327. Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Secretary of State Rusk1
Rusk: … in a lot of places here … he has not performed in Yemen, he is undermining us in the wheel of space, and he is pitching this arms race into the Near East.
Johnson: Well, this is not going to help us with him, is it?
Rusk: But I think it’s important for Nasser to know that we’re not … that he mustn’t take us for granted on these things … I think an abstention on this is something of a warning to Nasser that we’re coming close to the end of the trail on this business.
[Page 625]Johnson: Don’t you think they’ll pound us like hell all over the United Nations and all over the papers of the country?
Rusk: Well, I think that there will be … will be … .
Johnson: Stevenson will be running around raising hell like he was about the Venezuela delegation, won’t he?
Rusk: Oh, I think he will be … he will be personally unhappy for two or three days, but I don’t think there’s going to be any major press campaign picking this up.
Johnson: Have you already told him what to do?
Rusk: Yes sir. Well, I told him … we had an instruction for him several days ago not to have a resolution that condemned the British, and this does … it said it deplores this thing the other day, but to express a general regret about violence on that frontier. Well, the resolution went beyond the point where we felt we could in our total interest here support it, but as it now stands, he wanted … he is willing … he is ready to do what we talked about this morning, but he just wanted to be sure that you know it’s a close balanced decision and that he had some concern about it.
Johnson: Well, you just tell them that I do know, but I knew it the last minute … didn’t know anything about it beforehand … don’t know anything else I got to do except go with my Secretary of State when he tells me he feels strongly about it, but I sure think they ought to talk to us ahead of time and we ought to know more about it before the last minute, don’t you?
Rusk: Yes, I think that’s right … I think that’s right …
Johnson: All right. You tell him that, and I’ll try to reach him too, if I can.
Rusk: Thank you.2
- Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of Telephone Conversation between President Johnson and Rusk, April 9, 1964, 12:06 p.m., Tape F64.23, Side A, PNO 6. No classification marking. This transcript was prepared in the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume. The first portion of the recording is inaudible.↩
- On April 9, by a vote of 9 to 0 with 2 abstentions (U.K. and U.S.), the Security Council adopted the draft resolution as submitted on April 8. Resolution 5650 condemned reprisals, deplored the British attack on Harib, deplored all attacks and incidents that had occurred in that area, called upon Yemen and the United Kingdom to exercise maximum restraint, and requested the Secretary-General to use his good offices. (UN doc. S/5650) The text is printed in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1964, pp. 715-716. Stevenson told the Council that his government did not consider the resolution equitable nor responsive to the realities and facts that had been reviewed in the Council’s debate, and that, accordingly, it could not vote for the resolution as it would like to have done. (UN doc. S/PV. 1111, par. 7)↩