Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIV, Africa

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

Washington, January 11, 1966, 4:58 p.m.

3979. The following message was received today from Prime Minister Wilson through White House channels:

• “(1) In my last message on the Rhodesian problem I said I would keep you informed about how I get on in Lagos. Now that I am here, I am hopeful that with a modicum of luck we should get through this meeting all right. But having spoken to Malcolm MacDonald, who is here from Lusaka, it appears that the situation in Zambia is far from good. I have therefore decided, at very considerable inconvenience that it would be right for me to pay a brief visit to Kaunda to try to get him on the rails again.
• (2) The facts of the situation are these. At the right moment, the closing of the Zambia border with Rhodesia could be of decisive influence in giving Smith a coup de grace but it is essential that this card should be played at the right time. If it is played too early before the Smith regime and Rhodesian opinion are convinced that the game is up and before we have taken all the necessary steps to see that Zambia could survive the few weeks of final collapse in Rhodesia and possible cut off of supplies from the copper belt, this key move in the whole process could ruin Zambia without overthrowing Smith. The timing is therefore of the essence. Kaunda, who is understandably, in a very nervous frame of mind, is threatening to close the border before we are ready for it, before he can survive it and before it will be really effective in terms of bringing Smith down.
• (3) My main objective in going to Lusaka will be therefore to try and steady him and to get our strategy better co-ordinated. There are in addition other things to discuss with him. I plan to be in Zambia on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. It would be an immense help to me if you felt able, before my arrival, to send a personal message to President Kaunda through your Ambassador in Lusaka saying that I have explained our strategy fully to you, expressing your confidence that economic sanctions were working, that the crunch with Smith might be approaching but that it was essential in everybody’s interests to get the timing of the final sanction of closing the Rhodesia border with Zambia right; and that you would hope that he, Kaunda, and I would reach agreement on this in everybody’s interest. He simply must be made to realise that the vast efforts which you and we are making at great cost to ourselves need to exert their maximum effect but that given time they should put Zambia in a position where she could safely administer the final blow.”²

Ball

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 16 RHOD. Secret; Immediate; Nodis. Drafted by John P. Walsh of S/S, and approved by Mann.
2. On January 12, the President sent a message to Wilson saying that he was “weighing in at Lusaka in an effort to steady Kaunda.” (Telegram 1445 to Lagos, January 12; Department of State, S/S Files: Lot 67 D 262, Presidential Correspondence, Pres. to UK/Wilson) Telegram 1195 to Lusaka, January 12, transmitted a letter from Johnson to President Kaunda urging close coordination with Prime Minister Wilson, and emphasizing his own belief that it would be harmful if the border between Zambia and Southern Rhodesia were closed before Zambia was prepared, as a result of the programs currently being carried out, to meet the situation. (Ibid., Central Files, POL 7 UK)