75

L.V.Samylovskii to Ia.A.Malik (New York)

COPY：AVP RF,F018,OP.9,N.17,D.77,L.1

Moscow, 14 March 1947

Top Secret

To Comrade Ia.A.Malik,

  I attach a memorandum on the Palestine questine.1

  In connection with Trygve Lie’s approaching Comrade Gromyko about the qpinion of the Soviet government on the question of setting up a special committee of the United Nations to discuss the Palestine problem, a telegram from Comrades V.M.Molotov to Comrade Gromyko was sent on 6 March, with instructions to accept Trygve Lie’s proposal to set up such a committee.

  Our position on the Palestine question has been formulated in a report to Comrade A.Ia.Vyshinskii 2 as follow:

1.      The British Mandate for Palestine must be annulled, since it is an obstacle to the solution of the Palestine question.

2.      British troops must be withdrawn from Palestine in order to creat a normal situation.

3.      The United Nations must work out a constitution for a single independent democratic Palestine, which ensures that the peoples living there will enjoy equal national and democratic rights.

                                                      I.V.Samylovskii

1.Reference is presumably to Doc.73.

2.The memorandum to Vyshinskii, signed by Shtein, Vinogradov and Samylovskii, and dated 15 March 1947, is filed under AVP RF,f.0118,op.2,p.2.d.8,I.101.

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76L.V.Samylovskii to D.S.Solod (Beirut)

COPY:AVP RF,F.0118,OP.2,P.2,D.8,LL,104-5

Moscow, 26 March 1947

Top Secret

To the USSR minister in Syria and Lebanon, Comrade D.S.Solod,

  Although the information contained in your letter of 19 February under reference no.77/s 1 on the ‘Palestine question’ is based on data from the last quarter of the previous year, it is nevertheless of interest to the department. In particular there are interesting translations of certain documents which were enclosed with the letter but which were not to be found in the departmental files.

  Your characterization of the essence of American policy towards Palestine is basically the same as the material on the Palestine question which we have here. So is your assessment of the position of Great Britain, which has no intention of letting Palestine go, but is looking only for a solution to the Palestine question which would allow it to keep its own domination there for a longer period.

However, we have the following comments on some of the statements in the letter.

Your conclusion that Truman’s efforts to ‘carry out his own policy in the Eastern Mediterranean have proved to be timid, ill-timed and unsuccessful’.(p.5), is plainly at variance with the facts. The United States in reality has interfered and continues to interfere actively and openly in almost everything that goes on in the Middle East countries (by seizing oil resources, building airlines, supplying Middle East countries with military goods, sending advisors, granting credits, etc.)

Nor can we agree with you that Truman has given up direct handing of matters concerned with the Palestine question, or that his letter to Ibn Saud can be considered his last intervention in Palestine affairs (p.6).

We do not yet have data which would confirm this conclusion.

It is also hard to agree with the conclusion that Palestine is unable to ‘absorb a meaningful number of immigrants’.

In spite of these comments, your letter, which is accompanied by wellchosen translations from the local press, will serve as material for the department’s further work on the ‘Palestine question”.

                                    Director of the Near East Department

                                       USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs

                                                   I.V.Samylovskii

1.Doc.71

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