273. Memorandum for the Record0
President’s Meeting on McCloy Exercise, Saturday, 15 June 1963, at 10:00 a.m.1
PRESENT
- The President
- John J. McCloy
- Phillips Talbot
- James Grant
- William C. Foster
- Hermann Eilts
- John McCone
- McG. Bundy
- R. W. Komer
The President opened by asking about the nature of the guarantee we might have to give the Israelis in connection with our desire both to avoid a blow-up over Jordan and to stop a nuclear arms race. Talbot explained the State Department’s hope that we would be able to frame this in terms of assurances to both sides, building on the President’s reaffirmation of the essence of the Tripartite Declaration and hopefully stopping short of any bilateral arrangement with Israel alone which would get us into real trouble with the Arabs.
The President asked how we could follow nuclear or missile development in Egypt. McCone pointed out that we could use photography and other means. He doubted that we could discover everything they were doing in an R&D way but we could probably find out if they were manufacturing missiles or nuclear weapons. McCloy added that our scheme would involve a certain amount of mutual inspection of both sides.
McCloy felt that the issue of reassurances or guarantees to Israel would come up very early in his discussions with BG. Even before this, what should he say to Nasser if Nasser asked what we were going to say [Page 590] to the Israelis in order to sign them on to our scheme? McCloy suggested we tell Nasser that we contemplated no alliance against the Arabs. Beyond this he felt he should not get into this subject.
The President said that the current exercise grew out of two things, our concern over nuclear weapons and the risks of war over Jordan. Even a security guarantee to Israel was not without its attractions to Nasser, because if Jordan blew up Nasser had only two options. He’d either have to stand aside or move in, but in the latter case he wasn’t prepared sufficiently so he’d get licked. Thus it would be in Nasser’s interest to have us give Israel a guarantee if this would lead the Israelis to agree not to move in Jordan. So from our point of view we should give Israel reasonable assurances in return for their agreement not to move into Jordan or to develop nuclear weapons. We should make clear to Nasser that our proposals were “not any Zionist plot”, but genuinely designed to meet his worries as well as Israel’s. If McCloy is unsuccessful, we’re likely to have both sides developing nuclear weapons and the Israelis moving into Jordan on the earliest excuse they can find, in order to get it over with while they are still ahead.
McCloy pointed out that BG might not want to pay the price of any arms control limitation because he thinks he can get a guarantee from us anyway. The President agreed that this might well be Israel thinking.
Talbot and Komer explained that the Israelis didn’t just want a unilateral US security guarantee; their maximum objective was a full-fledged defensive alliance with close joint planning about how we would come to their help under various contingencies and also substantial military assistance. Komer thought there might be some ways in which we could have quiet staff talks which would at least explain to the Israelis what our capabilities were. Talbot demurred that it would be very hard to keep these quiet or to limit them to what we propose to do. The President thought there was nothing wrong in staff talks about how we would come to Israel’s help. Talbot said that staff talks plus equipment would give us a military relationship with one side in the Arab-Israeli controversy and perhaps compromise our relations with the other side. The President asked whether we sold equipment to the Arabs. Talbot and Nitze explained we gave limited assistance, mostly on a sales basis, to the Iraqis and Saudis in particular. We might also sell some jets to Lebanon. McCloy felt that selling equipment would be less dangerous than staff talks, because the latter would bring us down on the side of the Israelis.
The President asked “what do we say to BG if he asks us about Jordan?” If the Israelis move in Jordan and we acquiesce in their taking the West Bank, we are in trouble with the Arabs; if we pull a Suez and force the Israelis to get out of the West Bank, we are in trouble with them. We are in the soup either way. Talbot felt that if we gave a guarantee of help to [Page 591] the Israelis alone, the Soviets would have a great opportunity to give a guarantee to the Arabs. This would be no good. The President said we want to stay out of the politics of the area. All we want to do is to prevent Israel from going to the West Bank, which would inevitably involve us one way or the other. Talbot urged that we keep the Jordan and nuclear issues separate, although they were obviously related.
