Office of the Historian

189. Letter From Secretary of State Rusk to the Ambassador to Iran (Holmes)0

Washington, February 10, 1962.

Dear Julius: Thank you for your thoughtful letter of January 221 containing your comments on the report of the Military Assistance Steering Group and reaffirming the recommendations you had made earlier in connection with this study.

The Steering Group report has now been considered at the highest level and it is agreed that an approach should be made to the Shah on the basis of a comprehensive and long-term program, as you suggested last September in response to my original letter explaining the Steering Group project.2 Detailed recommendations to implement this agreed course of action are now being developed at staff level and should be available in approximately two weeks. I am not yet able to tell you the precise nature of the package which will be finally approved, but I can assure you that those working on the problem will take full account of your recommendations. You will have an opportunity to comment on [Page 468] the proposals before they are embodied in firm instructions to you to make an approach to the Shah.

You note certain discrepancies between figures in the Steering Group report and those available to you in Iran. Some of these can be explained by the addition, on the basis of Washington data, of transportation and related costs (PCH&T) and the reduction of war reserve ammunition to a 30-day level instead of the 60-day level in your recommended program.

With warm personal regards,

Sincerely,

Dean Rusk3
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 788.5/1–2262. Secret. Drafted by Baxter (AID/PRCS) on February 2. In a February 3 memorandum, AID Administrator Fowler Hamilton recommended that this response be sent to Ambassador Holmes. (Ibid., S/S-NSC Files: Lot 70 D 265, NSC-Position Paper Iran—1961–1964.↩
  2. Document 172.↩
  3. See footnote 4, Document 172.↩
  4. Printed from a copy that indicates Rusk signed the original.↩