201. Message From Prime Minister Ben Gurion to President Eisenhower1
Dear Mr. President: Now that we have evacuated the whole of the Sinai Desert, as promised in my letter to you of 8 November, and in addition also the Gaza Strip, which in my profound conviction—for both political and security reasons—we ought not to have had to evacuate, permit me to say to you that we have done so largely on the strength of your letter to me of 2 March, in which you expressed your belief that “Israel will have no cause to regret” her action, and that the “hopes and expectations” voiced by our Foreign Minister will “prove not to be vain”.
I need not say how much we value the continuance and deepening of the friendship between the United States and Israel, and how great is the esteem in which all of us, and I myself in particular, hold you as a noble and moral personality. And I should like to tell you why we found it so difficult, as you indicate in your letter, to evacuate the Gaza Strip. During the past four months, for the first time in eight years, the settlers in our villages in the South and the Negev have been able to live in peace, in the knowledge that grenades would not be thrown into their houses during the night, and that they would not be shot at from ambush when they went out to till the fields by day. These pioneers are some of our finest young people, who have left behind well-to-do families in Haifa and Tel Aviv, given up their studies after high-school, and gone out to live on the frontier facing danger in order to settle the wasteland. You will understand why since yesterday our hearts are heavy, and the peace of mind of our settlers is shaken. Our anxiety is the greater lest the U.N. Secretary-General, out of merely formalistic interpretations of his own, may seek to bring the Egyptians back to Gaza, which never belonged to them. We have, however, relied on your attitude as expressed in your letter, and on your belief that the hopes and expectations expressed by our Foreign Minister will not be vain.
[Page 380]I am confident that we shall, in your own words, have no cause for regret.
I also believe that the statements made by yourself and your Secretary of State, Mr. John Foster Dulles, on Akaba and the Straits of Tiran will in the very near future become a lasting reality.
You may be assured, Mr. President, that we for our part will cooperate fully in your efforts to bring peace to our area, for the benefit of all its people, and for world peace.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 674.84A/3–1157. Secret. Transmitted to the Department of State in telegram 1054 from Tel Aviv, March 7, received at 5:42 p.m., March 8. Telegram 1054 also contained the following comment: “At Ben Gurion’s request I [Lawson] saw him in his office in Jerusalem at 6:30 this evening [March 7]. He handed me his reply to President’s March 2 letter. Foreign Office is keeping text and contents strictly confidential and will not release to press. Only fact reply has been given me will be announced. Ben Gurion’s oral comments in elaboration his letter will be reported in separate telegram.” The “separate telegram” is telegram 1056, Document 204. A copy of telegram 1054 in the Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Dulles-Herter Series bears Eisenhower’s initials. The signed copy of Ben Gurion’s message was transmitted to the Department of State in despatch 454, March 11. (Ibid., International File)↩