124. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Johnson1
Jordan Arms. Rusk has asked for a meeting soon to lay before you our painful dilemma here. Our Jordanian friends have been pressing us for months to sell them arms and planes for the Arab buildup against Israel’s water diversion scheme, claiming that otherwise they’ll have to buy Soviet items being touted by the UAR.
With Israel’s tacit consent, we’ve been subsidizing Jordan for years, in order to keep King Hussein—the most sober of the Arab leaders—out of Nasser’s clutches. We think Soviet arms in Jordan would be the beginning of the end, and to be forestalled at almost any cost.
We’ve agreed in principle to some staggered arms sales to Jordan so long as the Arab kitty can finance them, but have stalled on the key item—supersonic aircraft. Our fear is that if we sell supersonics to Jordan for an announced Arab buildup against Israel’s diversion scheme, we’ll come under acute Israeli and US Zionist pressure to sell arms directly to Israel too. In fact, our whole aid program to Jordan might come under attack. If we get into overt arms sales to Israel, then all the Arabs [Page 275] may turn against us, and Jordan may have to accept Soviet and UAR arms anyway.
We owe King Hussein an answer by the end of January. Our proposed strategy is to come through with some carefully phased ground equipment sales, but to tell Hussein he can’t have either US or Soviet fighters without jeopardizing US aid. If he feels absolutely compelled to get supersonic fighters he should buy them from the UK or France. We hope by this combined package to string out the whole program, in hopes the Arab buildup against Israel will fall apart in time (as it has before).
But DOD and now State’s Arab experts fear that Hussein won’t play. So they propose as a fallback an offer of one US squadron by 1968–69 (which they think Hussein will buy) if he is adamant.
Others of us oppose going this far now. We should try our hardest to turn Hussein aside before deciding on any fallback because of the acute risk of a violent Israeli reaction. Also we have promised to clue the Israelis on what we propose, and haven’t told them, pending your decision.
A new complication is that the Israeli/German/US tank deal is now leaking (though our commitment to modernize the German M–48s is still not out). This could be played up by the Arabs to force Hussein to take Soviet arms. We told the Israelis we might have to call the deal off if it leaked prematurely, and may want to threaten this as pressure on them to keep their lips buttoned (they may have been the leakers).
Another important part of this problem package is our policy toward the UAR. We face a growing crisis in 1965 on Jordan Waters, and if Nasser wants he can make it highly painful to us. The one issue on which he can always rally the Arab brethren is Israel. So you might want to send Luke Battle back with some quiet word that we’d rather talk than fight if only Nasser would show a little understanding of our problems too.
State will have a long paper for you shortly but I wanted to provide an advance look tonight.