103. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Johnson1
We suggest the attached brief note to Moroccan King Hassan to reassure him of our support.2 He went home from his March 1963 visit here thinking he had found a real friend in JFK. Then we had to turn down his request for military help during the Moroccan-Algerian border war last fall. We’ve since heard from several sources that he thinks we’ve lost interest in Morocco and in him.
Ambassador Ferguson will take this letter back, which will incidentally establish the fact that he’s your man. We’ve also drafted the letter to impress on Hassan, as we have with the Shah, the importance of internal reform. He faces a full-blown financial crisis (chiefly due to rotten fiscal planning but also nudged along by declining US aid and the cutback in US base expenditures). He may come to us again for loans which we can’t give (we’re already committed to $20 million to keep access to our commo facility at Kenitra). So we want to urge him to take the necessary domestic measures before stormy weather sets in.3
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Special Heads of State Correspondence File, Morocco—King Hassan Correspondence. Secret.↩
- An attached note from McGeorge Bundy to President Johnson reads: “Secretary of State and I strongly concur.” For text of the President’s letter to King Hassan, see Document 104.↩
- Bundy wrote a note on the source text that reads: “This also saves a request from Ferguson for a call on you. McGB”↩