4 
NON-CIRCULATING i 
; UN LIBRA v 
? , ?YUN, INTERVIEW r.v 
GIDEON RAFAEL ""??*,, *:Q\? /pQ"> 
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL * '" ? 
INTERVIEWER: SUTTERLIN UfNp/ . t 
Table of Contents 
I. The founding of Israel 
Functioning of the Jewish Agency 1-2 
Adoption of Partition Resolution 2-3 
Soviet attitude 3-6 
The question of Jerusalem 6-8 
American attitude 9-10 
Trygve Lie's views 11-12 
Feelings in the UN toward the UN 14-24 
II. Security Council Resolution 242 
The drafting process 24-29 
Territory for peace 29-35 
The Jarring mission 36 
III. The 1956 Suez War 
Prior I s r a e l i planning 36-38 
The cease-fire 39-4 0 
Eban-Hammarskjold relationship 40-41 
Is r a e l i withdrawal 42-45 
Prior I s r a e l i knowledge of Egyptian 
return to the Gaza Strip 46-47 
Dulles actions 47 
YUN INTERVIEW 
GIDEON RAFAEL 
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL 
APRIL 17, 1991 
INTERVIEWER: SUTTERLIN 
JSS Mr. Rafael, I want f i r s t to thank you for agreeing to 
participate in this Yale University oral history program. 
I'd l i k e to start very early in the history of, even 
before, Israel was established as a country because i f 
I'm not mistaken, you were a member of the Jewish Agency 
team (GR: Correct). I'd like f i r s t of a l l for you to 
t e l l me what were your duties there, what was your 
position in this group? 
GR Well my designation was Assistant to Mr. Sharett who was 
the head of the P o l i t i c a l Department. 
JSS And you worked really as a team? 
GR We worked as a team. I had a l l kinds of assignments from 
providing the tea for the meetings up to some internal 
information which was very important, and liaison with 
the Arab delegations. 
JSS You did part of the liaison with the Arab delegations? 
GR Well, not very o f f i c i a l l y from their point of view but we 
had some contacts with them. 
JSS How was that handled? 
GR Well, the time hasn't come to t e l l that. But i t was 
handled very e f f i c i e n t l y , so e f f i c i e n t l y that we knew 
that on the decisive day of 29 November, 1947, Camille 
Shamoun would spring a surprise in order to avoid the 
vote on the partition plan. We knew a couple of hours 
before that he would spring that surprise in announcing 
that the Arabs had reconsidered their position and 
they're going to support the federal solution, which was 
the minority report. In order to work out the Arab 
position he asked for three months delay in the voting. 
Well, we knew about that planned surprise very shortly 
before, but had time enough to prepare the chief 
representatives of the US and the USSR. We could not 
intervene directly, because as a non-governmental 
delegation we had no right to speak at the General 
Assembly. One Herschl Johnson, and Andrei Gromyko 
??????. 
When Andrei Gromyko was informed of Shamoun's plan 
he said. "Let me handle that." He was an uncontested 
master of procedure. He came down on Camille Shamoun 
li k e a ton of bricks with stern warning to the President 
of the General Assembly, Oswaldo Aranha, not to waver and 
to c a l l for a vote on the partition plan. Herschl 
Johnson followed, not as forceful as Gromyko but in line 
with him. Saying, "We have reached the decision that we 
take the vote today, and at the voting stage you can't 
come with new proposals." And that was the decisive 
moment, I would say, in the whole matter. 
JSS Well this Soviet contact was very important at that 
point, also. 
2 
GR Yes, of course, Gromyko did not want to l e t the vote go 
by default and he could be very fierce in such 
situations, particularly in handling procedure. 
JSS I wanted to ask a question on that. The Soviet Union was 
in fact more enthusiastically supportive of the partition 
resolution than the US was. Why do you think that was? 
Why do you think the Soviet Union was so supportive at 
that point? 
GR There are two reasons, at least. I think, when the 
Soviet Union at that time, in the S t a l i n i s t time, takes 
a li n e they go for i t , and Gromyko had his instructions 
to get the things done. And there's no wavering, he had 
to deliver the goods, that's i t . So therefore in his 
Soviet S t a l i n i s t diplomacy there was no - how you c a l l 
i t ? - no holds barred? Yes, that's the way i t was, 
whether i t was on Korea, or clashing with Hammarskjold on 
the Congo. They acted with "revolutionary fervor." 
That's one thing. The other thing i s , on the 
substance - why did they support the partition of 
Palestine? I dealt with that in my book on Israel 
foreign policy and I have come, on the basis of much 
research and personal impressions, to two conclusions. 
One i s that they really believed there must be a change 
in the pattern of the Middle East domination and Jews 
were in their view more effective in making trouble there 
for the Bri t i s h . They were more impressed by our 
3 
capacity to further their objective of undermining the 
B r i t i s h position in the Middle East. They had very 
l i t t l e love lost for the Arabs at the time. They had 
been collaborators of Hitler, the Mufti, and the 
delegation of the Arabs and of the Palestinians' Higher 
Committee headed by Jemal Husseini. The Mufti as you 
know, was working as a close collaborator of Hitler. So 
they had no love for them. That was on the Arab side. 
And the second point i s , I really believe they had 
the feeling that the Jews had suffered enormous 
sacrifices in the war. There i s a speech by Gromyko, an 
emotional speech, in the second session of the General 
Assembly of the UN, where he said, " 6,000,000 Jews (for 
the f i r s t time the Soviets mentioned the figure of 
6,000,000) have been butchered by the Nazi executioners 
and they have a right to independence and to their own 
sovereignty." And then he added, "After a l l , they had a 
longstanding h i s t o r i c a l association with Palestine in 
history." So I believe that there was something of the 
comradeship of suffering at the time. 
whether Stalin was directly involved I really don't 
know, I haven't found anything on that. Gromyko in any 
case always showed interest in relationships with Israel. 
He was always open to discussion and in preparation of 
the decision we had quite a lot of contacts with him and 
other members of the Soviet delegation. He showed not 
4 
only eagerness to get the revolution adopted, but 
understanding for the Jewish viewpoint. So I wouldn't 
say that Gromyko introduced the emotional aspect, because 
he was not exactly an emotional man - but I think the 
his t o r i c aspect was known in Moscow. 
The change of the Soviet attitude occurred when 
Moscow - after establishing relations with Israel -
realized what effect i t had on the Jewish population in 
the Soviet Union, that they had stirred up a hornet's 
nest. When Golda Meir, Israel's f i r s t ambassador to the 
Soviet Union, appeared on Rosh Hashana in the synagogue 
the f i r s t mass demonstration in S t a l i n i s t Russia took 
place in front of the synagogue by an immense crowd of 
Jews. This was too much for the Soviet authorities. 
They decided to separate between their relations with 
Israel and the Jewish Zionist aspect. 
I want to go back just a minute to the a c t i v i t i e s of the 
Palestine Committee on which there were the 
representatives of the Jewish Agency and ask you in 
particular about Jerusalem. The partition of course 
provided for a special status for Jerusalem. What was 
your attitude, what was the thinking in the Jewish Agency 
the future Israel representatives, about that subject, 
about Jerusalem? 
