Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Near East Region; Iraq; Iran; Arabian Peninsula, Volume XII

303. Memorandum From the Officer in Charge of Iranian Affairs (Bowling) to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Hart)⁰

Washington, November 21, 1960.

SUBJECT

• United States Military Assistance to Iran

REF

• Your memorandum to me¹

Note: The information and opinions given below are simplified synopses of very complicated situations which even the experts can’t keep up with at times. I will be glad to amplify them in any particular direction which you might desire. The opinions given are my own personal views, and do not reflect the considered judgment of either GTI or Ambassador Wailes.

Background

U.S. Obligations

Our tenuous U.S. connection with CENTO does not in itself represent an obligation to Iran to provide military equipment of any particular quality or quantity. The same can be said of our Bilateral Agreement with Iran. Despite the Shah’s contentions to the contrary, we have no direct obligation to help the CENTO countries reach the Strategic Force Goals set up in the PMDG. There may be a strain of truth in the argument that before the Shah joined the BP, we knew that he expected greatly increased military aid from the U.S. as a result, and that the Turks had persuaded him to cross the Rubicon by telling him that the U.S. would do for the Shah’s army what it had done for the Turks. We knew all this at the time, but permitted the Shah to adhere without setting forth the truth to him. He took our silence for approval. To this extent, we did morally commit ourselves.

In July, 1958, in a panic over the Iraqi coup, we committed ourselves specifically through the Presidential letter of that month² to (a) bring MAP–supported Iranian military units (95% of the total) up to full levels of strength and efficiency through equipment and training, (b) To consider the activation and support of additional units if and when the primary goals were attained, and (c) to provide economic assistance (with the usual qualifications) in case the agreed military program should strain the Iranian economy.

Plan Counterbalance

The concrete outgrowth of the July, 1958 letter was Plan Counterbalance, agreed to as a method of implementing the goal implied in (a) of the preceding paragraph. A tentative time schedule was set up for the accomplishment of the plan, and the plan was divided into phases. The U.S. contribution to the plan was in terms of equipment and training. The five major objectives of the plan are as follows:

1. To improve the Replacement Training System in the Imperial Iranian Army.

2. To expand the capability of armor in the Imperial Iranian Army and establish an Armor Center.

3. To expand the capability of artillery in the Imperial Iranian Army and establish an Artillery Center.

4. To expand the capability of the combat divisions of the Imperial Iranian Army.

5. To insure the timely provision of equipment required to accomplish the above objectives.

The Plan was to be accomplished in three major phases:

Phase One, to the Spring of 1959, was based on an increase in Iranian military strength by 32,000 additional officers and men. All armored units were brought to 85% of strength. An artillery and armor training center were established.

Phase Two, to the end of March 1960, included the bringing of six infantry divisions and four infantry brigades to 85% strength. This Phase was not completed on time, due to the financial inability of the Iranian government to meet its own responsibilities under the program.

The operation of the Plan is now in Phase Three, which includes improvement of logistical capabilities and the correcting of various other deficiencies. No manpower increase is involved.

In review, the training portion of Plan Counterbalance has been carried out, although in my opinion without the resounding success claimed for it. The equipment side still has large gaps, as witness the unserviceability of ancient vehicles which should be replaced. The Iranian government has not been able to afford manpower increases and other expenses incident to the Plan, and the Plan has therefore fallen short. To carry out our commitment of July 1958, we should logically provide DS to make up this shortfall. We obviously cannot do so.

Construction

In 1958 we brought in a U.S. army engineer unit to begin the construction of a major military airfield and a complex of other military installations generally along the Elborz Mountains (the Iranians had raised a public hue and cry over initial plans to base the defense of the area along the Zagros, a much sounder military concept). The U.S. agreed to assume about 80% of the costs of this construction. Later on, to placate the Shah, another airfield, at Hamadan, was begun. This construction was intended to improve morale, get units out of big city areas and thereby improve training capabilities, and also put units near the areas where they would be called upon to fight. The total cost of this program to the U.S. was to be well over $300 million. It is about one-third complete and is far behind schedule, due to shortage of U.S. funds.

