Office of the Historian

258. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Komer) to President Johnson in Texas1

Washington, December 28, 1965, 3:30 p.m.

The PL 480 negotiations with the UAR have gone better than expected, and we’ve struck a pretty tough bargain. They’ve bought all the conditions you laid down—an option for us to buy rice for Vietnam, increased commercial purchases in the US and a 75–25 split between Titles I and IV. We also arranged to convert enough local currency to pay Suez Canal tolls for USG ships. Now the UAR is eager to sign as soon as possible.

The political atmosphere has been relatively quiet. Nasser has made a couple of grateful comments about our aid. Ali Sabri, who has pushed the radical line in the past, is now out of the picture, and the new government looks as if it’s going to pay more attention to its economic problems. Egypt still seems sincere in trying to pull out of Yemen, although that’s going slowly because of bickering among the Yemenis themselves. The one sour note is the trial [less than 1 line of [Page 528] source text not declassified],2 but that got started quietly and went into closed session.

Since we’ve already taken our Congressional flack as a result of the decision to go ahead, and since the UAR has met our stiff terms, to hold any longer would tend to defeat the purpose of the exercise. It also makes sense to go ahead before Congress comes back. So we recommend you sign the attached determination.3

R. W. Komer
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. 17. Secret. Received at the LBJ Ranch at 10:30 a.m. on December 29.↩
  2. Mustafa Amin was indicted for espionage on November 30. (Telegram 3531 to Cairo, December 26; National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 29 UAR)↩
  3. On December 29, the President signed a memorandum to Rusk determining that it was essential to U.S. national interest to finance export sales of surplus agricultural commodities to the United Arab Republic under Title I of P.L. 480. For text, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1965, pp. 622–623. Two agreements providing for the sale of agricultural commodities under Title I and Title IV of P.L. 480 were effected by an exchange of notes signed at Cairo on January 3; for text, see 17 UST 6 and 17.↩