See the original memorandum with notes courtesy of the Truman Library
July 15, 1946
My dear Mr. President:
You will recall that on July 11 we sent a telegram to the Secretary in Paris in which we informed him that in our opinion the United Stated should vote in favor of the admission of Trans-Jordan into the United Nations and asked for his concurrence. In that telegram we stated that it would be necessary for us to establish without delay our attitude in the matter and that we were sending a memorandum to you requesting your views.
I am attaching hereto a memorandum which discusses in some detail various factors involved in the problem and sets forth the considerations which cause the Department to feel that it would be in our national interests to support the application of Trans-Jordan for membership in the United Nations.
I would appreciate it if you would let me know whether you approve the course of action which the Department suggests. The matter may come up for discussion before the Security Council Committee on Membership within the next few days.
Faithfully yours,
Dean Acheson
Acting Secretary
Enclosure:
Memorandum for the President
The President,
The White House.
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
Subject: Position of United States with Respect to Admission of Trans-Jordan to the United Nations.
The Kingdom of Trans-Jordan, which was recognized by the British Government as an independent country on March 22 of this year, has applied for membership in the United Nations and the question has arisen as to whether or not the delegate of the United States to the Security Council should be instructed to vote for its admission. The decision which the United States Government takes with regard to this matter is certain to have considerable repercussions, both of a domestic and an international character.
Most of the Zionists and the supporters in the United States of extreme Zionism are opposed to the recognition of Trans-Jordan as an independent country and, therefore, to the admission of Trans-Jordan into the United Nations. On the other hand, Great Britain and the Arab world are extremely anxious that the application of Trans-Jordan for admittance shall not be rejected.
The Zionists and their supporters are in general opposed on political grounds to the recognition of Trans-Jordan as an independent country. Some of them desire to use the recognition of the independence of Trans-Jordan as a bargaining medium in order to obtain better terms from the Arabs with regard to Palestine. The more extreme Zionists have always hoped that Trans-Jordan would eventually be included in a greater Jewish state which would embrace both sides of the River Jordan and, therefore, are opposed to a non-Jewish, independent Trans-Jordan.
Zionist leaders desire the United States to take the position that the Government of Great Britain has acted illegally and unilaterally in granting independence to Trans-Jordan. They urge that the United States refuse to recognize Trans-Jordan as an independent country, and oppose the admission of Trans-Jordan into the United Nations. They insist that Great Britain, in recognizing the independence of Trans-Jordan, has violated the terms of the Palestine Mandate received from the League of Nations; that it has violated certain obligations contained in the American-British Convention relating to Palestine of December 1924, and that it failed to observe certain stipulations in the Charter of the United Nations.
Article 27 of the Mandate for Palestine provides that:
“the Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”
Article 2 of the American-British Palestine Mandate Convention provides that:
“The United States and its national shall have and enjoy all the rights and benefits secured under the terms of the mandate to members of the League of Nations and their nationals, notwithstanding the fact that the United States is not a member of the League of Nations.”
Article 7 of this Convention provides that:
“Nothing contained in the present convention shall be affected by any modification which may be made in the terms of the mandate,….unless such modification shall have been assented to by the United States.”
Article 77 of the United Nations Charter provides that:
“The trusteeship system shall apply to such territories in the following categories as may be placed thereunder by means of trusteeship agreements:
a. territories now held under mandate….”
Article 80 of the United Nations Charter provides that:
“Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements, made unter Article 77….placing each territory under the trusteeship system, and until such agreements have been concluded, nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.”
The Zionists take the view that the intent of the articles of the United Nations Charter above quoted was to place Governments holding mandates under the same obligations to the United Nations as they had to the League of Nations.
The British position is substantially as follows:
Since the Council of the League of Nations no longer existed, it was not possible for the British Government to approach the Council with regard to its plan to recognize the independence of Trans-Jordan. The British Government did, however, endeavor, so far as circumstances permitted, to carry out its obligations to the League of Nations by presenting the matter to the Final Session of the League of Nations Assembly in April of this year. The members of the Assembly of the League passed unanimously a resolution welcoming the termination of the mandated status of Trans-Jordan. The British Government also points out that in February of this year its representative announced to the General Assembly of the United Nations the British intention to grant independence to Trans-Jordan and that the General Assembly passed unanimously a resolution welcoming this announcement. The British Government takes the position that since the American representation to the General Assembly voted for this resolution, and since the American Government has not registered any objection to the granting of independence to Trans-Jordan, the British Government may assume that the United STates Government has no objection thereto. Although the British Government has not so stated, it apparently takes the view that in any event it was not bligated by the American-British Palestine Convention to consult the American Government before granting independence to Trans-Jordan. The British attitude in this respect seems to be that since the granting of independence to Trans-Jordan was the fulfilment of the original purpose of the mandate, it should not be regarded as a modification of the mandate. The British Government does not feel that it has obligated itself to consult with the United States in advance before carrying out the purposes of the mandate.
