Office of the Historian

474. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Komer) to President Johnson1

Washington, October 4, 1965, 7:30 p.m.

Message from PM Wilson. He’s in with attached personal appeal that we support the UK against Southern Rhodesia.2 Specifically he urges that we join the UK in warning Rhodesia’s PM Ian Smith, and making this warning public if Smith’s negotiation with Wilson on 6–7 October fails. He is also appealing for help to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Rhodesia’s key trading partners.

We here agree that we ought to back the UK on this issue, if only to stay on the right side of all the Afro-Asians. We’ll probably be compelled to do so in the UN should Rhodesia kick over the traces. So this is a good opportunity to be helpful to the UK. The best tack is, as Wilson suggests, to help deter Smith from declaring independence in the first place.

[Page 815]

So we propose at Tab3 a forthcoming reply to Wilson which: (1) authorizes him to tell Smith the US will also oppose him; (2) volunteers a direct, private US approach to Smith, either before he sees Wilson or after; and (3) agrees to make our position public if needed to warn off the Rhodesian electorate. We suspect Wilson may be angling for a personal message from you to Smith but doubt this would be useful.

The UK has not yet decided how hard to hit Rhodesia if it goes astray, but may use economic sanctions. Even if we went this far it would not be too great a problem, since our Rhodesian trade is small. The UK’s most immediate problem if it uses sanctions is tobacco, so we might be able to help out by offering Title IV PL 480 tobacco, or easing the terms on CCC credit sales.

Approve message4

Disapprove

R.W. Komer 5
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. 15. Secret.↩
  2. See Document 473.↩
  3. See Document 476.↩
  4. This option is checked and a handwritten note reads: “Check with me and lets follow his ideas in our message. L.” Bundy’s handwritten notation at the bottom of the source text reads: “I’m against a message from you to Smith. And if you prefer we can answer Wilson on the Rusk-Stewart channel. But on substance I agree. Mac.”↩
  5. Bundy initialed below Komer’s signature.↩