Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXI, Near East Region; Arabian Peninsula

349. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom¹

Washington, August 28, 1964, 3:58 p.m.

1454. Depcirtel 348.² Please deliver following message from Secretary to FonSec Butler:³

“Dear Rab:

We also are disturbed by the situation in Saudi Arabia and Yemen of which you wrote in your letter of August 20, and we are troubled by the renewed United Arab Republic overflights of Saudi Arabia. However, we do not anticipate that they are the automatic precursors of further Egyptian attacks, air or ground, on Saudi Arabia unless Faisal intervenes more actively in the Yemen. More recent intelligence has reassured us in holding this view. In any event, we are making urgent representations to the United Arab Republic to stop its overflights and to refrain from rashly reacting to Saudi defensive moves on the frontier. We are also impressing on both the importance for everyone that Faisal and Nasser reach an agreement on Yemen at their forthcoming meeting.

We continue prepared to support Faisal by whatever means seem appropriate in the face of unprovoked hostilities with the United Arab Republic. At the same time, we continue to feel very strongly, and are again so informing the Viceroy, that it is in his best interests not to resume open aid to the Yemeni royalists. We agree with you that he has become increasingly and dangerously isolated from the Arab states. We fear that his aiding the royalists tends to increase that isolation and encourages the threat to his regime from both within and from outside Saudi Arabia. A primary objective of the disengagement agreement, in our view, was to allow Faisal breathing space in order to face internal problems. To encourage him to increase his aid to the royalists, thereby inviting a return of these same problems, would appear dangerous for all of our interests in that area.

In the total framework of Anglo-American cooperation throughout the world our differences of view toward Yemen are a friction which it would be good if we could eliminate. As your Charge stated when delivering your message, the basic problem seems to center around tactics in dealing with Nasser. This, I understand, is to be the subject of forthcoming working level discussions between our people, the outcome of which I have no wish to prejudge. I hope, however, that through our continued concentrated efforts we can more narrowly define those points wherein we differ in the Middle East so as better to focus our efforts on resolving them and on more closely coordinating our policies in that part of the world.

With warm personal regards,

Sincerely, Dean Rusk”

Rusk

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964-66, POL 1 SAUD-UAR. Secret; Limdis. Drafted by Moore on August 27; cleared by Symmes, Grant, and Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs J. Harold Shullaw; and approved by Rusk. Repeated to Cairo, Jidda, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, Kuwait, Taiz, and Amman.
2. Circular telegram 348, August 22, reported that British Charge Greenhill called on Secretary Rusk August 21 to discuss an urgent letter from Foreign Secretary Butler concerning the threatened increase of friction between the United Arab Republic and Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Butler appealed for coordination of U.S. and U.K. policies and requested that the United States strongly urge Nasser to reach a political arrangement with Faisal at their Alexandria meeting. (Ibid.)
3. In telegram 998 from London, August 29, Ambassador Bruce reported that after he delivered the Secretary’s message to Butler, the Foreign Secretary had demurred at the suggestion that Faisal’s resuming aid to the Yemeni royalists would be damaging to “all of our interests.” He thought that such aid might prevent Nasser from triumphing in Yemen, which was all to the good, since having Yemen become “an Egyptian fief” was “not in any of our interests.” Also, since recent developments made any coalition government in Yemen improbable in the near future, Butler did not see what agreement Faisal and Nasser were likely to work out in Alexandria. (Ibid.)