Office of the Historian

302. Telegram From the Embassy in Egypt to the Department of State1

Cairo,September 23, 1955—2 p.m.

547. Reference London’s niact 35.2 News this Embassy in reappraisal situation following Soviet-Egyptian arms agreement will be sent as quickly as possible. Pending this I urge we not plan in haste, a vacuum and without regard to realities in area.One reality is that it is now too late for “vigorous representations” recommended in reference telegram paragraph 5. Arms deal is concluded and Egypt is convinced it can expect no early military aid from United States.Nasser’s immediate concern is to quickly build defensive capability and thereby preserve his regime. If our concern is to discourage him from doing this until he has made substantial progress on Israel settlement we can expect no concurrence from him as this in his conviction puts cart before horse. In effect it asks him to place reliance on our diplomatic support as a questionable deterrent to Israel while his considerable military weakness continues unremedied. It asks him to be responsive to our own immediate objective while neglecting his own. He knows his support will vanish if he does and further insistence by us will but harden his impression that we regard him as expendable for our purposes. There still seems to be a general lack of awareness that, in opinion this Embassy at least, [Page 509] securing arms from some source had become an internal necessity for Nasser. He has made a sweet mistake. It may be of future value to us however to recognize that we should not try to bargain under circumstances in which there is on other side virtually no freedom to so bargain.

Let us not permit project Alpha to become in itself a colossus to which every other possible move in area must be related, even though by so doing we may wreck all possible chances of seeing Alpha succeed, and as well seriously jeopardize what I suppose is still primary objective of saving Middle East from Soviet domination.

Byroade
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 684A.86/9–2355. Top Secret; Priority; Alpha. Received at 4:18 p.m. Repeated priority to London.↩
  2. Same as Document 299.↩