415. Letter From the Ambassador in Jordan (Mills) to the Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs (Meyer)1
Dear Armin: On November 30, 1960, last Wednesday, I saw Prime Minister Talhouni primarily to push along the proposal to use refugees on afforestation or reforestation projects, a subject about which I have written separately to Lewis.
I took this occasion, however, to bring up what I thought our attitude would be if the Government of Jordan decided to try to play the East against the West. The Chief of Staff, General Izzat Hassan Gandour, gave our Army Attaché, Col. Thomas, a working over on this subject (“Why should Jordan not do as other countries, namely UAR and Iraq, and accept military assistance from both sides?”) in late August after the General had returned from the United States; at that time I gave Colonel Thomas the line I had taken with the late Prime Minister Majali a year ago at the time of visit to Jordan of the Soviet Ambassador to Lebanon. I find that by reference to Embtel 733 of October 24, 1959,2 that in a conversation with the late Hazza Al-Majali on that date:
“I then said there was an expression in English that you cannot hunt with the hounds and run with the hares. I think if Jordan accepted assistance from USSR, US would continue help on East Ghor and with roads and perhaps agriculture, health and education. On the other hand I thought it was certain we would not continue budgetary support. I repeated I did not doubt he and the King fully realized dangers from relationship with USSR. But perhaps there are, frankly speaking, opportunists among other politicians, or even among some [Page 746] Army officers, who would urge Jordan take assistance from both East and West pointing to UAR. If he wished he could point out that US did not provide UAR with budget support.”
Without doubt Moulay Hassan’s acceptance of jets for Morocco from the USSR is stirring up this whole question again, and the way we react to this is being watched closely by both civilian and military leaders of Jordan. Our telegram 707 of November 21, 1960, stated that this Moroccan development had been mentioned to the British Ambassador by Prime Minister Talhouni.
Since the late Hazza Al-Majali undoubtedly did not tell Talhouni about his October 1959 conversation with me on this subject, since he and Talhouni (then Rais ad-Diwan) were very much competitors and political rivals at that time, I considered it wise to tell Prime Minister Talhouni of what I had told Majali just about a year earlier. I did so on November 30, 1960.
This touched off a long speech on the part of Talhouni in which he made, as reported in item “2” of our Weeka 168 of December 1, 1960, a statement which, if true, is to me at least a new revelation about an important historical incident. He stated that the offers of Egypt and Syria, in 1957, to make up (with Saudi Arabia) the subsidy which the British had withdrawn following the dismissal of Glubb Pasha and the denunciation of the treaty of alliance with the UK by Jordan, had been made with Egypt and Syria merely acting as agents for the USSR which had promised to make up the part of the withdrawn British subsidy not provided by Saudi Arabia for a period of 10 years. As reported in our last Weeka, Talhouni stated that the refusal of Jordan, although in dire straits, to accept Russian budgetary support, with Egypt and Syria acting as a cover, marked the beginning of the deterioration in the relations between Nasser and King Hussein. Talhouni said that for propaganda purposes Jordan for some time continued to ask, publicly, for Egypt and Syria to live up to their promises, but this was merely to embarrass them for they secretly repeatedly offered such aid to Jordan if it was supplied by the Soviets. Obviously, according to Talhouni, neither Nasser nor the Syrians could publicly reveal this.
Talhouni then went into a long discourse on the importance of the Jordan Arab Army to stability in the Middle East in which he made the statement that our budgetary aid went to the Army. I thought this was an appropriate time once again to make it plain that we did not provide budgetary aid for the Jordan Arab Army but for the Government of Jordan. I said I understood how the idea persisted that it was otherwise, because it was my understanding that the British used to pay all the costs of the old Arab Legion and the Government of Jordan was run on whatever it was possible to collect in taxes within the country. Some Jordanians, and Army officers in particular, might assume [Page 747] that the United States had largely taken over the British relationship, but we did not see it that way at all. For one thing the Arab Legion was officered by the British, at least in the senior levels, and was for a considerable period considered by the British much as they considered the Indian Army, that is an army they could direct in time of crisis.