The report on the corpus separatum was very painful for 
us. We had done everything we could before to persuade 
UNSCOP not to adopt that position but they were under 
great influence from the Vatican mainly by means of the 
Latin American countries. We saw we were up against a 
wall, we couldn't change that. So our acceptance of that 
part of the partition scheme was very painful, I would 
say, i t was the price of glory, I mean, the glory of the 
restoration of Jewish independence. That was our 
feeling. 
JSS So there was that strong feeling ... I have read some 
places that Ben Gurion was not te r r i b l y interested in 
Jerusalem at that point. 
GR No, no, I have no evidence of that. On the contrary, he 
tr i e d immediately after the fighting to establish 
Israel's position in Jerusalem by moving the government 
offices and himself to Jerusalem, making declarations 
which were not very useful to us during the United 
Nations discussions at a later stage, in 1949 and 1950 
when there was the question of Israel's admission to the 
UN. I once spoke to him about his statement when he had 
arrived in Jerusalem and made, at the gates of the city, 
a very strong statement that "Jerusalem i s the eternal 
capital of Israel etc...." This was reported by Cy 
Sulzburger who was there. A great splash in the New York 
Times exactly when a new resolution on Jerusalem came to 
a vote - how to evade a reaffirmation of the Jerusalem 
corpus came up for voting. So when I saw Ben Gurion 
6 
later i n Tel Aviv I said "that was not very good timing. 
You know what effect your statement had". Ben Gurion 
answered in his way of appearing as utterly naive - "how 
could this be reported in the American press? But I 
spoke in Hebrew." 
JSS Now I'd l i k e to go to the American stage, so to speak, 
because in this period when the partition resolution was 
being considered there was much activ i t y with the 
Americans and in Washington. I want to ask, what contacts 
you had with the American side, what was your feeling at 
the time as to attitudes in the US government toward the 
establishment of a Jewish state? 
GR I don't believe that i t was so important for the US to 
support the corpus separatum. But they thought about 
counting votes, on getting support. The Latin American 
vote or the Catholic vote was needed, and for this vote 
Washington had to concede a position and they were 
perhaps more or less neutral on the Jerusalem issue. But 
in the parliamentary terms of the United Nations they 
supported the ... 
JSS And they were working for the resolution at that point? 
GR Yes. 
JSS Now a l i t t l e later.... 
GR It was Ambassador Hilldring, General Hilldring. 
JSS Yes, and eventually Ambassador Austin, I think. Warren 
Austin ... 
7 
GR Yes, he became famous in my book and in my memory for a 
remark of his in a debate of the Security Council. He 
was a dear old man, Senator from Vermont, and the 
squabbling and discussions that were going on back and 
forth annoyed him. So one day he said, "Mr. President, 
can't we really settle that damned thing with the Moslems 
and the Jews in a real good Christian s p i r i t ? " 
JSS But the American position changed rather suddenly for 
trusteeship and l e t me ask you this - in your contacts in 
New York with the American delegation, did you have any 
idea that the US was going to change i t s position and 
move away from partition? 
GR No, i t was a complete surprise. If i t came as a surprise 
to Truman, then i t must have been a surprise to us too. 
No, we had no advance notice of that. As a matter of 
fact i t followed a meeting between President Truman and 
Professor Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann had not the slightest 
inkling of the change of the American position - and he 
couldn't have - because Truman didn't have and Truman was 
very embarrassed by that switch. 
JSS There has been just recently published in the US the 
memoirs of Clark C l i f f o r d . I don't know whether you've 
seen them or not, they were in the New Yorker magazine. 
But he describes in great detail what happened in the 
White House with regard to... 
GR I saw that extract on the recognition of the state.... 
8 
JSS Yes, because as you know there was a real difference of 
opinion in the US government.. 
GR Oh sure. But at that time I was here already at home in 
the Foreign Ministry ... 
JSS You were back here? 
GR Exactly, when the telegram of recognition arrived. 
JSS You were already here when the recognition took place? 
Because my question would have been, and i t s t i l l i s , 
whether you know of any contacts between the Isr a e l i side 
and Clark C l i f f o r d during the days, years, well months, 
really? 
GR No, I think the go-between was Rosenman. 
JSS Judge Rosenman? 
GR Yes, I think he was the man with whom our representative 
E i l a t , the late Ambassador Eliyahu, was in touch. And 
Rosenman knew from Truman quite a while before the 
proclamation of the state, that when i t comes to the 
crunch, Truman would extend recognition to the state of 
Israel. It was a closely kept secret. 
JSS I've seen that written and I always thought i t was true. 
Clark Clifford's version i s a l i t t l e different, which is 
interesting. Clark C l i f f o r d actually took Rosenman's 
place in the White House and I think you'll want to read 
the whole memoir when i t comes out on that point. Did 
you have any particular impression at that point of the 
Secretary-General and the way Trygve Lie functioned as 
9 
Secretary-General? 
GR Yes. We were in very close touch with him and I had 
developed some kind of personal friendship with him. He 
was very keenly in favor of the establishment of the 
State and he had this warm European Socialist feeling of 
injustice done to the Jewish people. I think he was much 
impressed by the fact that America and the Soviets were 
working together on that. So he tried to, as far as he 
could, he t r i e d as much as he could to be helpful. Well, 
I remember in exactly a year after the adoption of the 
resolution I had the idea that we should apply for 
membership in the United Nations on the 29th of November 
1948. We did that while the Assembly was meeting in 
Paris. We went up - Eban and myself - to Trygve Lie with 
an o f f i c i a l letter applying for membership. He was very 
supportive but he said, "Look I don't think you have the 
necessary votes right now. After the Bernadotte 
assassination the mood is not good. For my part, f i r s t 
of a l l , I w i l l do everything to sound out what the 
situation i s . Of course you have the right as an 
independent state to be a member of the United Nations. 
Well i t didn't work out then and Israel gained 
admission only on 11 May 1949. Then followed the 
tribulations of Trygve Lie personally when, I wouldn't 
say really his breakdown, but when his close friend, Abe 
Feller, committed suicide. So this was for him a 
10 
t e r r i b l e tragedy and shock. When he l e f t I think I sent 
a report on my last talk with him and said he appeared to 
me l i k e the man in Miller's "The Death of a Salesman", a 
broken man. You know, he had a problem with the FBI 
investigating members of the UN secretariat. 
JSS Yes, but he took a strong stand in the case of Israel and 
also in the case of Korea. I want to ask you a very 
general question now. During this period how would you 
describe the atmosphere that you f e l t in the United 
Nations as Israel was, with great effort, becoming a 
member? Did you find a receptive atmosphere, did you 
find i t d i f f i c u l t to work in this new multi-national 
organization, the United Nations? 
