117. Letter From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Lang) to the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Williams)1
Dear Governor:
I am writing about a proposal that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have raised concerning the use of an airfield in Morocco as a standby facility that could be available, if needed, to support contingency operations in Africa and the Middle East. The Chiefs do not envisage establishing a US base per se in Morocco. Rather, they propose to prestock relatively small amounts of ammunition and equipment on an existing Moroccan facility. This prestockage would provide a basis for supporting US units on short notice and thus provide us with an alternative to the facilities in Spain, in the event the latter are denied to us in time of need because of political or other factors.
The Chiefs’ first choice as a contingency facility would be Nouasseur since, if the Moroccans go through with their plans for Nouasseur’s development, it would have ample parking space, POL storage and other physical attributes that would be important to the support of a contingency operation. If Nouasseur were not available, the Chiefs consider Rabat-Sale, Kenitra and Meknes as alternatives worth exploring further. Whatever field is chosen by the Moroccans to support their F–5 squadron would probably do the trick, and the US training team accompanying the F–5s would provide a good cover for the storage and maintenance of the US stocks.
I would very much like your views on whether our improved relations with Morocco offer the opportunity to work out the type of arrangement that the Chiefs have in mind. In this regard, the thought occurs that the Moroccans may find in such an arrangement a certain degree of assurance that the United States would come to their aid in the event of an Algerian attack, even in the absence of a formal defense commitment on our part. What may be a more difficult question to assess is the type of contingency, other than an attack against Morocco, where we could be fairly well assured that the Moroccans would permit us to use the prestocked facility.
Sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 19 US–MOR. Secret.↩