The Five Year Plan

In accordance with the report of the Draper Committee,³ the Tehran Country Team drew up a voluminous Five-Year Plan for MAP to Iran. Without going into voluminous details, the Plan can be summarized as providing for a small decrease in MAP, the discontinuance of DS, and a heavy increase (from $130 to $220 million) in Iranian annual defense expenditures. The five-year plan does not envisage any important new unit activation, but does envisage a manpower increase to 255,000 in filling out existing units and logistic trains. The Plan envisages a shortfall against what we think Iran needs by FY 1966 of one Infantry Division, one Hawk battalion, three air squadrons and two naval vessels. The shortfall against CENTO planning is about four times as great. These shortfalls are necessary in view of budgetary planning restrictions.

This plan was not approved by Washington in either its original or in an amended version. I suspect it will probably be approved in the next few months, more or less in desperation.

The Country Team desires to “discuss” this plan with the Shah. Defense and U/MSC have prevented this, on the grounds that the plan would be a disappointment to the Shah but that as far as it goes, he would take it as a commitment. I personally rather agree with the Washington position.

Political Background

The Shah wants large and very modern armed forces. Is this desire primarily practical and logical, from the point of view of national defense and internal stability, or is it primarily personal and psychological— I believe that the latter motive predominates, as witness his current willingness to allow cuts in his own army outlays but his order that some of the saved funds will be utilized to buy radar for the Air Force. It is very possible that the Shah’s attachment to the West is primarily dependent on our military assistance programs, and that our failing to satisfy him might result in his abandoning his throne or moving toward a rapprochement with the Soviets.

At the same time, it must be recognized that while loyal armed forces are necessary to the Shah’s power, increases in the size of the armed forces and relative increases in military as against civil expenditures are positively harmful to internal security and probably increase the possibility of his overthrow.

Economic Background

The President’s letter of 1958 pretty well commits us to supply DS, or a substitute therefor to Iran. But we are forced by Congress to eliminate DS, and we must view the Iranian armed forces as against the capacity of Iran to support them. Even the projections in the 5-year Plan, which fall so far short of PMDG planning and the Shah’s ambitions, are to my mind unrealistic. Let us simplify by projecting a 5% GNP rise for Iran over the next five or six years. This projection is very optimistic—this year the GNP will rise by not more than two percent. The population is increasing at a rate of 2-1/2 or 3 percent a year. This leaves per capita GNP increase at less than 3%. Yet even the five-year plan, a graveyard for the Shah’s ambitions, projects Iranian real military expenditures almost doubled over five years! All of this means that Iranian economic development will be slowed to a walk with the enormous growth of local military expenditures. The political results would be obvious.

Mission of the Iranian Armed Forces

It should be assumed that in case of general nuclear war the capacity of the Iranian armed forces is relatively unimportant. There is a slight possibility of tactical nuclear weapons being used in Iran in case of limited war there, but in such an event U.S. forces would carry a great part of the load and the U.S. would be directly involved. The main objective of the Iranian armed forces is to defend the country in case of limited non-nuclear war and to provide for internal security. The present armed forces are quite capable of performing the latter function, and are probably even a bit cumbersome and unwieldy to do the job as well as a smaller, simpler, and lighter army could do it. The Shah’s arguments about preparation for simultaneous Soviet-supported attack from a satellite Iraq and a satellite Afghanistan are so plausibly flimsy and ridiculous that it is not necessary to list the arguments against the idea. It was never more than a rationalization to cover a basic desire for bigger and more modern armed forces per se.

We come down to a defense against the USSR. Iran itself refuses to consider a defense based on the Zagros. U.S. and Iranian plans (with millions in U.S. construction commitments) are tied to a defense in the Elborz. While a trip line and demolition function in the Zagros is certainly justified, and while a Yugoslav-type guerrilla plan (which the Shah would never buy) is justifiable, no one can seriously consider that even a 400,000 man army with a billion dollars worth of new equipment, would do more than delay the USSR for a few days, and would be chewed to bits in the process. Common sense and experience would indicate that most units would put up only a token resistance.

