Office of the Historian

122. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0

Washington, October 5, 1961.

Attached is status report on Iran Contingency Planning which I requested.1 Its chief utility is to reveal that:

1.
We have no contingency plans for meeting direct Soviet attack on Iran, other than to go to general war. This arises from well known old NSC policy that we could not afford to meet the Soviets locally in such situations.
2.
There are contingency plans for supporting Iran “against internal strife or attack from other Middle East countries—up to two divisions plus with commensurate air and naval forces.” But these don’t meet our problem.

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Obviously new plans are urgently needed. And we do not need to make the policy decisions (as State memorandum suggests), before embarking on such planning, because only after initial feasibility studies are prepared will we know whether effective U.S. counter moves are feasible.

Ergo, ISA is requesting JCS to do pronto such a feasibility study on nuclear or non-nuclear support of Iran (I gave two-week deadline).2

We also have working group of Iran TF studying a range of actions designed to deter Soviets from moving in the first place (see last para. of State memo).3 Will continue pushing forward on both mentioned above.

Bob Komer
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Country Series, Iran, 9/10/61–10/13/61. Top Secret.↩
  2. Attachment to Document 121. Regarding Komer’s request, see Document 108.↩
  3. On October 7, Secretary of Defense McNamara requested the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare “a study of the capability of the United States, in light of worldwide commitments, to conduct a limited war against the Soviet Union in Iran, with and without the use of nuclear weapons.” On October 20, Lemnitzer forwarded to McNamara the JCS Study on Contingency Planning for Iran (JCSM-741–61). Both documents are in the Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 64 A 2382, Iran 000.1—1961. See Supplement, the compilation on Iran.↩
  4. Document 121.↩