Office of the Historian

169. Memorandum of Discussion by Director of Central Intelligence McCone0

Washington, February 28, 1963.

MEMORANDUM OF DISCUSSION WITH MR. Bundy, 28 February (In Mr. Bundy’s Office, following Special Group meeting)

[Here follows discussion of other matters.]

I then brought up the question of the Middle East stating that I felt that because of our preoccupation with Cuba, Latin America, Southeast Asia, etc., we were overlooking a highly explosive situation. I noted that the Iraq coup had gone practically unnoticed and while it appeared to be [Page 375] favorable to our side and a blow to the Communists it was possible that the final chapter had not been written in our act. Also the difficulties between Nasir and the rebels in Yemen, with Hassan and the Royalists, had not been resolved and could become both dangerous and difficult to handle from the standpoint of United States policy. [3–1/2 lines of source text not declassified] If we helped, then our problems with Nasir would be intensified. I went on to point out that an intensification of the Yemen-Saudi Arabian-UAR problem could spread into Jordan and Iraq, Syria and possibly Iran. And hence, in my opinion, the entire situation was explosive.

Bundy stated that the matter had been discussed recently between State and Defense with no CIA representation (which was probably in order) and as a result Ambassador Bunker was going to the Middle East for a talk with Nasir and Faisal. He will leave next week. In addition, he will talk to Terry Duce and Gary Owen of ARAMCO, who are now in Arabia, and will soon return. They had been thoroughly briefed by State prior to leaving (this I knew). In Bundy’s thought from all of this we would clarify our views on the situation. From comments on the McCloy trip which Bundy knew about—but he did not know his exact itinerary—I left with the impression that Bundy felt that there were some problems in the Middle East but they were not particularly serious at the moment.

  1. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Job 80 D 01285A, DCI (McCone) Files, Memoranda for the Record. Secret. Prepared by McCone on March 1.↩