I personally believe that the mission of the armed forces should therefore be defined as internal security, trip-wire, demolition, and guerrilla. The internal security function would allow for forces capable of dealing with attack from a non-communist neighbor. Internal political and economic limitations could be respected.

In practical terms, this would mean armed forces modelled on the lines recommended in Rand study 2416 (see attached memo).⁴ The Shah would probably never accept it, and would knock over the bucket politically.

For about $500 million a year in DS and MAP, we could build a Turk-type armed force, over a period of 5 or 10 years, which could give the Russians a real fight, if morale were to improve and if the attendant political strains did not result in a change in the regime. But we’ll never get that kind of money out of the new administration and Congress, and it is foolish to think of it. The only course which could really satisfy the Shah and still make any kind of military sense is therefore out the window.

There are, broadly speaking, two remaining basic approaches to the problem of the Iranian military mission and our military assistance to Iran which are possible and which avoid the worst of the consequences which threaten us.

One approach is essentially the present one. We go along with the five-year plan idea, which is essentially Plan Counterbalance Plus, with the realization that through DS or some substitute I can’t now imagine, we will help the Iranians in their rial expenditure problem. Additionally, we would have to be prepared here in State to obtain on political grounds about once a year a sweetening package of esoteric military equipment, training, or installations for the Shah at an average cost of $5 to $15 million. With some luck, we could get the necessary funds for this stance; the economic and political consequences in Iran would be bad but not unbearable, and the Shah would probably stay on the reservation, though he would be very restive and his blackmailing tendencies would be encouraged. It would be difficult to maintain this stance toward Iran, but it is possible that we could do so.

I myself would prefer a fourth approach, which could only be taken by the new administration. In essence, it would require a complete political, military, and economic restudy of the Iranian defense problem here in Washington, and the emergence therefrom of a picture similar to that envisaged in the first approach mentioned above. No less a person than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs would then proceed to Iran under direct orders of the President and lay before the Shah our considered judgment of what his defense forces and posture should be, along with the attendant reasoning. The Shah would be told that the U.S., realizing that the Shah did not agree with this military concept, would be willing, within overall funds limitations, to provide the Shah, against its best military judgment, with full support for a few plus items such as perhaps two highly modernized armored brigades, a squadron of very modern jet fighters, a Hawk battalion to protect the capital, and a destroyer. The July 1958 letter and PMDG planning goals would be disavowed as the acts of a previous administration not binding on the new one. The Shah would be informed that the new administration did not intend to request the Congress for more than, say, $100 million a year for MAP and DS to Iran.

Simultaneously the Shah would be invited to pay a state visit to the United States. The President, backed by a hard-headed Defense Department team, would proceed to re-argue the whole thing with the Shah. I feel fairly certain that the Shah would grumblingly accept the basic change in U.S. approach. Provided we did not give in to fresh importunings on his part, and stuck by our guns, we would have accomplished

(a) Increased internal security capability

(b) Good trip line and demolition capability

(c) Increased morale and reliability

(d) Improvement of the internal political situation

(e) Improvement of the internal economic situation

(f) Important guerrilla capability

(g) Increased capability for U.S. forces to assist Iran.

All these things could be accomplished without requiring increased funds from Congress. One would have to take a sizeable but still acceptable risk that the Shah would turn to the Russians or even abdicate.

0. Source: Department of State, NEA/GTI Files: Lot 66 D 173, U.S. Military Assistance to Iran 1960. Secret.
1. Not found.
2. See Document 243.
3. The Draper Committee was appointed by Eisenhower on November 24, 1958, to undertake a “completely independent, objective, and non-partisan analysis” of the military assistance aspects of the U.S. Mutual Security Program. (Letter from Eisenhower to Draper, November 24, 1958; Department of State Bulletin, December 15, 1958, p. 954)
4. Not found.