GR Yes, well we were a very particular case there, 
culturally and religiously singular. There was only one 
Jewish state, there was only one Hebrew language. There 
was no other country that had any kind of a direct 
cultural relationship with us and we weren't surrounded 
exactly by the most accommodating neighbors. So we 
entered the United Nations as a problem child, and we 
remained a problem child. And of course there are 
his t o r i c and p o l i t i c a l reasons for that. But we were 
never really spoiled there by a very friendly atmosphere. 
It's an institution of real p o l i t i k with the Cold War and 
the winds became rather c h i l l y when the two partners 
supporting the 1947 resolutions f e l l apart. From then on 
11 
we had to swim against a strong current. 
JSS My follow up question to that i s , I think on your side 
you were enthusiastic about becoming a member of this 
organization but at some point attitudes on the Israeli 
side became increasingly negative toward the United 
Nations. How would you identify that trend? 
GR I would say that the r e a l i t i e s affecting our country, 
were different from the s p i r i t u a l i t y of our approach to 
the United Nations. And the man who expresses this 
s p i r i t u a l i t y i s Abba Eban. For him the greatest day was, 
I think, 11 of May when our flag at the United Nations 
went up and Israel became a legitimate member of 
the international community. And i f you project that in 
terms of Israel's history as a people without freedom and 
without independence - a persecuted people - after what 
had happened during the Hitler war, so for a l l of us i t 
was an event of greatest elation which had i t s effect of 
course on those who were closely connected to our work 
and struggle at the United Nations. 
But here we had practical problems - we had border 
incidents caused by Arab raids and we had the Mixed 
Armistice Commissions and they did not decide exactly as 
we wanted them to decide. And we got a black eye here 
and a black eye there, and we had to defend ourselves and 
sometimes we had to take strong measures of defense 
which were not welcomed by the United Nations. On the 
12 
contrary, they were condemned in the United Nations. We 
made mistakes, like the retaliation of Kybia for 
instance. Which was the great premiere of Ar i e l Sharon -
he was in command at Kybia - and in reporting on i t he 
deceived his superiors, a habit he has perfected since. 
At the time Kybia occurred, in October '53, I was in 
charge of Middle Eastern and United Nations affairs in 
the foreign ministry here in Jerusalem. While the 
cabinet was discussing the situation created by the 
, Sharett sent me a small note out from the cabinet 
meeting, "Stand by, you'll have to go tonight on a 
special mission." They had decided to send Dayan and me 
to the United Nations as some kind of supporting p i l l a r s 
for Abba Eban, to inform him and hold his hand there. Of 
course i t was not a very pleasant experience for us since 
the last thing a p o l i t i c i a n w i l l do is to admit a mistake 
- the military people certainly even less - so we had to 
keep up a s t i f f l i p and at home the United Nations was 
regarded as a great adversary when condemning Israel's 
action. 
But then Eban made a tremendous case in defense of 
the Kybia action. He referred to the continued Arab 
h o s t i l i t y , and their continuing a state of war, 
Israel i n violation of the UN Charter. He made a good 
case of i t . Ben Gurion and his aides were greatly 
impressed by his presentation, but not the Security 
13 
Council. 
Another action of retaliation later near the lake of 
Tiberias on the Syrian side of the border, created a 
great row, a great row internationally and in Israel. 
And again Eban presented splendidly this case. Whereupon 
Ben Gurion said, "Well u n t i l I heard Eban I wasn't so 
sure that we were right but now he completely convinced 
me that we did right." 
As a matter of fact, this action became the 
beginning of an open r i f t between Sharett and Ben Gurion. 
Sharett was at that time deeply involved in getting an 
American equivalent for the Soviet arms deal with Egypt. 
He hoped that the US might provide Israel with some 
compensatory arms supplies. 
And then happened this raid. The p o l i t i c a l bureau 
of the Labor party discussed i t s repercussions. I was 
invited to attend the meeting. Sharett gave a report. 
He did not conceal his anger and perhaps exaggerated in 
evaluating the prospects of his negotiations on arms 
supplies from the United States. He used the word, and 
I was s i t t i n g next to Ben Gurion who was s i t t i n g on the 
sidelines, when Shareh said, "And then came this raid, i t 
was as i f Satan had intervened." And I f e l t that the 
word had h i t Ben Gurion l i k e an e l e c t r i c a l shock in Ben 
Gurion, and s i t t i n g like this. He didn't say a word, he 
didn't reply to him but i t had caused a r i f t between the 
14 
two men, which led to Sharett's resignation, or better 
dismissal from the government six months later. 
But the alienation, i f I can c a l l i t that, between Israel 
and the United Nations continued further. And going much 
ahead of the story, I want to ask whether you f e l t that 
the eventual resolution on Zionism and racism had a 
tremendous effect here in Israel or whether i t was more 
important in terms of the American reaction? 
Well there's a history to i t . The Arab position vis-a?
vis Israel was a l l through the years, and I don't know 
whether that has really changed, a three-point strategy: 
defamation, isolation, elimination, these were the 
stages. In order to isolate Israel you defame i t , and 
when i t i s isolated then you may eliminate i t . So they 
applied a l l , the propaganda tricks of the trade they 
could devise, and one of them was to delegitimize Israel. 
By that time in 1975 the r a c i a l issue was of course very 
high on the agenda and the highest degree of defamation 
you could hurl at anybody was "racist" because with the 
awakening of Africa there was a great resonance to that 
charge. 
So the Arabs used this. On the other hand we were 
quite involved in a tangle with the Soviet Union on the 
discrimination of the Soviet Jews. We used the UN Human 
Rights Commission to draw the attention of the world to 
the plight of the Jews. The Soviets certainly didn't 
15 
l i k e that and they were rude and defamatory in their 
replies. They thought to silence Israel by tainting 
Zionism as racism, serving by this the Arab objective of 
Israeli's isolation, defamation, and eventual 
elimination. I don't think that the Soviets were 
supporting the Arabs in their f i n a l objective. 
Elimination was not the Soviets' objective but they went 
along with the Arabs in their t a c t i c a l struggle, f i r s t of 
a l l in order to support the Arabs and secondly to shake 
us off with a l l these protestations against Soviet 
treatment of Jews. The Soviets always used the H i t l e r i t e 
argument, the Nazi argument, that i f you are pursuing 
Nazi policies you are the scum of the earth, there's no 
reason to protect you. Not the Charter w i l l protect you, 
not your friends have to protect you. So they pushed us, 
together with the Arabs, into this category and basically 
i t was not the Arabs who formulated this '75 amendment; 
of declaring Zionism as racism. It was the Soviets who 
added the equation of Zionism with racism to the general 
resolution on condemning Nazism and other abuse of human 
rights. 
I discussed this matter much later in the Soviet 
Union, two years ago, and my interlocutors admitted that 
my analysis was right, that they were just furious with 
us, this l i t t l e state, like a wasp, was a l l the time 
stinging the mighty Soviet Union in the international 
16 
arena. And so they h i t together with their Arab That 
was in my view the background of the 1975 resolution. 
Interesting, because this of course had enormous 
repercussions.... 
