295. Diary Entry by the President1
For the past three days we have been in a terrible difficulty with France and Tunisia, based partially upon misunderstanding but [Page 759] mostly on what we believe to be French stupidity and refusal to face international facts as they exist.2
For a long time Prime Minister Bourguiba of Tunisia has been trying to obtain some arms from the West. His demands have seemed reasonable to us and he asked for the arms on the basis of purchase, not grant.
Our own hope was that because of the close ties of France with the North African area that the French would be the ones to deliver such arms and we urged them to do so. We conferred with the British who felt about the matter as we did.
While the French have nominally accorded Tunisia complete independence, they have so far retained in Tunisia five military bases (I believe all these are in addition to Bizerte which was to be retained by the French under the Independence Treaty). They have given to Tunisia no satisfactory answer as to when these bases are to be evacuated, if ever.
Apparently a few weeks ago the French told Bourguiba that they would deliver arms, but they demanded certain conditions to be agreed to in advance. The most unacceptable of these conditions was an engagement on the part of the Tunisians that they would not accept arms from any other nation—that France would be the sole source of supply of such equipment.
We have felt this condition to be unjustified and so informed the French, again urging them to attach a single condition that the arms be used only for defensive purposes.
In view of the inconclusive character of their talks with the French, Bourguiba finally grew desperate. He is, I think, our most independent and enthusiastic friend in the Arab World. But in view of the demands of his people for some military equipment, it became more and more difficult for him to maintain his position. Some weeks ago, therefore, we told Bourguiba that in the event the French did not deliver arms for internal order and minimum defense purposes we would, in combination with the British, deliver him a token shipment by November first. The idea was that a small token shipment (only five hundred rifles) would establish his right as head of an independent government to purchase arms from the West, in whatever area he could get the best treatment.
Soon thereafter the French government fell and there was only a caretaker government in Paris for a number of weeks. In view of this and on French request we postponed the delivery date of our token shipment to November twelfth.
[Page 760]Suddenly on November 11th or 12th, the French protested that they had not heard that we had promised delivery on a specific date; that their new Premier Gaillard had not been in office long enough to pay attention to this problem and that they would regard our delivery of a token shipment to Tunisia as an unfriendly act. Their reaction was violent, so much so that they even held that they might have to withdraw from NATO, or at least not attend the December meeting of that body.
This put us in a dilemma. While NATO is the organization to which we attach a maximum importance in the attempt to maintain collective security against the Russian threat, we could not afford either to see Bourguiba begin to purchase arms from the Soviets nor could we be in the position of breaking our pledged word to Tunisia.
In early November the situation was complicated by a sudden move on the part of Nasser in Egypt to start a shipment of arms to Tunisia—as a gift. Bourguiba could not possibly afford to turn this offer down, which was apparently widely publicized in that area, and he attached the most extraordinary importance to the delivery of some Western arms in Tunisia before the Egyptian shipment could reach there, somewhere between the 15th or 16th of this month.
In the situation that has developed within the last three days, we have had numerous trans-Atlantic telephone calls with some very stiff notes passing between ourselves and the French, to urge them to get busy and deliver a token shipment of arms and without conditions other than that of using the arms merely for defense.
In spite of promising such delivery on the 12th, they failed to carry it out and spent the 13th in arguing among themselves and apparently with Bourguiba and the British and us. In these cables and telephone calls they threatened the most dire things such as a complete breakup of the Western Alliance.
Finally, we felt that we simply could not be blackmailed by the French weakness, and in two notes I definitely notified Gaillard that having put off Bourguiba for two additional days, we are going to deliver the token shipment of arms to him on the morning of November fourteenth.
So far as we can find out, the French have made no move to satisfy the situation so presumably the British-American shipment of arms was delivered to Bourguiba this morning.3
[Page 761]So far as we can tell at this moment, the French reaction has not been as violent as they themselves said it would be, but it is certain that there will be trouble in the offing about the whole affair.
Incidentally, the French objection was based on the argument that Bourguiba was trying to arm his country for far more than defensive purposes. They said he was trying to buy arms from Spain, from Italy and from every other country in the West and would play one off against the other in the threat to purchase them, otherwise, from Russia.
We hold that Bourguiba is a true Western friend and will not take arms from Russia unless he is forced to by our own attitude and his internal pressures. If he purchases arms from the West, he can never be armed very heavily for the simple reason that he has not the money to buy arms in quantity. The only way he could begin to build up a big military machine would be to have gift arms.
This is approximately where the situation stands this morning.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. Top Secret.↩
- In a personal letter to Captain E. E. (Swede) Hazlett, USN (Ret.), dated November 18, President Eisenhower substantially repeated the essence of his diary comments on Tunisia. (Ibid.)↩
- Due to a series of logistical complications, the arms did not arrive in Tunisia until 6:50 p.m. on November 15. The British equipment had come in many hours earlier. (Despatch 178 from Tripoli, November 26; Department of State, Central Files, 772.56/11–2657)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials.↩