the United Nations in preventing bloodshed and in reaching
a peaceful settlement. If the United Nations agrees to a temporary
trusteeship, we must take our share of the necessary responsibility.
Our regard for the United Nations, for the peace of the world and for
our own self-interst does not permit us to do less.
With such a truce and such a trusteoship, a peaceful settlement
is yet possible; without them, open warfare is just over the horizon.
American policy in this emergency period is based squarely upon the
recognition of this inescapable fact.