Locke Mission - Overview

Overview

From the beginning, Locke used his ambassador status and central office in Beirut as assets in his attempt to steamroll his wishes into policy. In the beginning, this was helped by the generous funding Locke received from Truman. However, the U.S. Point Four team in the region began to feel alienated by Locke’s vision of investing in the business class of the region which contradicted the Point Four philosophy of providing more grass-roots aid. The failure of Locke and Point Four to work together became more consequential when Locke’s plan of a 100 million “Arab Development Plan” was not approved by Congress. Locke returned to the United States in an attempt to convince President Truman of the plan’s merits. He was not successful, and returned with a different set of goals.

President Truman told Locke to deemphasize Point Four participation in the Near East while simultaneously increasing the activity of UNWRA in the region. The former was not difficult. This success, however, was offset by the challenges posed by UNWRA with its budget deficit and seeming inability to make headway on the Arab refugee crisis. Locke was forced to investigate UNWRA for corruption; his investigation failed to uncover corruption. Locke’s frustrations were multiplied by his poor relationship with his American UNWRA counterpart John Blandford. Locke resigned after Blanford negotiated a program with Syria in October 1952 that provided only 30 million in funding. To Locke, this was not enough to make any impact. As Locke confided to President Truman, the “UNRWA… is doing a pretty awful job… No one believes in it anymore, especially in the Near East and least of all the refugees themselves.”