292. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson1
SUBJECT
- The Shah’s Visit
Your office visit with the Shah will be Wednesday2 at 12:30 p.m., but before the dinner and meeting tonight you will wish to know what is on his mind. As usual, he will wish to hear your views on major world issues, but three specific subjects especially concern him:
- 1.
- He hopes for as much assurance as you can give on the continuity of US policy toward Iran. He was badly shaken by your March 31st announcement.3 Armin Meyer has told him that any American President looking at the Middle East will recognize Iran’s importance to us, but it will help for him to hear this from you.
- 2.
- Related to this, he will try to find out how much he can count on us for arms supply. You have just agreed to the first $75–100 million sale in a $600 million six-year program. We stated our intention to go ahead year by year, but we had to say we can’t commit ourselves ahead until Congress gives us new authority. The one thing you can do is to start off the conversation by telling him that we can go all the way to 100 million this year. (We had told him “$75–100 million” pending final review of funding possibilities.)
- 3.
- Whether or not the Shah talks much about the Persian Gulf, we want to urge him to cooperate with King Faisal. The British pull-out by 1971 leaves Iran, Saudi Arabia and the little Arab principalities face-to-face with a series of conflicting claims over territory and oil rights. We want the leaders on the ground to get together rather than looking to us to arrange a settlement. The Shah understands our position, but knowing you are watching will underline it. He apparently had a good airport talk with Faisal on his way here, and we hope he’ll follow up.
The one other matter that may come up—[1 line of source text not declassified]—is the fact that we may wish to move [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] intelligence facilities to Iran if Pakistan closes us down at Peshawar. Your best response is to affirm the importance of these activities and let [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] carry the ball.