U.S. Decision to Back Bernadotte’s Report is Based on Weeks of Study, Lovett Says

Acting Secretary of State Robert A. Lovett told a press conference here today that the U.S. decision to support the recommendation on Palestine contained in the report of late U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte was based on weeks of careful study by this government of the different points of view of all parties concerned. At the same time, he declared that it was his impression that the U.S. had taken its position after Bernadotte’s report was released by the United Nations early this week.

By and large, he said, Secretary Marshall’s statement in Paris covers the U.S. position. Answering questions, ho explained that he did not mean to imply that the U.S. decision to back Bernadotte’s report had been reached overnight. Actually, he stated, it followed certain basic lines of thought on the Palestine subject developed during the course of several weeks’ study.

The Acting Secretary was asked if the U.S. decision to support the report and to urge its adoption in full by all parties and by the U.N. had bean taken in consultation, with the British Government, in line with a several-months old policy of consulting with the British on all matters concerning Middle Eastern affairs. He replied he was not aware of all the details of how the decision had been made since most of the negotiations had been carried on in Paris. He added that he would expect that in certain respects this U.S. position would correspond with British views and that in other respects it would note.

It is completely impossible to indicate what the next steps toward solution of the problem should be, Lovett stated. He declined to say whether he believed the subject was a matter for further negotiation between the Jews and Arabs or whether it was now completely in the hands of the General Assembly. In a prepared statement he revealed that the State Department has authorized the American mission for aid to Greece to release certain foodstuffs and DDT for use by U.N. relief workers in caring for Arab and Jewish refugees displaced and made destitute by the Palestine fighting. The foodstuffs and DDT, he said, will be replenished through monetary contributions from American voluntary sources.