The British Government apparently also takes the position that it was not obligated by Articles 77 and 80 of the United Nations Charter, quoted above, to consult the United States before granting independence to Trans-Jordan, since it was not the intent of these articles to make it compulsory for a power holding a Class A mandate to obtain the consent of the United States before granting independence to the territories held under mandate, nor was it compulsory for such a power to place such mandated territories under the trusteeship system. British officials point out in this connection that in Article 77 the word “may” was used rather than “shall” or “must”–in other words, powers holding mandates could decide for themselves whether or not they wished to transer territories from the mandate system to the trusteeship system. They also emphasize the fact that although Great Britain did not feel that it was obligated to obtain the consent of the United Nations to the granting of independence to Trans-Jordan, nevertheless it did seek approval of the General Assembly of the United Nations to granting independence to Tans-Jordan and received such approval.
It seems to the Department that in the absence of precedents, and in the view of the possibility of various interpretations being placed upon the language used in the Mandate, in the American-British Convention, and in other pertinent documents, the Zionists can produce plausible arguments in favor of their position. The Department is of the opinion, however, that the position of the British from the legal point of view is the more sound. The Department also feels that in making its decision, the Government of the United States should consider the factual and international political aspects of the problem, not solely those of a legalistic nature.
Among these considerations are the following:
1) Trans-Jordan has been a separate and autonomous part of the Palestine Mandate since 1922, and those provisions of the Mandate which related to the Jewish national home have never been applied to territory East of the Jordan. The development of Trans-Jordan as an Arab state under a separate Arab government has resulted in the evolution of that territory in a direction quite different from that taken by Palestine proper. Even the most extreme Zionists have in the past apparently recognized the special and semi-independent position of Trans-Jordan within the Palestine Mandate, and they have not taken exception to Article 25 of the Mandate which sanctioned the exclusion of Trans-Jordan from provisions relating to the Jewish national home. Furthermore, the population of Trans-Jordan is almost wholly Arab, and, so far as is known, contains no Jewish residents.
2) Great Britain has gone so far in setting up and recognizing an independent Kingdom of Trans-Jordan that it is not now possible for it to change its policy in this respect. Great Britain, therefore, apparently has no choice other than to support the application of Trans-Jordan for admission into the United Nations. If the United States should oppose the admission of Trans-Jordan, a rift would take place between Great Britain and the United States in the Middle East with a resultant weakening of the position of the Western Powers and a decline of Western influence in that area. Such a development would be extremely unfortunate in the present world situation.
3) The government of the United States may find it expedient to vote reluctantly for the admission into the United Nations of Albania and Outer Mongolia, countries which have no greater degree of independence than Trans-Jordan. The Philippines and India are already members of the United Nations. It would be difficult to explain to the Arab world why the United States in such circumstances should oppose the admission of Trans-Jordan, which is a member in good standing of the Arab League. In this connection, it might be pointed out that the British Embassy has furnish the Department with a paraphrase of the instructions issued to Sir Alexander Cadogan on this subject. This paraphrase reads in part as follows:
“We note that the US Government apparently think they will have to vote for Outer Mongolia in the last resort. Transjordan, whose territory and record is open to all the world is surely a more respectable candidate than Outer Mongolia, which is a quite unknown factor, and with whom western states have not hitherto been allowed to have any dealings. We think it would be deplorable if OUter Mongolia were admitted and Transjordan were not, and that this would incidentally encourage the Soviet Government to put up a Constituent Republic next year as their price for agreeing to Transjordan.”
In view of the above considerations and of the over-riding political necessity of maintaining the peace and stability of the Middle East, it is recommended that the delegate of the United States be instructed to vote for the admission of Trans-Jordan to the United Nations.