Oh yes. Because we understood this as a part in the 
campaign of the delegitimization of Israel to make i t an 
outcast. Our positions in Africa i.e., which we had 
steadily b u i l t up, were affected by i t . Who cares for a 
country which i s racist? In 1967 when I was Permanent 
Representative, I had these altercations with Federenko, 
the Soviet representative. He called Israel acting like 
Nazis. I knew what he was up to and I answered him very 
strongly, reminding him that the Soviet Union was the 
f i r s t which entered into an alliance with the Nazis and 
didn't care a damn about the defense of c i v i l i z e d 
humanity. 
If you would have to draw a balance now as to the u t i l i t y 
of the United Nations to Israel and the hardships, 
d i f f i c u l t i e s the United Nations has caused, where would 
you draw the line? Obviously Israel exists in part 
because of the United Nations. 
I would say that Israel, without the United Nations, 
would have had great d i f f i c u l t y establishing i t s e l f in 
the world, given i t s hostile environment. In the United 
Nations, we had to pay a price for being a legitimate 
member of the international community. Nobody in Israel 
17 
however would have sought - except for some extremists on 
the right to leave this organization, or we should 
boycott i t . We knew that we had to be there and we had 
to defend our position there, recognizing that the UN was 
after a l l was also an important forum of p o l i t i c a l 
warfare and propaganda, where we had to take our stand. 
Now that the United Nations i s changing. Some people may 
say that's bad for Israel because they a l l w i l l now gang 
up against i t but others w i l l say well the UN may become 
a positive force for Israel. 
JSS What do you think? Because that's going to be one of my 
questions. There i s a basic change in the United Nations 
because of the basic change in the world where the Soviet 
Union, which was hostile to Israel for most of i t s 
history, now i s friendly at least with the United Nations 
and i t s relations with Israel have improved. Do you 
think this i s going to make the United Nations a more 
effective instrument, a more supportive instrument, for 
Israel and bring about greater p o s s i b i l i t i e s for a 
settlement? 
GR I wrote an a r t i c l e two months ago - I think the heading 
was "the Ring i s Closing" and I said 43 years ago, the US 
and Soviet Union worked together to redress the 
injustices to the Jewish people and to help restore i t s 
independence. But they were not able to work for 
peaceful adjustment between the Arabs and Israel because 
18 
the winds of the Cold War were blowing between the Soviet 
Union and the US, and hot winds of h o s t i l i t y were blowing 
here in Israel-Arab relations. Now, I write after 43 
years the ring i s closing, the Soviet Union and the US 
are now, going to work together to bring about a peaceful 
settlement of this conflict which cannot be completely 
satisfactory because a settlement can only be reacted by 
compromise. In short, the Cold War and the state of hot 
h o s t i l i t y had prevented a settlement. 
Therefore I believe that we've reached a point now 
where i t ' s very clear that the Soviet Union and the US 
w i l l try, under their auspices, to promote a settlement. 
It's a completely different question whether they can 
succeed but we had the f i r s t indication of that attempt 
in 1973 at the Geneva conference where i t was handled in 
a different way because the Cold War was s t i l l on. 
Kissinger used the conference to proceed with his own 
diplomacy which then led, as a matter of fact, to the 
peace agreement with Egypt. 
This time I think the cooperation between the Soviet 
Union and the US w i l l be more coordinated. It would not 
be a situation where one side w i l l just support one party 
and the other the other side, or that the US or the 
Soviets w i l l try to settle the c o n f l i c t by imposition. 
The United Nations w i l l be involved in one way or 
another. The present government of Israel won't li k e i t , 
19 
but the UN w i l l be involved, for the following reason. 
The load i s too heavy for both sides to l i f t i t , 
they're just not capable to pull themselves out of the 
conflict by their own strength. They don't have enough 
f l e x i b i l i t y in their p o l i t i c a l process - I wrote a piece 
about i t a few days ago in the Herald Tribune. Therefore 
in a l l Arab-Israel diplomatic encounters, which were 
successful, third party assistance was needed, whether i t 
were the armistice negotiations at Rhodes or in the 
General Assembly in 1947, or whether i t was at Camp David 
in 1978. Otherwise i t just doesn't work, these are the 
mechanics of the conflict resolution. 
Now, certainly we would be happy i f the peace 
negotiations could be conducted on the Camp David 
pattern. But the US is committed to cooperate with the 
Soviet Union for understandable reasons and the Europeans 
wouldn't stand aside. I mean i t i s nonsense to believe 
that one can have a major security conference and the 
Europeans w i l l stand aside. And even in order to convene 
the security conference, or whatever they may c a l l i t -
a regional conference - the need a convener, as in 
Who w i l l be the convener? The convener can be the 
United Nations, with a very limited function as in 1973. 
We accepted resolutions 338 and 242. 338 has a companion 
resolution which authorizes the Secretary to organize 
1973. 
20 
negotiations and to report back from time to time to the 
Security Council about their program, so that the 
Security can assist the parties i f necessary. 
JSS As a matter of fact that brought me to a subject that I 
want to ask you about and that i s precisely resolution 
242 because I think that you were quite involved in the 
various negotiations that went into that. I wonder i f 
you would just describe how that developed from your 
perspective in 1967? 
GR I think I gave a very detailed account in my book about 
this. The discussion of 242, as a matter of fact, was 
started on the f i r s t day of the war in 1967, by two 
opposing positions. The US took the position of 
ceasefire but not return to the pre-war lines, as they 
had done in 1956. Our position was to content ourselves 
with a ceasefire at the appropriate time, when the 
military had accomplished i t s mission. So when the 
Security Council discussions ended in a ceasefire which 
was then in place on the 11th of June, the problem of the 
future t e r r i t o r i a l dispositions which would be made, 
remained open. 
Then the Soviet Union called a special session, 
Emergency Session, of the General Assembly and sent their 
f i r s t team - Prime Minister Kosygin - and his assistants. 
On the day before the opening of the session President 
Johnson made a statement of policy of 5 points which in 
21 
my view have remained the basic policy of the US u n t i l 
today. Some additions were made, but not much change: 
the armistice regime to be replaced by peace treaties, 
including guaranteed freedom of navigation. 
The Soviets and the Arabs, of course, were trying to 
avoid the p o l i t i c a l consequences of the changed 
situation. The Arabs insisted on the evacuation of a l l 
the t e r r i t o r i e s occupied in the fighting and compensation 
for war damages. No resolutions were adopted but many 
drafts were tossed around from one side to the other. 
This special assembly was a great marketplace for the 
diplomatic busybodies which business effected. 
