Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

the OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE E.O. 12065, Guidelines, March 6, 1982 WASHINGTON State Dept. NLT, Date 9-10-85 By DEB July 16, 1952 SECRET SECURITY INFORMATION SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS EGYPT The Secretary saw British Ambassador Franks on Tues- - day at the latter's request. Franks said he had been in- - structed to reinforce Eden's recent message to us requesting our support for the UK in an approach to King Farouk asking him to change the govern- ment of Sirry Pasha in Egypt. Franks also said the Foreign Office did not agree with our recent suggestion that the British should consult with the Sudanese and urge them to accept Egyptian sovereignty. The Secretary said that we could not accept the im- plications in Eden's message that it is now our responsibility to persuade King Farouk to replace the Sirry government and to lay aside the question of the title, and that we are not willing to be put in a situation where the consequences for lack of success in any such approach to Farouk would fall on the US. The Secretary said that in Ambassador Caffery's opinion it will not be possible to bring about a change of government in Egypt by inter - vening with Farouk and that a successor government would be no better than Sirry's. Moreover, he pointed out that we have already tried to get the King to lay aside the title question and it has not worked. Ambassador Franks indicated that he would inform London that the US was unable to meet Eden's request. Speaking personally, Franks said he imagined that Foreign Office thinking tended toward the view that the UK should make no move at this time unless the Egyptians requested talks and that the next action would be in December when the Sudanese Parliament was installed and could consider the question of sovereignty. The Secretary expressed the belief that if nothing was done until the Sudanese Parliament was established the Sudanese would be so strongly headed toward a policy of no Egyptian sovereignty that we could no longer expect them to accept Farouk's claim to be King of the Sudan. It would then be necessary to deal with the Canal Base question in a bad atmos- - phere and this in itself might lead to more rioting. This in turn would raise the use of force to protect the base and possibly British and foreign nationals. The Secretary ended the discussion by saying that we would continue, in SECRET SECURITY INE ORMATION-