Office of the Historian

399. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Nigeria1

Washington, August 15, 1968, 1553Z.

221355. Please deliver urgently following personal message from President to General Gowon.2

1.

“Your Excellency: I have been kept fully informed of the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross to make arrangements for the supply of urgently needed food and other relief supplies to the civilian victims of the Nigerian war. We have supported those efforts in the past and continue to do so now.

“Knowing that you share my own deep concern over the suffering of those innocent persons, I feel justified in addressing this personal appeal to you to give your urgent agreement to the ICRC proposals for an air mercy corridor. Hopefully, this can be followed by rapid agreement on a land corridor.

“Your Excellency, the conscience of the world has been deeply moved by reports of starvation in Nigeria, and tons of food are already in position near the most needy areas. The world will not easily understand any failure on the part of those most concerned to agree to effective, international, humanitarian arrangements to alleviate this suffering. I therefore most earnestly urge you to make it possible for relief supplies to move rapidly into the hands of the needy by facilitating the establishment of this relief corridor on an urgent basis.

“I trust that I need hardly add, Your Excellency, that in sending you this message I am motivated solely by compelling humanitarian concerns.

Sincerely yours, LBJ.”

2.
For London: Inform appropriate HMG officials of above message and urge that UK make parallel demarche.
Rusk
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Special Head of State Correspondence File, Nigeria-Presidential Correspondence. Confidential; Flash. Drafted by Smith, cleared by Hamilton at the White House and Katzenbach, and approved by Palmer. Also sent to London. Repeated to Addis Ababa and the U.S. Mission at Geneva.↩
  2. Telegram 11748 from Lagos, August 15, reported the delivery of the President’s message to Gowon that day. Gowon told the Ambassador that he had already decided that the FMG could not accept the ICRC’s proposal for a relief airstrip because the airstrip that Ojukwu had offered was already under attack and likely to fall into FRG hands soon and because he did not like the way the ICRC had handled the matter, attempting to “face the FMG with fait accompli.” (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27–9 BIAFRA–NIGERIA)↩