264. Memorandum for the Record1
Israeli Minister Evron came in briefly at his request today to say that Jerusalem was most responsive to my private suggestions of 21 January as to what ought to be done if Israel wanted to maximize its chances of purchasing aircraft from the US.
However, they were worried about one particular point. What kind of planes would we supply Jordan, if we felt that we had to go ahead with Jordan too? I reminded him of Weizman’s view, later [Page 539] confirmed by Harman, that the Israelis would be most unhappy with the Mirage, somewhat less unhappy with the Lightning, and least unhappy with F–104’s. We had in fact been holding off the Jordanians for a long time, as he undoubtedly knew. If we decided that it was the way of wisdom (in Israel’s interest even more than ours) to meet Hussein’s minimum demands, we had in mind only a defensive interceptor-type aircraft. In fact, we were thinking of some old F–104’s which had a purely air defense configuration. Therefore, I doubted that Israel would have cause for concern on this score (I infer that Jerusalem was worried lest we sell Jordan the same kind of plane we might sell Israel).
Jerusalem’s only other worry, he said, was that if Israel reduced its request to say 45 intruders (interestingly, the figure Feldman mentioned to the President), would the US then consider this just a bargaining figure and proceed to cut the number down even further. I replied that this would be in the lap of the gods. But if we made a decision to sell aircraft, a number like 45 did not seem to me unreasonable. I stressed, however, that we might prefer to meet initially only the conditional commitment I had been authorized to make last March, i.e. 24 aircraft on this sale; in this case I saw a possibility that we would agree to Israel’s coming back the following year for an additional tranche of the same size (in saying this I had in mind that State/Defense are recommending we sell 36 interceptors to Jordan, though I favor only 24. If we do sell 36 we will be totally unable to hold the Israelis to less than 48 or so).
I again emphasized to Evron that I was discussing this matter with them privately and wholly ad referendum, in an effort to create the kind of climate in which a US sale might just become possible. As he knew, however, it would still be an uphill fight. So if Israel was eager for planes, an approach along the lines I suggested would at least increase the prospects of success.
I also told him that the President had agreed to see Abba Eban. He was delighted. I urged that if the appointment was on the record Eban be most careful not to contribute to our difficulties, but say to the press afterwards that aid to Egypt or Israel’s arms need had not been discussed. The visit should be billed as purely a courtesy call at which no requests were made by him.2
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Israel, Vol. V. Secret. Filed as an attachment to a January 25 memorandum from Komer to Bundy that states, “Our side exercise to bring the Israelis in line seems to be going well.”↩
- Komer’s memorandum to Bundy cited in footnote 1 above states that if his approach to Evron on plane terms worked, “we’ll in effect have pre-negotiated the conditions of sale, a much better way to do business than the pain and strain of last year.” Bundy wrote in the margin, “Good work.”↩