Office of the Historian

307. Memorandum From the Department of State Acting Executive Secretary (McKesson) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0

Washington, August 6, 1963.

SUBJECT

  • Letter from Mulla Mustafa Barzani to President Kennedy

Embassy Tehran’s Airgram #67 of July 30, 19631 (copies of which were sent to the White House) transmitted a copy of a letter addressed to [Page 666] the President from Mulla Mustafa Barzani, leader of Iraqi Kurdish fighting forces, requesting the President’s support for Kurdish autonomy within the Republic of Iraq.

In our view, a Presidential reply to Barzani might well damage United States relations with Iraq. We therefore propose having our Consul in Tabriz respond orally to Barzani’s intermediary along the lines of our standard guidance with respect to the Iraqi Kurds, i.e., that the United States sympathizes with legitimate Kurdish aspirations within the sovereign state of Iraq, but that our sympathy will not be permitted to prejudice the cordial relations now existing between the United States and Iraq. We propose to go one step further than our Ambassador in Tehran has suggested, by having our Consul state, should he be asked if Barzani’s letter was forwarded, that the message was forwarded to the Department and that the Consul is responding as indicated above, on behalf of the United States Government. We believe that if our Consul is asked whether the letter has been forwarded, an affirmative reply will not damage United States-Iraqi relations. At the same time, such a reply will demonstrate, if only symbolically, United States concern for and interest in the Kurds.

We propose sending to Tehran the attached telegram should the White House approve.2

J.W. Davis3
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 13–3 IRAQ. Secret. Drafted by Killgore and concurred in by Talbot. A typed note on the source text indicates that Komer approved the recommendation in this memorandum on August 7.↩
  2. Not printed. (Ibid.)↩
  3. The telegram was sent as telegram 91 to Tehran, August 7. (Ibid.) On September 12, Read sent Bundy another letter from Barzani to President Kennedy, dated July 18 and delivered to the Embassy in Tehran on August 27, which was similar to Barzani’s July 12 letter. Noting previous action taken on the July 12 letter, the Department of State recommended no action be taken on the July 18 letter. A typed notation on the Department of State’s copy of the memorandum quotes a response from Komer as follows: “We told him to acknowledge receipt and say letter passed to Washington and return noncommittal reply.”↩
  4. Davis signed for McKesson above McKesson’s typed signature.↩