Both Britain and U.S. Gullty of Political Duplicity on Palestine. Charges

Both the United States and Great Britain have been guilty of political duplicity in handling the Palestine problem, Bartley C. Crum, a member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, charges in a signed article in the issue of Collier’s on sale tomorrow.

Crum makes public parts of a heretofore “secret file” of correspondence from our State Department to Arab leaders, which discounts public promises made to the Jews by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and charges that the committee itself was the victim of espionage activities.

He charges that the State Department and the British Foreign Office, in commissioning Near East experts to the committee, assigned some men who were “pro-Arab” and who openly expressed the fear that any pro-Jewish recommendation would lead to a dangerous alliance between the Arabs and the Soviet Union. Referring to the State Department’s “secret file” of correspondence to Arab rulers, which reportedly was shown to American members of the committee, Crum declares:

“Since September 15, 1938, each time a promises was made to American Jewry regarding Palestine, the State Department promptly sent messages to the Arab rulers discounting it and reassuring them, in effect, that regardless of what was said or promised publicly to the Jews, nothing would be done to charge the situation in Palestine without consulting the Arabs.” Crum specifically states that, in his opinion, the existence of the secret correspondence was not even known to President Truman.

Crum declares that the committee found that the conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine is basically a conflict between their leaders, not the ### that difficulties that could be anticipated ###.