OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
April 3, 1952
MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
Participants: Mrs. Roosevelt Mr. Acheson
Mrs. Roosevelt telephoned the Secretary about 11:30 this morning and said that she had not intended to bring the Tunisian matter up before she saw him next week (when she has an appointment at 11 a.m. on April 10), but in view of the recent development she felt she had to call the Secretary. She urged very strongly that, if it was at all possible, we should not vote against the question going on the Security Council agenda, whatever we do afterwards. She said that if we have to vote to keep it off the agenda she has a very strong feeling that it will do us great harm with the entire Arab group. She said anything we could do now toward helping to settle the Moroccan situation and towards creating a little better feeling toward us among the Arabs is desperately important. She said she realized fully what a dreadfully difficult question it was to decide. She said the feeling that she had found throughout the Arab countries, including Pakistan, on this question was extremely high and she thought that we must try to settle the refugee question and handle the Moroccan one in such a way that more stability in that vital area would be created. She said she understood why we had had to handle the Moroccan question as we did in the General Assembly and she had explained the situation over and over again.
The Secretary said that he appreciated very much indeed her calling him; that the question was a most difficult one; that he had just come from a meeting at which it was discussed in the Department with great divergence of opinion and that he was going to meet on the matter again this afternoon. He said he would like to ask her whether she thought it would be helpful if we voted to put it on the agenda and then took a vigorous position against having it discussed in the Security Council until the parties concerned had an opportunity to try to solve the question themselves. She replied that she thought that
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would help us a great deal. She would not like to see us take a position which would bar the question coming up eventually for discussion.
She closed by saying that our action in the General Assembly had done us a great deal of harm; if we repeated that position we would create feeling against us which would take a very long time to overcome, if it could be done at all.
The Secretary thanked Mrs. Roosevelt again for her view.
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