329. Telegram From the Department of State to Secretary of State Rusk in Manila1

Tosec 11. President has received following message from British Prime Minister. Acting Secretary and White House concerting on possibly reply. Will endeavor advise you prior your meeting with Carrington.

“April 10, 1964.

I should like to thank you most warmly for your decision to abstain on the resolution in the Security Council on Thursday, despite the doubts of most of your own people. I am most grateful for this act of solidarity.

I should now like to build on this decision and see whether we cannot achieve a sense of common purpose and align our common policies more closely over the whole problem of the Yemen and Aden. Experience has shown that the general Western interest, as well as the particular British and American interest, are best served when British and American policies are in harmony. I should now like to do for the Middle East what we did for South-East Asia last February.

Our respective Secretaries of State are shortly to meet. I hope you will agree that they should use this occasion to reach a general understanding over these questions.

Alec Douglas-Home”

Ball
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964-66, POL 31-1 UK-YEMEN/UN. Secret; Priority; Exdis. Drafted by Jeanne W. Davis (S/S); cleared by Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State George S. Springsteen, Jr., and in substance by EUR Staff Assistant Jerome K. Holloway and Bromley Smith; and approved by Davis.