I then said to the Prime Minister that the United States did not consider the Jordan Arab Army as in any sense a satellite army of the United States and as far as I knew it did not figure in any of our strategic planning. In other words, as I saw it, the Jordan Arab Army had two essential roles, one maintaining order in Jordan and the other protecting the frontiers of the country.
I continued by saying I fully understood the distress of the Generals in the Jordan Arab Army at their inability to expand it since they saw an exceedingly strong Army across their border in Israel, and an increasingly effective Army being built up in the UAR. As I saw the situation, the financial resources simply did not exist in Jordan, and there was no possibility of their coming from the United States, to permit the Jordan Arab Army to expand, and in fact I thought it would have to contract since there is no possibility, as I see it, of its being able to have a budget of more than the current JD 16 million.
Talhouni then made a long statement about the importance of the Jordan Arab Army to the stability of the Middle East as a whole. I replied I had the highest regard for the Jordanian soldier; he made a fine appearance and I had no doubt that man for man, properly equipped, he would be the equal of any soldier in the world. I also realized that with the development of highways the occupation of Bedouins in the carrying trade was being rapidly undermined, and, since inter-tribal raiding, and raiding villagers, had been stopped by the Arab Legion itself in 1925, there was very little remaining open to the Bedouins in the way of occupation except military service. But financial resources simply ruled out any expansion of the Jordan Arab Army, as I see the situation, and in fact to live within a JD 16 million budget I thought, although I am not an expert on military finance, that the numbers in the Army simply will have to be reduced. I said it had occurred to me that the Army itself might help those who may have to be released before they are ready for it by, for example, training some of them for employment in the hotel business, which over the coming years surely will expand. Also if the Corps of Engineers of the Army undertook to perform public works on a larger scale, it might be possible for the Ministry of Public Works to use some of the soldiers and officers who are surplus for military needs but whose dismissal would cause great difficulty. I said I fully realized the problem responsible political leaders face in telling the Army what it can or cannot do, [Page 748] since the Army is so important to the maintenance of order and security in Jordan. I also referred to the difficulty for His Majesty the King to see the Army curtailed, since he loves his Army as it loves him.
The Prime Minister then spoke with considerable feeling about the great importance of the Army in keeping the lid on in Jordan because of the third of the population who are refugees and another third who are Palestinians in full sympathy with the refugees. I replied I fully appreciated this factor, but I could not believe that the maintenance of order, even in these most unusual circumstances, required anything like 38, 000 which I understood was the current strength of the Armed Forces.
As you know from other reports, the UK Military Advisor, Brigadier Street, has told the King that to live within a JD 16 million budget the Jordan Armed Forces must be reduced, and we learn from Street that the King for the first time has accepted this as inevitable and plans to take steps to carry out this recommendation. There will be strong opposition, naturally, by the senior JAA officers.
I fully expected that this conversation would be reported to the King and that it would depress him. This apparently occurred. When I took Jack Bennett and Norman Burns to meet the King the afternoon of December 3, after Jack had made his balance of payments spiel, the King, looking very grave, said that he realized the United States had problems. Jordan has extremely complicated problems, he continued, and he often wondered whether it was all worthwhile. He turned to Talhouni, who also was present, and said he had never talked in this manner before in front of his Prime Minister, who was also his friend of many years. Although the King had his usual charm, he apparently was in a mood of depression. Our Army Attaché, Colonel Thomas, took Colonel Snoddy and Lt. Colonel Hunnicutt, visitors from the American Army in Europe, to see the King the next day, and apparently he had bounced back. The British Ambassador told me on December 3 that while he was ill a British visitor had been received by the King and found him very depressed. For this reason John Henniker-Major had called on the King the day after he was able to leave his bed, but found His Majesty “full of beans”.
Sincerely,