McCloy indicated his strong desire not to get into the guarantee or Jordan issues. He would prefer to keep his approaches strictly to the arms limitation. The President seemed agreeable, but said that if Nasser asks what we are going to do about Israel, let’s tell him we will prevent aggression by either side as indicated in the President’s 8 May press conference statement.2 What we could tell the Israelis would be a tougher problem.
Bundy interjected that the Israelis will be looking at what political pressure they can bring to bear before the 1964 elections. McCloy agreed, saying they already seemed to be mounting a major campaign. Talbot’s view was that McCloy should not get into the guarantee problem but should say that our consideration of any guarantee would be “critically dependent” upon Israeli reaction to our arms control proposals. It was generally agreed that opposition to nuclear proliferation was one issue on which US opinion would be solidly behind the Administration. It was therefore our best bargaining lever with Israel.
McCloy raised the question of what he should say if Nasser indicated he would talk about nuclear controls but not about missiles. Nasser seemed enamored of missiles, largely because of the prestige they gave him in the Arab world. The President didn’t see too much difficulty if the control arrangements were limited to nuclear weapons alone. Missiles were not much good without nuclear warheads, so they would not give either side a great new military capability.
However, McCone said that we must protect against the surreptitious entry of nuclear warheads, perhaps from France on the Israeli side or even from the USSR to the Arabs. Bundy pointed out this was why missiles were important. The consensus was that we should make every effort to have missiles included in any arms control scheme, but would consider nuclear weapons alone if we had to.
The President asked whether the arrangement was to be kept entirely private, or whether Nasser might make a public statement. It was agreed that this might be feasible if he could make some form of unilateral declaration, e.g. that he was not going for nuclear weapons because he felt Africa should be a nuclear free zone. Foster pointed out that the UAR had taken a strong stand against nuclear weapons at the [Page 592] Geneva Arms talks. It was pointed out that the Egyptians have allowed IAEA inspections, but McCone said that IAEA controls only cover reactors so couldn’t take care of the entry of warheads from outside. He regarded the Egyptians as very poor in the reactor business and doubted they would represent much of a nuclear threat on their own. McCloy’s last question was whether he should get into the field of CBR weapons in light of the Israeli contentions that the Egyptians were developing these. He wondered whether we could get a covenant whereby each side would deny itself this option. The President thought this would be fine if we could get it but the consensus seemed to be that we should not insist on this expansion of the arrangement unless it seemed easy to get.3
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, United Arab Republic, Nasser Correspondence. Secret; Cane. Drafted by Komer on June 20. Copies were sent to Bundy and Kaysen. Separate accounts of this meeting were prepared by Eilts on June 18 (Department of State, NEA/IAI Files: Lot 72 D 438, Authority to Consider Steps for NE Arms Limitation Probe) and by McCone on June 17 (Central Intelligence Agency, Job 80 D 01285A, DCI (McCone) Files, Memoranda for the Record).↩
- On June 4, Ball and Talbot discussed with John McCloy the possibility of his serving as Special Emissary for the Near East Arms Limitation Initiative. (Memorandum from Talbot to Rusk, June 4; Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 US/MCCLOY) McCloy subsequently accepted the assignment. Hermann Eilts, Political Officer for the Middle East at the Embassy in London, was summoned to Washington to assist McCloy in the initiative. (Telegram 6253 to London, May 23; ibid.) Wreatham Gathwright of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency also assisted McCloy.↩
- See Document 238.↩
- On June 18, posts in the Near East were informed that President Kennedy had named McCloy to be his Special Emissary to discuss with the UAR and Israel the Near East arms spiral, particularly unconventional weapons. McCloy was scheduled to visit Cairo June 26–29 and would visit Israel in mid-July. The Department emphasized that strictest secrecy should be maintained about the talks. (Telegram 945 to Tel Aviv, June 18; Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 US/MCCLOY) A complete collection of Department of State telegraphic traffic relating to McCloy’s mission is ibid., S/S Files: Lot 67 D 262, Chronology on Arms Limitation in Arab-Israel Area Code Name-Cane April 1963 to March 1964.↩