Austin Defends New U.S. Plan for Palestine, NY Herald Tribune, Apr. 23, 1948.

He Insists to Objectors That American Integrity Has Not Been Violated

Ambassador Warren R. Austin, head of the United States delegation to the United Nations, said yesterday that the proposed truce for Palestine was designed to prevent anarchy after May 15, when the British give up mandatory power, and insisted that the trusteeship policy does not reflect on “the integrity of the word of the United States.”

Ambassador Austin addressed 400 members of the Lawyers’ Committee for Justice in Palestine at the offices of the United States U. N. Mission, 2 Park Avenue, where a petition bearing nearly 5,000 names of lawyers was presented to him, urging that the partition plan be revived.

In answer to charges that the United States, in effect, dishonored itself by changing its Palestine policies, Mr. Austin said- “Now I understand that there is an implication that the integrity of the word of the United States is challenged. That is not correct.”

He declared the truce was not intended as a substitute for partition, and said- “In that truce we have insisted it be without prejudice” to present conditions in Palestine.

One of the weaknesses of the partition plan was that no agreement could be reached to send troops to enforce portioning, he said, adding that it is legally possible, however, to send forces to Palestine to back up and protect an American truce commission.

He said that a resolution will be considered by the Security Council today at Lake Success, calling for enforcement of a truce.

Chairman of the group which presented the petition to Ambassador Austin was Paul O’Dwyer, lawyer and brother of Mayor William O’Dwyer. Deputy Mayor John J. Bennett, who said he was appearing on behalf of Mayor O’Dwyer to protest changing of the partition plan, declared- “We feel that maybe the present decision on Palestine has wrecked the United Nations, but we feel also that there is time yet to save it by going back to the right, the original, plan.”

Other speakers were Justice Saul Price, of Municipal Court; City Judge Sol Rubin, of New Rochelle, N. Y.; Thurgood Marshall, attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Louis F. McCabe, Philadelphia, lawyer, and William S. Bennet, former Representative in Congress from New York.