Basically the US and the Soviet Union tried to work 
i t out, Arthur Goldberg and - not Federenko, he had 
already lost his usefulness - but Kuznetzov, f i r s t Deputy 
Foreign Minister. Also Dobrynin participated in the 
talks and in the end Gromyko himself. After some weeks 
of wrangling they worked out, from our point of view, a 
very unsatisfactory draft resolution on ending the state 
of war, a formula which certainly did not advance us 
toward a peaceful settlement. It was the only time we 
had some differences with Arthur Goldberg. He was quite 
annoyed that we were not very happy with his work of art 
which he had worked out with Gromyko. He explained to me 
in quite stern terms that " you don't think I know how to 
negotiate. I was a labor negotiator a l l of my l i f e and 
22 
whatever you want to say to me, you don't come to teach 
me how to negotiate. And I said, "Arthur, I w i l l t e l l 
you what the difference i s between a labor negotiator and 
a diplomatic negotiator with the Soviet Union. Of course 
I recognize your enormous experience as a labor 
negotiator. When you negotiated with Ford in Detroit, 
you had a common objective, to manufacture a car. But 
when you negotiate with the Soviet Union you want to 
manufacture a car and they want to produce a road 
accident and we don't want to be a party in that 
accident." 
Well he laughed and that restored the friendship. 
The man who really answered Kuznetzov in the same way was 
Dean Rusk. He said to Kuznetzov, "What you want me to do 
is to swap a rabbit for a horse and we are not dealing 
that way." The US and the USSR had worked out the 
formula, but thanks to our great collaborator, the Syrian 
delegation, the Arabs rejected the draft resolution. 
Therefore the Emergency Assembly, dispersed without 
a resolution. With the resumption of the diplomatic 
season in September the delegation renewed their search 
for an acceptable resolution. The Indians were the f i r s t 
to draft something. The US believed that they had an 
agreement with King Hussein on the principal points. 
King Hussein had come to New York after having met Nasser 
on September 17. He told the US delegation that they had 
reached an agreement on an acceptable resolution. But 
was apparently no more than wishful thinking on the part 
of Hussein. The Americans wanted to be the main sponsor 
and take the i n i t i a t i v e . But Jerusalem's position was 
too hesitant to encourage Arthur Goldberg to go ahead. 
He was right at that time and Washington was right that 
they themselves should keep things under control. So 
Lord Caradon, the British Representative, took the 
i n i t i a t i v e . He was more inclined to compromise in favor 
of the Arabs but he kept close contact with the US, and 
with us, too. 
JSS That was what I wanted to ask you, he was in touch with 
you? 
GR Oh yes, and he realized that certain things just wouldn't 
work and he tried then to find a compromise between the 
parties and did i t with great s k i l l . He managed to put 
the most contradictory things into one resolution, the 
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory, and the 
probability of retention of some of the occupied 
territory as well as the inadmissibility of the use of 
force. If the Arabs had not used force for 40 years 
there would not have been a question of the acquisition 
of territory. He had to include the inadmissibility of 
the acquisition of territory in his because the 
Latin Americans insisted on this very vague principle 
although i t i s not a Charter principle at a l l . The 
24 
Charter principle i s the inadmissibility of war and the 
admissibility of self-defense. Kissinger later called 
this ambivalent wording of Resolution 242, constructive 
ambiguity. 
President Johnson was very firm to get the resolution 
adopted without any further changes. He corresponded 
with Prime Minister Kosygin u n t i l the last minute on the 
wording "withdrawal from t e r r i t o r i e s " as distinguished 
from " a l l the t e r r i t o r i e s " 
i t , Johnson was very firm on that. And so the Soviets 
came along. The resolution was adopted on 22 November 
1967, but on the 20th the Soviets had introduced their 
own draft which was much milder than any of the drafts 
which they had presented since the break of the war. It 
included a paragraph on curbing the arms race in the 
Middle East. 
The original American draft also had included a 
paragraph with nearly similar language, that the arms 
race should be controlled. Despite the Soviets and the 
US agreeing on the same paragraph, this particular 
paragraph was eliminated from the B r i t i s h draft 
resolution, as I understood because of Arab opposition. 
They wanted freedom to replenish their depleted arsenals 
after their defeat in 1967. Therefore, i t was not in 
their interest to have a limitation on supplies of 
armaments. So that was 242, I think, one of the most 
25 
durable resolutions and diplomatic workhorses ever 
reared. 
Now I want to ask you again a rather broad question in 
this respect. 242 i s in a sense an expression of 
territory for peace, exchange of territory for peace. 
I don't say no. I wrote about that this Saturday in the 
Herald Tribune. 
Really, I haven't read that. Let me ask the question, 
l e t me then hear the reason why you don't think so 
because I was going to trace i t back a b i t and ask you a 
related question. In 1956 Ben Gurion, after the war was 
over, wrote a letter to President Eisenhower that you're 
familiar with, maybe you wrote i t . 
In this letter to Eisenhower Ben Gurion suggested that 
the I s r a e l i objective in the 1956 undertaking was 
basically to achieve peace whereas earlier different 
objectives had been defined. And I believe that Abba 
Eban suggests that he gave some speech or some statement 
early - well before resolution 242 - suggesting that 
territory should be exchanged for peace, that this was 
the right approach. My question to you then, coming back 
to where we were, i s - do you see a consistent strain in 
Isr a e l i policy from 1956 on u n t i l now, aiming toward that 
objective of peace in exchange for territory? 
Well you have one proof for i t , the Egyptian-Israeli 
peace treaty, stipulating the complete withdrawal of a l l 
forces from Egyptian territory. You have another 
evidence of this stance in the decision of the Israeli 
cabinet of I think 16 of June, 1967, an internal 
decision, which said that Israel was ready to evacuate 
a l l Egyptian and Syrian territory - under certain 
conditions, foremost the conclusion of peace. 
JSS That's my question right there. There was a cabinet 
decision to ... 
GR Israel was ready to withdraw up to the international 
border with Egypt with some arrangements necessary for 
security. It was ready to withdraw to the international 
border with Syria provided that the water supply from the 
Jordan headwater was not affected, or was guaranteed and 
demilitarization of certain parts of the evacuated or 
established area. With regard to the West Bank the 
government decided to consider at a later stage how to 
proceed taking into account Begin's position. This 
decision of the government of Israel was communicated to 
us in New York, Eban was there, and we were directed to 
submit i t as our peace proposals to Dean Rusk, the 
Foreign Secretary. 
The meeting with the Secretary of State took place 
on 21 of June, 1967. I would nearly say he gasped at our 
generosity, he didn't expect that Israel would agree to 
return to the international boundaries and so on. He 
said, "Well we can transmit that to the Arab states." He 
27 
brought up the question of Jerusalem saying, "This issue 
i s the most delicate question because of the three 
religions involved. We must be very careful in 
proceeding." But he didn't go into the substance of what 
should happen in Jerusalem. 
So that was that, peace for the return of a l l of 
Sinai, for a l l of Golan, which keeping open the question 
of the West Bank which was discussed from '67 on with 
King Hussein. Our leadership made far-reaching 
concessions to him, even Golda Meir said that the great, 
the decisive part of the West Bank would be returned to 
Jordan in conditions of peace. So even on that point 
there was a readiness to compromise. It found i t s 
application in the Egyptian-Israeli treaty. 
