A staff of experts on Palestine and the Near East has been assigned by the State Department to assist Secretary of State Byrnes in his forthcoming discussions on the Palestine issue with Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin who is now in this country attending the Council of Foreign Ministers in New York, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today.
The staff includes Harry Villard, deputy director of the Near Eastern Division of the State Department; Evan Wilson, also of the same Division who was American secretary of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine; and George Wadsworth, U.S. Minister to Syria and Lebanon.
Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson was asked at his press conference today whether the fact that Secretary Byrnes will enter into direct negotiations with Bevin on the Palestine issue meant that the State Department has decided to become more active in finding a solution of the Palestine problem. He evaded the question by stating that he preferred “to skip it” since it is “a mine field.”
The news that Byrnes and Bevin, in a private talk yesterday, agreed to discuss the Palestine question within the next few weeks while Bevin is in the United States was made public last night by a spokesman for the State Department. He revealed that Byrnes informed Bevin that he was authorized by President Truman to take over the handling of the Palestine issue in so far as it concerns United States policy. Heretofore, Palestine has been a subject handled exclusively by Truman through direct communication with Prime Minister Attlee.
The State Department spokesman indicated that Byrnes will ask Bevin for details on the status of the conference on Palestine which is to be resumed in London on Dec. 16 and will submit to the British Foreign Secretary the views of President Truman on the Palestine problem in the hope that the United States may contribute to a solution of this problem. This was interpreted to mean that the U.S. Government may be prepared to possibly accept a greater share of responsibility in the search for a solution.
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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.
