Forty-eight hours after Secretary of State John Foster Dulles landed in Washington after his vacation in the Bahamas, he sat down in the crowded Senate caucus room last week to face the storm over U.S. foreign policy. In charge was Georgia's Walter George, who had called the unusual open session of the Foreign Relations Committee primarily to find out about the off-again, on-again Saudi Arabian tank shipment. But it was obvious from one look at the squall line of Democratic liberals (Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, Alabama's John Sparkman, Arkansas' Bill Fulbright) at the end of the committee table—busy conferring around piles of books, maps, clippings and notes—that much more than that was coming.
Dulles got quickly to the point with a prepared statement about U.S. policy in the Middle East, stressing that it has one basic aim: maintenance of peace. Recognizing needs of defense and internal security, he said, the U.S. might sell more arms to both the Arabs and the Israelis. But he believes that the hope of little Israel lies in mutual security through the United Nations, not in an arms race with the immensely larger and more populous Arab states.
"We are dealing here in this area with problems of tremendous delicacy and complexity," said the Secretary of State. "Our difficulty in dealing successfully with this problem derives very largely from the fact that the Arabs believe that the United States is, in the last analysis, dominated by domestic political considerations . . . I can say that it is the determination of this Administration to deal with the problem purely from the standpoint of the best interests of the United States, and to deal on a basis . . . of friendly impartiality."
Presidential Concurrence. Dulles turned the first questions about the Saudi tanks over to Under Secretary Herbert Hoover Jr., who handled the case in the Secretary's absence. Hoover's answers were firm. He had made the decision to hold up the tanks, then had made the subsequent decision 43 hours later to let them go. Why? Because charges in the press and on the radio had created doubt and confusion, and he wanted the people of the U.S. to be sure that "all of these matters would be thoroughly investigated." Had he discussed the problem with President Eisenhower? "The decision was fully concurred in by the President, and I do not believe that I should discuss my relations with the Executive." What Hoover did not discuss was the fact that most of the impetus toward the hold order had come from the President, vacationing in Thomasville, Ga. Lacking full information on the transaction, and informed by Press Secretary James Hagerty that there was great furor about it, the President wanted the shipment held until he, as well as the public, could be reassured.