Now, one can say that Begin had in mind that he was 
trading the te r r i t o r i e s of Sinai for our holding on to 
the West Bank and Gaza. This was the reason he agreed to 
the withdrawal from a l l of Sinai. But i f he really meant 
that he couldn't have, he shouldn't have signed the Camp 
David Palestinian framework. The Camp David language 
does not bear that out at a l l and he signed there a 
formulation which I never would have believed he would 
accept, the recognition of the legitimate rights of the 
Palestinian people and their just requirements. So this 
stands in the way of the policy of the present 
government, i t ' s one of the obstacles to Mr. Baker's 
28 
endeavors. 
JSS Going back then to 242, why don't you think that was a... 
GR Well I ' l l say i t this way. It's a simplification, to 
just quote i t as meaning: a territory for peace. First 
of a l l , 242 insists on no use of war, no use of force -
i t says this twice. So no use of force, and i f force is 
used then of course you have the right of self-defense 
under a r t i c l e 51 [of the Charter]. If you occupy 
te r r i t o r i e s in self-defense, that's not the acquisition 
of territory by war. So therefore this cancels the Latin 
American principle. 
Not only this, the operative part says peace must be 
established, a durable peace for a l l states in the 
region. And Mr. Kuznetzov made i t clear when he 
supported the resolution on the 22, "every state" means 
Israel, he said that e x p l i c i t l y . So there must be a 
durable peace. There must be safe, secure and recognized 
boundaries. Where do you withdraw the forces to 
recognized and secure boundaries. Then comes the freedom 
of the navigation and so on, this i s a secondary 
question. And the settlement of refugee problems, not 
Palestinians' alone, the word Palestine doesn't appear in 
the whole text of the resolution 242 but i t says the 
solution of the refugee problems. 
So i f one i s s t r i c t on 242, one would even say the 
Palestinians have in i t only a very indirect standing, 
29 
only as refugees. That situation has been more developed 
and this government say, "Well we are ready for a peace 
settlement on the basis of Camp David." Camp David 
includes recognition of Palestinian rights so that's an 
addition to 242. Resolution 242 doesn't say "the 
withdrawal of the forces of Israel from the territories 
occupied in the recent fighting, the recent conflict", i t 
says deliberately "of Israeli forces" - "from terr i t o r i e s 
occupied in the recent fighting." 
We did not exactly stick to this provision in the 
Egyptian treaty and therefore we established a precedent. 
Mr. Begin gave an explanation saying, "Well we have 
f u l f i l l e d our obligation under 242 by withdrawing from 
t e r r i t o r i e s , " as we did. But the US i s of a different 
opinion. I t refers to a l l the fronts with Israel's 
neighbors. It i s simplification to condense 242's 
meaning into "territories for peace". In my view, i t is 
a resolution which provides the liberation of the 
Palestinians from the shackles of occupation. The 
withdrawal would enable Israel to devote i t s e l f to i t s 
true preoccupations - the integration of Aliva. the 
preservation of i t s democratic values, i t s economic 
progress, a l l in the context of peace. Above a l l that, 
242 accepts the principle of an agreed settlement. 
And why do I explain i t this way also to our won 
people? To make i t clear that i t ' s not just giving up of 
30 
territory, i t ' s gaining for Israel, enormous gains - in 
terms of international standing, of material and 
p o l i t i c a l support which i t needs to master the tasks with 
which i t i s confronted. 
JSS So I judge from what you're saying that you feel 
considerable pride s t i l l that you participated in the 
achievement of this resolution which you see as being in 
Israel's interest, 242. 
GR On the 7 of August, 1970 the national unity government 
s p l i t because Begin decided to leave the government with 
his Likud partners. He decided to leave i t because the 
ceasefire, terminating the war of a t t r i t i o n , which was 
concluded on the 7 of August 1970, included a paragraph 
that the Jarring mission should be renewed, to promote 
implementation of resolution 242. Thereupon Mr. Begin 
said the implementation of 242 would have the most 
nightmarish consequences for Israel and resigned from 
government. I attended this meeting of the cabinet and 
when Mr. Begin got up and walked out I said, "Mr. Begin, 
you w i l l hold on to 242 with your fingernails because 
that's the only diplomatic anchor we have." He looked at 
me wildly. Well, Mr. Begin signed the document to 
implement resolution 242 in a l l i t s aspects and parts, at 
Camp David in September 1978. 
JSS You mentioned the 
GR As a matter of fact we remained on friendly terms because 
31 
he must have realized that, after a l l , I was right. 
You mentioned one other part of 242 just now and that is 
the Jarring mission because 242 does provide for that, 
for negotiating. What was your attitude towards that at 
the time in accepting that part of the resolution? 
We accepted the Jarring mission who was entrusted by 
resolution 242 to his good offices to the parties. We 
wouldn't recognize him as a mediator because of Begin's 
opposition. He would never say the word "withdrawal". To 
accommodate his foible m at this time I replaced i t with 
the term "redeployment of forces". He was satisfied with 
this "redeployment of forces". Where do you redeploy 
them? He just wouldn't say. He had his taboos including 
the term "implementation". It goes to show that the 
wording of 242 was flexible and could mean many different 
things to many people. 
This i s a somewhat strange question now because I want to 
go backwards again, from '67 to '56 to the beginning of 
the c r i s i s in '56. Again, you were in New York at that 
point, I believe. One of the things that has never been 
clear i s the extent to which you and Mr. Eban were kept 
informed, or were at a l l conscious, of the planning in 
Israel for military action and the eventual involvement 
of the French. Were you at a l l aware of this in New York 
as you carried on your duties there? 
I was in Jerusalem when the "French connection" was 
established to camouflage the planned operation against 
Egypt. Israel claimed that the entrance of Iraqi forces 
into Jordan would create a dangerous situation. This 
problem was f i l l e d of competence, being in charge of 
Middle Eastern Affairs in the Foreign Ministry. We had 
to open the consequences of an I s r a e l i military 
interaction, in case Britain were to act in accordance 
with his treaty with Jordan. 
I was sent down to E i l a t to see what the situation 
was there. Br i t i s h forces were stationed on the Aqaba 
side with about 200 tanks. I took this seriously but I 
had my contacts with my military friends, and I remember 
when I was discussing with a top military commander my 
experience in E i l a t here in this room, so he said, 
"Forget i t , why are you so naive? This has nothing to do 
with Jordan. We are massing our forces in the south. 
This i s the problem. Have you never heard about the 
Czech arms deal with Egypt?" 
But Ben Gurion, in the meetings which we had in 
October 1956 with our ambassadors in Washington, Paris 
and in London who were summoned to Jerusalem, would not 
reveal what he was up to, and he would not reveal i t when 
he was analyzing the p o l i t i c a l and military situation. 
He would not say that at the time he was negotiating with 
Pineau in Sevres in secret. He indicated to Eban rather 
vaguely on the eve of his return to Washington that 
33 
something may have happened. I don't think that made a 
very deep impact on Eban because when he was s i t t i n g with 
Roundtree, the Assistant Secretary of State, on October 
29, discussing the threat from Iraq somebody brought in 
a note to Roundtree and Roundtree. He became extremely 
angry and said, "Well there's no need to continue this 
discussion, your forces have just started attacking 
Egypt." He more or less showed Eban the door. So i f 
Eban had been convinced that this was going to happen on 
this day I don't think that he would have been found in 
Mr. Roundtree's room arguing about the threat from Iraq 
via Jordan. He could have found a better diplomatic 
shelter. 
