Optimism regarding the outcome of Secretary Dallas’ trip to the Middle East and his discussions with leaders of the Arab countries, Israel and other states is voiced in the leading newspapers here today. The New York Herald Tribune says that “there is every reason to believe that more concrete results will flow from the meetings.” The New York Times emphasizes that “the Arab-Israel hostility with its concomitant problem of the Arab refugees” are among the problems in which American goodwill and knowledge “can be helpful as solutions are sought.”
In a report from Washington, the Herald Tribune states that it is understood that Secretary Dulles brought back a Middle East Defense plan proposed by Gen. Mohammed Naguib, the Egyptian Premier, which would mean scrapping the long-dormant Allied Middle East Defense Organization project. The Naguib plan.” according to authoritative informants, would build a Middle East defense organization on the foundations of the eight-nation Arab League’s collective security pact signed last year.
The United States and Britain would be linked to it by virtue of their existing treaties with Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Jordan. All foreign troops, notably British, would be barred from Egypt in peace time, although they would be permitted to remain in those other countries where they are now stationed in accordance with existing treaties. France and Turkey, original co-sponsors with the United States and Britain of the earlier proposals, would not participate directly in the Naguib project. The Egyptian Premier envisages the new program as extending possibly to Pakistan and perhaps even India.
Mr. Dulles was understood to have been attracted by the Naguib proposal. He is reported to have told the Premier that he would need at least four weeks to study both the Anglo-Egyptian problem and the defense question and to discuss them with President Eisenhower, the Defense Department and his own State Department experts. A basic American objection to the Naguib plan, as it was presented to Mr. Dulles, is understood to lie in a provision which would limit implementation of the pact to a direct attack on one of the Arab states.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
