President Truman and Secretary of State George C. Marshall today declared that the U.S. proposal for placing Palestine under international trusteeship aims to avoid bloodshed which might lead to war and involve the United States.
Truman emphasized that “trusteeship was proposed only after we exhausted every effort to find a way to carry out partition “by peaceful means,” Trusteeship, The ‘stated, is not proposed as a substitute for the partition plan, but as “an effort to fill the vacuum soon to be created by the termination of the mandate on May 15.”
The President revealed that he is instructing Warren B, Austin, head of I the American delegation at the United Nations, to urge upon the Security Council I “in the strongest terms” that representatives of Jews and Arabs be called immediately I to the Council table to arrange for a truce in Palestine. “With such a truce and I such a trusteeship,” he said, “a peaceful settlement is yet possible; without them, I open warfare is just over the horizon.”
PUTS TRUCE ABOVE IMMIGRATION BELIEVES JEWISH GOVERNMENT MAY HOT BE NEEDED
Answering questions at his press conference, after he read his prepared statement on Palestine, Truman said that a truce at this time was a practical possibility, and otherwise he would not advocate it. Asked if there were any alternatives if the other countries refused to accept trusteeship, the President replied I that he could not answer chat question. It was necessary to wait and see, he declared. He stressed the necessity for establishing a truce before anything else is I done.
President Truman’s answers to numerous questions put to him by the correspondents attending the press conference — one of the largest in many months — brought out the following picture:
1. The position of the President with regard to Jewish immigration into Palestine has not changed, but he believes that the first thing to do is restore peace in the country and arrange a settlement that will halt the bloodshed there.
2. The President hopes that trusteeship would produce the kind of peaceful settlement that would result in there not being any need for the proclamation of the Jewish Government.
3. The Present believes that American troops would not necessarily be used to help enforce trusteeship in Palestine. The U.S. policy, he said, is to back up the U.H. trusteeship by all possible means, but that does not necessarily mean baaing American troops to Palestine.
4. The President does not think that the U.N. would offer the Palestine trusteeship to the United States. He avoided giving a direct answer to a question as ## whether the United States would accept the role of trustee If assigned to it ## the United Nations.
5. The President would expect the British to maintain order in Palestine until August 15, but he made it clear at the press conference that since he is not running the British Government he does not know whether Britain is ready to agree to ###t. There was a bitter note in his remark about Britain.
MARSHALL AVOIDS DISCUSSION ON FORCE REQUIRED TO IMPLEMENT TRUSTEESHIP
Secretary Marshall, who held his press conference one hour after Truman expressed his view to the press, said that the President made a very clear statement which he would not complicate by additional remarks at this time.He United himself go declaring that the effort for trusteeship for Palestine is to avoid trouble which otherwise seems inevitable.
A reporter then started to ask the Secretary a question about Palestine, using the phrase “before the American decision to abandon partition.” Marshall abruptly interrupted him at this point, telling the reporter he would have to change that before the Secretary would answer his question. The reporter then rephrased the query “before the American decision to support trusteeship,” U.H. Secretary-General Trygve Lie pointed out that the General Assembly in its discussion of partition had decided more force would be required to implement trusteeship than partition. The Secretary had no comment-adding, however, he would have to look this up to refresh his memory.
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.
