174. Memorandum From the Officer in Charge of Argentine Affairs (O’Connor) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Rubottom)1
SUBJECT
- Argentine Over-Expectations of Military Assistance
Discussion:
Summaries of my discussions with the three Argentine service attachés on their respective arms’ military assistance expectations are contained in the attached memorandum.2
[Page 549]The Argentine Navy has pretty much stuck to its guns in maintaining its request for $1.2 million credit for basic rehabilitation of two submarines under the Ship Loan Bill without insisting on more— although it would, as is only natural, welcome additional assistance.
The Argentine Air Force wants 28 jet planes with equipment and spare parts for five years, estimated cost approximately $8 million, plus, as a new and additional item, bombs and rockets to the value of $1 million more—total $9 million. They have been offered 28 planes with equipment and spare parts for one year, estimated cost $4.4 million. We used the latter figure in working out a bare-bones program on the expedited basis sought by Barros Hurtado. There appear to be grounds for a legitimate misunderstanding as to how many years’ spare parts were included within the approval in principle of satisfaction of AAF desires. The Air Attaché himself has contributed to this by attempting to accept conditionally the offer including one year’s parts without firm specification to Defense of the insistence upon five years’ parts which is now being made to us. His explanation is that he interpreted the precise number of years so spare parts to be obtained as subject to routine military negotiation during which the necessity of operational planning over a five-year period would be obvious and recognized. Without any imputation of bad faith, my judgment is that the AAF has used the tactic of indicating acceptance of what it could clearly obtain, with the intention of going on from there to urge a logical expansion to permit greater forward planning. The $1 million worth of bombs and rockets are clearly outside of any commitment of ours, however. Since I was attempting to avoid substantive discussions of the merits of Argentine military desires, I did not ask for any explanation of this addition during my talk with the Air Attaché. One clue may be provided by his statement that he thought the $10 million ceiling figure was for the Navy and the Air Force. Since the Navy request was a modest $1.2 million, the Air Force may have decided to attempt to fill a financial void by raising its own sights to the approximate $9 million which it thought it might obtain.
The Argentine Army appears simply to have increased its appetite, perhaps because it was genuinely unable to come up with a real list of necessities on short notice at the outset, or perhaps because it now thinks that it just agreed to too little at the time. The initial fantastic Argentine Army desires were trimmed to a sensible $5 million, intended to be primarily for surplus tanks and trucks to enable the Army to gain increased mobility for flash anti-subversive action. According to Gallac’s inquiry at the time, Frondizi indicated the acceptability of this level of assistance. The Argentine Army now wants 1,000 trucks (seemingly an extreme number for shock-troop use) but no tanks, truck maintenance equipment (logical), artillery shells (not anti-subversive material), and equipment for a parachute company [Page 550] (squarely in the shock-troop field, provided planes are also available). If prices are reduced, the Army would also like to include communications equipment (anti-subversive) and engineer equipment (clearly not anti-subversive). My analysis is that the spread of desired equipment has been dictated by the demands of individual branches within the Argentine Army once it appeared that some U.S. assistance was forthcoming. Whether the initial intimate pitch to us on anti-subversion control was sincere and intra-service wrangling thereafter caused changes, or whether that pitch was designed merely as the best means of getting a foot in the military-assistance door, I cannot of course say. In any case it could be deduced that the Army has not played quite fair with us.
“Morally,” then, the Argentine services would appear to deserve ranking in this matter in the following descending order: Navy, Air Force, Army.
It is my impression that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would rate them, from the point of view of potential contribution to U.S. hemisphere defense plans and objectives, in this order: Navy, Air Force, Army.
On the other hand, I would judge that current political and disorder-control importance in Argentina to be just the reverse: Army, Air Force, Navy.
I furnish the preceding ranking estimates as of background interest only, since I do not think that the U.S. is in a position to apply them to any attempted solution of the problem presented by present Argentine overexpectations in the military assistance field. We should not be placed in the sensitive position of doing any choosing between and among the Argentine armed services, particularly since the non-availability of funds to meet all their desires is known to each of them. Service rivalries for shares of the U.S. military assistance dollar is something for the Argentine Government to solve, with our participation limited to passing on the military practicability of specifically-proposed programs of assistance.
Recommendation:
I would accordingly recommend that either you or, if you do not have time, Mr. Snow and/or Mr. Boonstra call in Barros Hurtado in the next day or so to explain the situation to him in the light of the information contained in this memorandum and its attachment, and to plant the idea that this problem is one to which the Argentines themselves hold the solution. Barros would almost certainly resist the direct suggestion that he straighten matters out by sitting down with his service attachés, afraid as he is of antagonizing them in any way. However, informing him that we cannot move further on the military [Page 551] assistance “package” until Argentine expanded desires are squared with good-faith U.S. financial availabilities should serve the same purpose.
In developing the discussion with Barros, reference to the following might be made:
U.S. military assistance funds are limited.
We made special effort to be helpful to Argentina, even though there are economic arguments against aiding military purchases at this time.
This included cutting corners, expediting, doing things informally in order to meet Barros’ request for decision to take back to Buenos Aires. Only one service (Air Force) has yet put request on paper in line with standard procedure.
Now we find ourselves subjected to pressure on alleged commitments for assistance which Argentine services have been loath to request directly. This is unfair. Haziness in situation is attributable to Argentines’ own method of approach.
Beyond question of difference in interpretation in case of number of years’ spare parts to be furnished to Air Force with jet planes (on which Air Attaché has failed to take clear-cut stand with Defense), Air Force is now including in desires bombs and rockets clearly not within purview of basic request, and Army has simply increased its sights with apparent shift to ground on which initial approach made.
Under these circumstances, there are grounds for wondering if advantage is not being taken of our good faith.
We realize sensitivity of Argentine Government’s deciding which service can have what, but it is clearly more their problem to solve than ours. Ambassador Beaulac has already indicated to Foreign Minister Florit that some scaling down of requests is indicated.
The sooner some agreed Argentine position is reached, the sooner the matter of implementing the agreement in principle can proceed. We obviously cannot proceed to deal with any one Argentine service under present circumstances.
We would like to have an omnibus note covering all Argentine military aspirations within our current financial limitations as soon as possible.
We could of course scrap the current approval in principle and begin all over again, but there is little likelihood that Argentina could expect any more assistance under present conditions, and further time would be consumed.