Byrnes Says Partition Plan is of British Origin; No Final Decisions Reached by U.S. Govt.

The partition plan for Palestine which has been recommended to the American and British governments by the Anglo-American conferees, who have just completed their discussions in London, is of British origin, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes said today. He indicated that no final decision has been reached by this government.

Mr. Byrnes said that he would meet this evening with the Cabinet Committee on Palestine, consisting of himself and Secretary of War Patterson and Secretary of the Treasury Snyder, to discuss the report, and would confer with President Truman either tonight or tomorrow morning before he leaves for Paris to attend the Peace Conference.

He disclaimed knowledge of authorship of the idea, but emphatically said that no direction of any kind was given by anybody in the United States Government to the American representatives in London to suggest any such plan.

The Secretary said that the plan has the approval of the British Cabinet. He added that he considered it necessary to point out that the report is not a joint one, but has the unanimous support of the three American as well as the three British representatives.

Asked whether it would be fair to infer that no final decision by this Government would be reached until the Secretary reached Paris, Mr. Byrnes said this was a fair assumption. He added that he was not in a position to say anything until he had discussed the subject with Secretaries Patterson and Snyder.

To a question as to whether the plan actually proposes partition, Mr. Byrnes replied that he did not want to be secretive, but that he had not read in full the last installment received by the State Department, which presumably contains the crucial recommendations.

SAYS ADMISSION OF 100,000 JEWS TO PALESTINE MENTIONED IN REPORT

The Secretary of State said that the admission of 100,000 European Jews to Palestine is mentioned in the report of the conferees. However, whether this question is to be considered together with the partition plan or separately depends on what the Cabinet Committee and the President will say, he added.

Mr. Byrnes did not know, he said, whether this government would be represented at the Arab-Jewish conference which the British Government has called to take place in London for further Palestine discussions. He doubted, however, that the United States would participate. If it did, he declared, it would only be by sending observers, and not representatives.

He announced that he has asked the Cabinet Committee deputies in London, Henry F. Grady, Herbert E. Gaston and Goldthwaite H. Dorr, to meet him in Paris Monday morning to confer about the proposals which have been recommended.

Mr. Byrnes expressed regret that the State Department had announced yesterday that it had received two alternative plans, attributing the error to the fact that the recommendations had arrived in sections.