So therefore Ben Gurion kept his cards to himself. 
I was at that time on my way to New York to attend the UN 
General Assembly. On my way I stopped over in Argentina 
for a family v i s i t . I arrived in New York on the 1st or 
2nd of November. On this day already the question of the 
ceasefire was discussed. 
I remember the following situation which I was asked 
to deal with when I arrived. Eban had informed 
Hammarskjold that Israel had accepted the ceasefire. The 
B r i t i s h representative who heard about that blew his top 
and said "how can you do this? Our forces are s t i l l at 
war, involved in fighting, and this i s not in conformity 
with the arrangements between our two countries. We are 
34 
deploying forces on the Suez because of the fighting, not 
because of the ceasefire." So Eban was rather 
embarrassed, and asked me to go up to Hammarskjold, given 
my good relations with him, to t e l l him "we have to 
withdraw this statement because there was an error in 
transmission", (you can imagine how Hammarskjold accepted 
that), "and therefore the statement i s not valid." 
JSS You actually told that to Hammarskjold? 
GR Yes, an "error of transmission". The Brit i s h blustered 
around the banks of the Suez Canal and a few days later 
they collapsed diplomatically at the UN and decided to 
withdraw their forces. I used the words "error of 
transmission" deliberately and ambiguously because i t 
could mean that the cable introducing us was garbled or 
erroneously transmitted. 
JSS Eban didn't want to do that himself? 
GR No. He was not very keen to face Hammarskjold. It was 
easier for him to address a crowd of many thousands of 
people. 
JSS Why was that? They did not match intellectually? 
Weren't both very intellectual men? 
GR Yes. But Eban didn't like angry one on one dialogues. 
He doesn't l i k e that, he likes an anonymous audience, 
that's easier because his strength i s in oratory. But 
anyhow, after the resolutions were adopted in '56, we had 
very strenuous discussions between Hammarskjold and 
35 
ourselves. Well, we were a team. He had his people 
there and our team was s i t t i n g on the opposite side of 
the table. 
Knowing that Washington was running the show, Eban 
showed to Hammarskjold a certain disdain. I mean 
basically he wanted to show him, "look, why do you put up 
here such a s t i f f show when I can arrange these things in 
Washington in a certain way?" Hammarskjold didn't like 
this at a l l , we had quite some scenes there. 
At a certain point Golda Meir, who was foreign 
minister, wanted to participate in the meetings, she 
wasn't sure whether we were really standing our ground. 
She came and spoke emotionally about our situation. 
Hammarskjold got a l l red in his face, he couldn't 
restrain himself and he suddenly said, "Why are you so 
bitter, madam?" She'd never heard such a thing, she was 
struck by i t . She replied soon, "Well I'm bit t e r because 
at every step where we make a mistake, we'll have to pay 
with the lives of our young people and soldiers. After 
a l l that has happened to the Jewish people, our 
responsibility i s to be so careful and not just go for 
general formulations. We have to know where we go from 
here." 
So we had very strenuous discussions with the 
Secretary General, but basically Eban was right. The 
conditions of our withdrawal from Sinai were decided in 
36 
Washington. 
JSS I have a specific question on that because there was the 
withdrawal, not just from the Sinai but the controversial 
question of the Gaza Strip and Sharm e l Sheikh. Pineau 
indicates that actually he worked with Dulles but in 
agreement with the Israelis and that he was more or less 
authorized by Israel to make certain agreements with 
regard to the withdrawal, especially from Gaza. 
GR That's right, I can confirm that. Pinneaus intervention 
came a l i t t l e b i t as a surprise to us, but we accepted i t 
because we were negotiating on withdrawing on the basis 
of an aide memoire, between Dulles and Eban of the 12 of 
February. This l a i d down the points and conditions 
relating to Sharm el Sheikh and Gaza, freedom of 
navigation, and so on. But the fine points had s t i l l to 
be worked out in order to make i t operative. 
Here I think at the last minute Pineau was helpful 
because the agreement with Dulles was consummated by two 
statements at the United Nations, on the 1st of March 
1957. One was by foreign minister Golda Meir and the 
second was the response by Cabot Lodge, the US 
Representative. I participated in the discussion with 
Dulles, when we finalized these two statements. Dulles 
was very meticulously e x p l i c i t on the Isr a e l i statement, 
what our foreign ministers would have to say. He 
dictated every word. He was s i t t i n g at his desk with his 
37 
yellow legal pad in front of him. When i t came to the 
Cabot Lodge companion statement, Dulles was vague, and I 
remember I said the points made by the Secretary have 
fleshed out in de t a i l . He answered, "Why don't you trust 
me? These are the principles which are agreed upon." We 
returned that same evening to New York for a meeting with 
Hammerskjold. 
Eban being satisfied with his success in Washington 
having worked out everything with Dulles, showed a 
certain impatience for Hammarskjold's reservations. He 
drew Eban's attention in his diplomatic way, to the fact 
that our version was not exactly consistent with what he 
knew about the Dulles-Eban agreement. Eban brushed him 
off curtly, and I remember that Hammarskjold said, "Well, 
I have a different version from Washington about the 
summary of your conversations." That means they had 
talked to him while we were flying back and Eban insisted 
that his report was the authorized version. 
One or two of these points which Hammarskjold had 
challenged in Eban's report on the agreement later became 
points of contention between Israel and the US, because 
Cabot Lodge did not present what we were given to believe 
would be his response to Golda Meir's statement. His 
statement was much more ambiguous and less committal, 
even on freedom of navigation. So obviously Hammarskjold 
was better informed or that his diplomatic ear was better 
38 
tuned to what the Americans really had in mind. 
When Golda Meir realized that Cabot Lodge's answer 
to his statement of March 7, was not what we had reported 
i t would be she was very, very angry believing she had 
been misled and especially when she received confidential 
information that the Egyptian authorities would return to 
Gaza in contradiction to what had been agreed upon. 
JSS There was some confidential information to that effect? 
GR Yes. She was extremely angry and she insisted that Eban 
should send a telegram to Ben Gurion not to accomplish 
the withdrawal from Gaza which was fixed for the date of 
5 March. There was a scene which I described viv i d l y in 
my book - she threatened she would throw herself out of 
the window. Eban refused to send the telegram, banged 
the door and l e f t . 
I was l e f t alone with her and tried to quiet her 
down, making i t clear to her that Ben Gurion knew what we 
knew and that the matter was much too advanced and i t 
wouldn't be good for her to intervene at this stage. It 
would be very embarrassing to her and to Ben Gurion 
turning her down. 
We returned together to Israel and arrived s t i l l 
smarting from the Dulles' deceit. Ben Gurion knew how to 
handle this kind of hot potato u n t i l i t became a cold 
issue. He said to her, "Well really, i t was shameful 
what they have done and you must return to Dulles in 
39 
Washington and t e l l him to check the records of this, how 
he has misled us." He knew, of course, that i t would 
have no effect whatsoever. 
