Office of the Historian

47. Memorandum for the Standing Group1

Washington, undated.

SUBJECT

  • Response to NSAM 290, “Meeting Israeli Arms Requests”

The State and Defense Departments have thoroughly analyzed the questions raised in NSAM 290. Their tentative conclusions are that the U.S. is sympathetic to Israel’s growing need for modernization of its armor and would find it advantageous from a production and balance of payments point of view to sell 500 tanks to Israel but: (a) Israel’s need is not immediate; (b) the political cost to the U.S. of meeting this need directly would be too great; and (c) there are alternate possibilities for meeting Israeli needs via European suppliers which offer promise. The conclusion that the cost of U.S. interests in the area of providing the tanks from U.S. sources would be heavy is supported by SNIE 36–2–64 of 15 April 1964.

Moreover, Israeli acquisition of surface-to-surface missiles is a matter of great concern to the U.S., because of the new arms spiral it would help stimulate in the area and the additional step toward an Israeli nuclear deterrent it might entail.

These judgments are more fully discussed in a State Department paper (Tab A)2 and one from the Department of Defense (Tab B).3

[Page 112]

Therefore, the agencies concerned tentatively recommend that the following be the basis for U.S. discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Eshkol:

1.
The U.S. should tell Israel that, while recognizing Israel’s growing need for tanks, the U.S. cannot enter into direct supply at this time.4
2.
However, the U.S. believes that alternate sources of supply which meet Israeli needs can be made available, with U.S. help behind the scenes, and is willing to help Israel explore these.5
3.
The U.S. should tell Israel again of its strong opposition to Israeli missile acquisition and seek to dissuade Israel from going down this road; we are even more concerned about the development of nuclear weapons and insistent that there be no proliferation of such weapons in the Middle East.
4.
The U.S. is intensifying its exploration of possible arms control measures to damp down the Middle East arms race, and enlists Israeli help in this effort.

  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, NSAM File, NSAM 290. Secret. Filed with a covering memorandum of April 27 from Read to McGeorge Bundy. Another copy shows that the memorandum was signed by Harriman for the Department of State and sent to Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance, who signed on April 25. (Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 70 A 1266, Israel 470)↩
  2. The Department of State recommendations, in a package headed “NSC Standing Group Meeting, April 28, 1964: Israeli Arms Requests,” were that the United States should (1) encourage Israel to acquire tanks and anti-tank weapons from its usual Western European suppliers, (2) explore means to facilitate this, (3) dissuade Israel, “by appropriate means,” from acquiring missiles or developing nuclear weapons, and (4) accelerate and intensify U.S. secret efforts to achieve practical arms control in the Near East. (Johnson Library, National Security File, National Security Action Memorandums, NSAM 290)↩
  3. A Department of Defense memorandum for Bundy, in a package headed “NSC Standing Group Meeting of April 28, 1964: Meeting Israeli Arms Requests, (NSAM—290),” set forth three alternatives: (A) U.S. supply of 300 tanks to Israel as a military assistance sale on liberal credit terms, (B) U.S. assistance to Israel in procuring tanks from Western Europe, and (C) treatment of the tank request as a part of the larger problem of controlling the arms race in the Middle East by seeking Western European and Soviet agreement to prohibit the provision of advanced weapons to the Middle East and seeking their support for an urgent effort to obtain agreement from Middle East countries for arms control measures. (Ibid.)↩
  4. Bundy wrote “Yes” in the margin next to this paragraph.↩
  5. >Bundy wrote “Yes, plus” in the margin next to this paragraph.↩