323. Telegram From the U.S. Interests Section of the Spanish Embassy in the United Arab Republic to the Department of State1
3912. For Robert B. Murphy from Robert B. Anderson.
“Have just had long meeting with Hassan Sabri al-Khouli at Presidency who informs me President Nasser seriously concerned by not [Page 642] receiving reply to his message to President-elect Nixon2 which President Nasser purposefully intended be generous and friendly.3 I am informed rumors are spreading in this part of world that President Nasser has been ignored by President-elect Nixon. Recommend you send urgent message from President-elect Nixon acknowledging Nasser telegram and responding in a manner as friendly as President-elect Nixon is agreeable. For your information I will be seeing President Nasser late this afternoon or tomorrow and I would hope to have some reply in hand when I see him if that feasible.”
- Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 15-1 US/NIXON. Secret; Flash; Exdis.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 314.↩
- Bergus reported that Presidential adviser Hassan Sabri al-Khouli had placed the same emphasis on the importance of a reply from President-elect Nixon during a conversation on November 14. Khouli had returned from New York convinced of the good will toward Egypt of many important people in the United States, but when Bergus raised the question of the seven points that Rusk had outlined to Riad as the basis for a peace settlement in the Middle East, Khouli said that the UAR response would depend on Nixon’s response to Nasser’s congratulatory telegram. (Telegram 3900 Cairo, November 15; ibid., POL 27 ARAB-ISR) For text of Nixon’s response, see Document 324.↩