Office of the Historian

347. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1

Washington, August 24, 1964.

Mac—

I haven’t bothered you to date, but we may have trouble over Yemen again: (1) UNYOM will probably breathe its last on 4 September, though we may be able to keep a UN presence there;2 (2) UAR/YAR offensive to clean up north Yemen and present Faysal with a fait accompli at Alexandria summit seems to be going well; (3) Faysal and UK are very unhappy over this, in fact Saudis are sending supplies to their border area and threatening to resume aid to royalists; (4) our UAR friends made a few recon flights again over Saudi border.

So Faysal has again made emotional plea to LBJ3—since disengagement is a flop, he may have to start the war again. Will we protect him? He made same plea to UK.

Butler has neatly passed buck to us to note to Rusk. It’s the old song—shouldn’t US and UK at long last work together to put blocks to Nasser.

[Page 658]

Fortunately Rusk gave right answer to a sheepish Greenhill.4 Talbot tells me Rusk sees no point in accommodating Brits till we see which HMG we’re dealing with. We’ve also gone out to calm down Faysal, telling him again we back Saudi Arabia, but that if Saudis reopen Yemen war they do so at their own risk. Hart wants another LBJ letter, but State and I feel not just now, unless absolutely necessary.

The whole Yemen-Aden business may come to a boil at summit. Nasser will try to isolate Faysal and may bring off a compromise. But if he browbeats Faysal we’ll probably get an open break, and a flareup again. We’re urging Nasser to play it smart, but without great hopes.

We’re doing our best to keep this one buried, but don’t ask the impossible.

RWK
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Yemen, Cables & Memos, Vol. II, 7/64-12/68. Secret.↩
  2. In response to an inquiry from the Secretary-General, Saudi Arabia responded on August 26 that it had carried out its responsibilities under the disengagement agreement, but the United Arab Republic had not. Saudi Arabia found itself unable to continue to share in UNYOM’s expenses or to abide by the terms of the disengagement agreement after September 4, 1964. After receiving a U.A.R. reply that it had no objection to termination of UNYOM, the Secretary-General reported to the Security Council on September 2 that he intended to terminate UNYOM’s activities as of September 4. An excerpt from the Secretary-General’s report (UN doc. S/5927) is printed in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1964, pp. 727-728.↩
  3. See Document 344.↩
  4. A memorandum of conversation recording British Charge d’Affaires Denis Greenhill’s meeting with Secretary Rusk on August 21 is in the National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964-66, POL 27 YEMEN. See footnote 2, Document 349, for a brief summary of their conversation.↩