Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XVIII, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1964–1967

292. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson¹

Washington, May 23, 1966, 9:30 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Telephone Call Today to Feinberg

We are committed to a telephone call to Abe Feinberg about three matters:

1. U.S. support for Israeli technical assistance in Africa. You have in your hands a memorandum describing the options.² My recommendation is: I tell Feinberg that the Israeli Government will be hearing about this matter shortly through regular [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]channels.

2. The Haifa loan. Dave Bell by noon today will be recommending that we use the “left over” money to support an additional Israeli project (the power plant at Tel Aviv, of which $10 million will in any case be financed by ExIm but we would put in $6 million of AID money). I recommend that I tell Feinberg on this item that we will shortly be suggesting to the Israeli Government a responsive way to meet their request.

3. Desalting. We now have in our hands memoranda from State and Hornig.³ State suggests an approach which, while initially bilateral with Israel, would involve the strategy later to include the UAR in desalting enterprises. There are many unanswered questions which cannot and ought not be settled today. I recommend that I tell Feinberg that we have decided in principle to appoint a U.S. coordinator to explore with the Israelis the technical and economic aspects of the desalting project; and we shall be in touch with them shortly about the name of our man and terms of reference.

You should note that State’s concept would involve at some appropriate time the U.S. coordinator on this project dealing not only with Israel but with the UAR. This is a concept you will wish to examine. There is no need to tell Feinberg about this today.

One of the reasons for a bit of vagueness in reply to Feinberg today relates to the timing of an announcement of Harriman (or someone else) as the coordinator. We have just announced the Israeli aircraft. We may want to save the announcement of the coordinator for a later time this year.

Walt

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Israel, Vol. V. Top Secret. A handwritten note on the memorandum reads, “Rec’d 11:10 a.” A handwritten “L” indicates that the memorandum was seen by the President.
2. A May 21 memorandum from Rostow to the President laid out options for meeting a request from Feinberg to increase [text not declassified]support for Israeli technical assistance programs in Africa. (Ibid.)
3. Rusk’s May 21 memorandum to the President is ibid., Subject File, Desalting Projects, Vol. I. A May 20 memorandum from Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Donald F. Hornig to Rostow is ibid., Files of Harold Saunders, Israel-Nuclear-Dimona.