Secretary John Foster Dulles, addressing a closed meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed the belief that the Soviet Union is pursuing a plan aimed at controlling the merged Egyptian-Syrian Arab Republic, according to details officially disclosed here today.
“Control of Syria and Egypt,” Secretary Dulles stated, “would give them control of the two principal means whereby the oil in the Middle East goes to Europe, and if they are in a position to control that they would be able to turn the faucet off and Europe could be paralyzed.”
Mr. Dulles indicated that the United Arab Republic, of which Egypt and Syria is composed, cannot expect aid from the United States as long as the merged Arab state is not “adequately concerned about the Soviet menace.”
“We give quite a lot of help to people who deal with the Soviet Union,” he said. “We don’t make it a prerequisite that they should not deal with them. We deal with India, Yugoslavia, Poland, with Finland, and a lot of other countries. But we do expect and want one thing: That is that the country with which we deal and which we help and which takes help from the Soviet Union should be at least alive to the danger and not blind to the danger.”
U. S. REPORT JUSTIFIES SENDING ARMS TO ANTI-SOVIET ARAB COUNTRIES
The remainder of Mr. Dulles’ views on this matter was deleted–for security reasons–from the text of the record made public today. At the same time, a report published today by the U.S. International Cooperation Administration, the State Department and the Defense Department said that last year “Russia upset the delicate balance of power in the Middle East by the introduction into Syria of large quantities of military equipment and training personnel, accompanied by vigorous efforts at subversion and a storm of fabricated charges directed at Syria’s neighbors.” However, the report added that expedited arms deliveries to Syria’s Arab neighbors “restored their self-confidence and determination to retain their freedom.
“Without this evidence that they were not standing alone against increased Soviet pressures, such countries might well have been stampeded into a retreat from free world orientation with all its dire implications for the peace of this troubled area and of the free world itself,” the report stated.
Dealing with the obstacles to advancement of mutual interests in the Middle East, the report said: “The Arab-Israeli conflict is a divisive and harsh regional problem. Almost a million Palestine refugees await its solution, in uneasy misery and distress, while national relationships remain distorted and the flow of commerce and normal contacts between Israel and her neighbors remain blocked.”
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