Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XVII, Near East, 1961–1962

298. Memorandum for the Record⁰

Washington, June 16, 1962.

SUBJECT

• Luncheon with Ambassador of Israel, June 15, 1962

1. I lunched with Ambassador Harman at his request. He began by raising what he described as a small technical question which he was sure could be swept out of the way. This related to the use by Yost in a Security Council discussion of the phrase, “area under Israeli control” to describe the Sea of Galilee. Harman pointed out the difficulties this phrase caused for them. It is a phrase with military connotations, and the Syrians felt that much of the lake was under their effective control because of their gun positions on the hills overlooking it. According to Harman, there is no dispute over the proposition that the Israelis exercise jurisdiction and authority over the lake under the armistice agreement, and that Syria was not now riparian. Whether or not the U.S. recognized Israeli “sovereignty” over the sea, we should and could recognize Israeli authority and jurisdiction. It would be most helpful to them in the future if the U.S. represented them in the UN by describing the situation in regularly accurate terms.

There followed some general discussion about the UN peace-keeping machinery and the attitude of Israel toward the patrol boat in the Sea of Galilee. In the course of this, I indicated that to the U.S. it sometimes seemed that the Israelis were rather rigid in relation to the question of UN peace-keeping activity in the area.

2. Most of the time was devoted to the question of the balance of power, military and otherwise, in the Middle East. Harman indicated the Israeli concern for growing Egyptian strength and for the continuing subversive activities of the Egyptians in other Arab countries, and said that their intelligence evidence of UAR possession of missiles was increasingly firm but was unclear as to whether this went beyond the air-to-air missiles associated with the MIG-21.

Harman asked to what extent we had any evidence that our new approach to Nasser was bringing rewards, to which I responded it was too soon to tell. He indicated his own skepticism in this respect. When I asked him what alternative he had to suggest, he didn’t answer, but said, “Remember, if you don’t succeed, we will be facing those dogs.” We talked about the military balance, and I assured him that we were very much concerned to see that it was maintained. He expressed a desire that there should be more consultation between us in the future on this point.

3. He then turned to the question of the impact of the Common Market on Israel and discussed some of the problems involved. In the course of his discussion, he mentioned the effect of the Suez blockade increasing Israel’s economic difficulties. He agreed, in response to my comment, that this is a problem which the U.S. could do little except by way of a general pressure toward reducing the external challenge of the East. However, even that general pressure would not solve Israel’s problem because of the importance of a very few commodities in Israeli’s exports which would be unaffected by the achievement of zero duties on our zero duty list.

CK

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Country Series, Israel 6/16/62–6/30/62. No classification marking. Drafted by Kaysen. Copies were sent to Talbot, Feldman, and Komer.