424. Telegram From the Embassy in Tunisia to the Department of State1
274. For Satterthwaite and Riddleberger. Re Embtel 151.2 I can imagine that special pleading at this season, coinciding with appropriation cut-backs in the face of burgeoning demands and requirements, does not receive a hearty welcome in Washington; and I readily understand the attitude. I can appreciate also that the zing and drive that the Tunisians are maintaining right through the summer months, a sustained effort as phenomenal as the abolition of polygamy, may be regarded as applied to programs somewhat weighted, for the tastes of some of us, on the social side. However, the work relief programs which continue to go full blast in these 95–120 degree summer temperatures have gone a long way toward eliminating unemployment in Tunisia, as well as constituting an important step toward the elimination of illiteracy and the provision of on the job training.
The tripod on which an expanding Tunisian economy can be solidly built are (A) plentiful water, (B) plentiful energy, and (C) professional cadres. Private investment in industrial production until water, energy and human talent are in generous supply, cannot compete with pick and shovel projects to create new jobs sufficient to end unemployment, and to lead to self-sustained growth of the economy.
Seen in this light the goals the Tunisians have set themselves are realistic: first an upgrading of the population through work and simultaneously the creation of some of the minimum, and I mean minimum, amenities—decent if primitive dwellings, rudimentary sanitary facilities, schools, water for fields, cattle and homes—without which ambition and the desire for progress can hardly be expected to take root. It is this kind of upgrading, physical and moral, on which the creation of any sort of expanding private enterprise economy ultimately depends.
The financial resources for the task in hand are pitifully small and on the whole carefully husbanded. The fact is that Tunisia’s own fiscal resources, now being brought fully into play, are strained to the limit and US grant aid quite clearly spells the difference between a measure of success for their program and the possibility that they might falter for lack of funds—and the moral support which financial aid implies—at the critical time.
Therefore, any reduction, in fact any cutback from an expanded level of some $25 million in special assistance in FY 61, is going to discourage the ultimate creation of a receptive atmosphere for private [Page 901] investment and enterprise. Moreover, such cutback would coincide with the timing of the entry upon his mission of the first Soviet Ambassador to Tunisia who presents letter September 7.
I do not in this instance think that we should get into an auction with the Soviets; what I ask is, should we not throw more good money after good money in a country where we have nursed and built a valuable stake, and not let some adroitly timed and publicized help from Soviet come-latelies obscure our good record.
It would be fatuous to attribute to our aid programs direct credit for the splendid Tunisian record on such issues as Lebanon, Congo, etcetera; on the other hand it does not strengthen Bourguiba’s policy of moderation and “objectivity” if his detractors can deprecate the value of American support and aid.
I acknowledge that the answer to a request for more aid is that Tunisia should be considered lucky having what it has. But if there is a new or underdeveloped country in Africa, or for that matter, almost anywhere, that has a better record of sound initiatives, economic and social, and firm, steady and honest work, I am unfamiliar with it. What Tunisia can say to these newly emerging and often tragically unsophisticated countries, of Africa especially, about the value of moderation and the importance of American cooperation can in large part determine, without the exercise of much imagination, the destiny of this continent.