Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew to President Harry S. Truman

SOP SECRET DECLASSIFIED E.O. 1165% Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (E) Dept. of State letter, Aug. 10, 1972 NAR Date 2.16.75 MAY 1 1945 MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE" Subject: Palestine On April 18 Secretary Stettinius sent you a personal and confidential letter in which he pointed out that efforts would undoubtedly be made by the Zionists to obtain commitments from you in favor of their program for Palestine, and that while we were making every effort to relieve the suffering of the Jews in Europe we felt that the question of Palestine was a highly complex one which should be handled with the greatest care. In this connection I thought that you would like to know that although President Roosevelt at times gave expression to views sympathetic to certain Zionist aims, he also gave certain assurances to the Arabs which they regard as definite commitments on our part. On a number of occasions within the past few years, he thorized the Department to assure the heads of the different Near Eastern Governments in his behalf that "in the view of this Government there should be no decision altering the basic situation in Palestine without full consultation with both Arabs and Jews". In his meeting with King Ibn Saud early this year, moreover, Mr. Roosevelt promised the King that as regards Palestine he would make no move hostile to the Arab people and would not assist the Jews as against the Arabs. I am attaching a copy of a memorandum summarizing the conversation between Ibn Saud and Mr. Roosevelt, of which the original is presumably with Mr. Roosevelt's papers. After the meeting, this memorandum was approved by both the President and the King, so that it may be regarded as completely authentic. On April 5, only a week before his death, the President signed a letter to Ibn Saud in which he repeated the assurances which he had made to the King during the meeting. A copy of this letter is also attached. The