So Golda asked me to accompany her to Washington. 
We had a meeting with Dulles. He tried to circumvent the 
issue and to alloy Golda's anger and anxiety. We 
discussed the question of what kind of statement should 
be made. It would have to satisfy Golda in a certain 
way, but not to change anything with Dulles. The whole 
episode created quite some tension between Golda and Abba 
Eban, but she realized in the end that there are 
r e a l i t i e s in p o l i t i c s which she couldn't change. 
But the interesting thing i s that there was a basis for 
her concern and your concern, not just that Lodge had 
said what was not expected but also because you did have 
some information that indicated that the Egyptians were 
going to come back, as in fact they did. 
Yes, we had received that information that they would 
send back their administration and their military into 
the Gaza Strip. 
But you did not think that the Americans knew that, or 
did you? 
We knew they knew. No, no, I think we were misled. It 
was the Dulles way of doing things. You w i l l hear more 
about i t when you speak to the secretary of Anthony Eden. 
Anyway, you can ask him about that. Anthony Eden told me 
the following story. In order to save the relations with 
the Americans, he phoned Eisenhower the day of the 
Bri t i s h intervention in Egypt, that he wanted to come 
over the same night before they took any decision on the 
c r i s i s that had erupted. Eisenhower, in his gentility, 
said, "Of course, of course, Anthony Eden told me he was 
happily leaving Downing Street to inform the Parliament 
where a storm was brewing to "be quiet, I'm going to see 
Eisenhower and we w i l l settle the whole thing." 
He continued t e l l i n g me, "I was just entering my car 
when I was called back to the telephone. Eisenhower was 
on the phone again. He said "Anthony, i t ' s not 
convenient for me this week. I have a schedule I didn't 
realize and I just can't do i t this week. You know, you 
arrange these things f i r s t of a l l on your side there and 
then you come and we discuss everything quietly." "Well 
after Eisenhower agreed that I should come, of course, 
Dulles intervened and this was the voice of Dulles." 
Eh an concluded hxs story with a sigh: "I should never 
have gone back to the telephone." 
A f i n a l question on that and on everything. Dulles -
what i s your f i n a l judgment on what his efforts were, 
what was he aiming at in this particular c r i s i s ? 
I attended a centenary meeting for Dulles at Princeton 
last year, at the time I was teaching there. This was 
kind of the meeting for the beatification of Foster 
Dulles. 
JSS Yes, Eleanor Dulles arranged i t , I think. 
GR That's right, she was there, Eleanor Dulles. As a matter 
of fact she managed to get $2,000,000 for a Foster Dulles 
memorial of Princeton. In the symposium the question 
came up of the British-American difference on Suez 
interventions. I made one intervention, saying, "I only 
know one thing, that Dulles - to his dying days -
regretted the policy line he had taken, and he said so to 
Selwyn Lloyd. **I should not have interfered, you should 
have finished the job. Why did you hesitate?" 
Why did Ubmm hesitate? Dulles had attacked the 
pound sterling, which was the strongest weapon he could 
use against Britain. The whole o f f i c i a l performance was 
anti-British. So this was a sad story about Dulles. It 
was apparently rather new to the participants though i t 
had been confirmed in a l l kinds of memoirs. 
JSS Pineau has the same story, that Dulles told him... 
GR You may talk to Selwyn Lloyd's secretary. I suppose he 
w i l l confirm the story. It was the typical Dulles 
ambivalence. 
I think Dulles was a very complicated personality 
with poor judgment and a mixture of many strains. I 
think he had thought that he could influence the Arab-
Is r a e l i conflict in a way which would bring about some 
sort of reconciliation. Therefore he made his earlier 
42 
t r i p to the Middle East. On the other hand he had 
challenged Nasser in a very abrupt way by withdrawing the 
American offer on the construction of the Aswan dam. 
It's not clear to me how he really operated. He had 
principles on the one hand and on the other he had lots 
of expediencies. 
JSS Those are the main questions I wanted to put to you this 
afternoon. Unless there's something else that you would 
li k e to make a matter of this h i s t o r i c a l record on any of 
these subjects that we've covered ... 
GR No, thank you. 
JSS So i t ' s just time for me to thank you very much. 
INDEX OF NAMES 
Aranha, Oswaldo 
Austin, Warren 
Baker, James 
Begin, Menachem 
Ben Gurion, David 
Caradon, Lord 
C l i f f o r d , Clark 
Dayan, Moshe 
Dobrynin, Anatoly 
Dulles, Eleanor 
Dulles, John F. 
Eban, Abba 
Eisenhower, Dwight 
Husseini, Jemal 
Federenko, 
Feller, Abraham 
Ford, Henry 
Goldberg, Arthur 
Gromyko, Andrei 
Hammarskjold, Dag 
Hilldring, John 
Hitler, Adolf 
3 
8 
23, 24, 32 
31, 32, 34-36 
7, 15, 16, 29, 30, 37, 38, 44, 
45 
27 
9-11 
15 
25 
47 
42, 43, 45-48 
14-16, 30, 31, 36, 38-45 
30, 46, 47 
4 
19, 25 
12 
26 
25-27 
2-5, 25, 26 
4, 39-41, 43, 44 
8 
4, 14 
44 
Hussein, King 
Jarring, Gunnar 
Johnson, Lyndon 
Kissinger, Henry 
Kosygin, Alexei 
Kuznetzov, Vasily V. 
Lie, Trygve 
Lloyd, Selwyn 
Lodge, John Cabot 
Meir, Golda 
Pineau, Christian 
Rosenman, Ben 
Roundtree, William 
Shamoun, Camille 
Sharett, Moshe 
Sharon, A r i e l 
Stalin, Josef 
Sulzburger, Cyrus 
Truman, Harry 
Weizmann, Chaim 
UNITED NATIONS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT  
ORAL HISTORY AGREEMENT 
_(Interviewee) hereby agree to 
participate in the United Nations Oral History Project, sponsored 
by the Yale University Institution for Social and Policy Studies, 
jy\d^ co^$ent_ to t j ^ rficojcding by magnetic audio tape of (an) 
interview (s) .with "~rfcc. / f A ^ v i o _f&W?Juh (Interviewer) 
o n f t . (DateV at >j#T>> (City) , 
*J*hc.?( ' (State) . 
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Notwithstanding any t h i n g h e r e i n c o m a i n o d t o the 
c o n t r a r y . i t i s agreed and understood that I s h a l l be ; r < e and 
' atOin^ertVT^o^ as I siiaW?doom f i t ,x-f \h???omit ? ???> r <=; {Interviewee) (date) 
of the t r a n s c r i p t * , i . g. i n t e r v i e w s , 1 e c t u r e s , research b o o k s , a r t i e l 
and p u b l i s h i n g of a l I so r t s , e x c e p t I w i l l not a s s i g n t o o t h e r s 
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(Interviewer) j (Date) 
(For the Institution of Social / (Date/ 
and Policy studies)