Ibn Saud Says He’ll Protect Americans, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 19, 1947

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CAIRO, Dec. 19 (AP)—The Saudi Arabian Legation issued a communique tonight emphasizing King Ibn Saud’s intention to prevent any attacks upon Americans in his kingdom that might result from the Palestine partition plan.

The communique also stressed that the King would urge the U. S. and Great Britain to abandon the United Nations Palestine decision. It said he would warn them of the “serious consequences” partition might bring.

A representative of companies interested in the pipeline to run from American oil concessions in Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean said in Cairo that work had been suspended on the western end of the project because of unrest in the Middle East. American employees of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company were withdrawn from Trans-Jordan recently following attacks on one of their convoys.

The communique said the King extended to Russia the friendship accorded all members of the U. N., but added-

“As to Communism, this is something different. There is no trace of it in his country, and he will not admit it and resists its penetration into his country.”

(In Beirut, a high Lebanese government official said he “feared Russia might offer arms to the Arabs for use in Palestine and the Arabs would accept them.”

(The official, who declined use of his name, added that he knew of no overtures from Russia “as yet.”

(“Some Western nations have already banned shipments to the Middle East. But the Arabs will take arms from wherever they can get them, even from Russia although they hate Communism,” he added.)