98. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0
SUBJECT
- Task Force Meeting on Iran
Our 7 August memo,1 relaying the President’s concern and asking for report on what further actions feasible, has already had a healthy cathartic effect. The State people, in the papers they prepared for the TF meeting and in the meeting itself,2 came up with more interesting ideas and sense of movement than they have surfaced in the three months since the initial TF report.
However, we still have an uphill battle against what I would call a sense of fatalistic resignation about Iran. There are no optimists among the experts, only varying degrees of pessimism. Old Persian hands like Peyton Kerr or John Bowling really question whether anything we do can arrest the basic trend, evident even before Mossadegh, toward a potentially serious overturn in Iran.
Of course I too grant that the odds are against us. We may in fact have to live sooner or later with a chaotic Mossadeqist regime, which [Page 229] will depose the Shah (if he doesn’t flee), turn neutralist, and be highly vulnerable to Soviet manipulation. But my pitch is that we must nonetheless do all we can to avert this outcome, by backing to the hilt the best alternative available, i.e., Amini. This was the TF recommendation, which the President approved. And we may yet squeak through with a “controlled revolution” as opposed to an uncontrolled one. We won’t, however, unless we give it more of a try.
My antennae also detect some worry at State lest the White House “pushed the panic button” because it thinks another cabinet crisis, if not worse, is imminent. I took pains to disabuse this notion. The President’s concern, I said, was to make sure that we are moving on whatever further steps are necessary, and feasible, to buck what everyone agrees is a continued adverse trend. Lead time is essential, since at best it might take months to carry out such measures, given the material we have to work with. This makes it all the more important to get the show on the road.
The interim reply due over Friday noon will not be wholly satisfactory.3 It will list a series of steps now under active consideration, but which State is unwilling to recommend firmly until it has consulted Teheran and given further thought. This is fair enough—there are no easy answers to the questions posed, so having stirred up the animals we should give them a bit more time. But our response should be that the President expects a full report no later than two weeks from now (which lets Holmes and Phil Talbot, who gets to Teheran on 20 August, get into the act).
In sum, while I still feel we are not yet doing enough, we now have State’s feet to the fire and should give them a chance (I’ll hold off comment on their specific proposals until they are firmer). Meanwhile I intend to keep pushing until told to lay off.
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Country Series, Iran, 8/1/61–8/14/61. Secret. Copies were sent to Rostow and General Taylor. Attached to the source text is an August 11 note from Komer to Bundy that reads: “Attached is memo to go along (if you choose) with State’s interim reply on Iran. I got them to completely redo the latter so haven’t seen it yet. I ain’t happy, but I pushed things just about as far as I could. The main thing is that we’ve got State moving again. Also attached FYI is my draft reply which State couldn’t quite steel itself to buy. But it served its purpose.” Regarding the draft reply, see footnote 3, Document 97.↩
- Document 94.↩
- See Document 97.↩
- See footnote 2 above.↩