286. Message From President Kennedy to Crown Prince Faisal0
Royal Highness: I have followed closely developments in your country and adjacent areas over recent days and am impelled again to write to Your Royal Highness to give expression once more to my friendship and my interest in the welfare and progress of your country and people under your distinguished leadership, sentiments shared by the [Page 620] American people as a whole. Let me say that I appreciate fully the stresses and strain of the last weeks and assure you that the United States has exerted the strongest efforts to bring about conditions in which conflict can be abated and the sufferings of peoples in the area alleviated. Fortunately, we can now see light ahead in this aggravated situation and your wise restraint is being well justified by events.
We have long felt it prudent to place the United Nations in the forefront of this problem, as observers and certifiers, to avoid charges and counter-charges of violations of disengagement, misinterpretations and distortions of Saudi-American relations which might have resulted from keeping the matter in the hands of the United States alone and to ensure the best chance to the Yemeni people to make their own ultimate decisions regarding their affairs. The delays in accomplishing this have not been the result of any lack of activity on our side. Indeed the constant disappointment of our day-to-day expectations has been a source of rising alarm and renewed effort. Despite Soviet obstructionism, the United Nations Security Council has recently adopted a resolution effectuating the dispatch of an observer team to the Yemen and to border areas of Saudi Arabia with Yemen. General Von Horn with an advance party has arrived on the scene and observers are moving into position. We have therefore dispatched to Saudi Arabia the air unit which I undertook some time ago through my emissary, Ambassador Bunker, to send to your country once disengagement was fully established by the UN observers. It is my hope that the presence of the unit will demonstrate to all concerned the undiminished interest of the United States in the security and integrity of your country. It will express as well the continued warm friendship for Saudi Arabia and support of the American Government for your wise leadership.
As I stated in my letter to you of last November,1 I profoundly share your concern over those tensions in the Middle East which have hampered your forward-looking projects for a brighter future for the Saudi Arabian people, in peace, self-realization, progress and freedom. It has been our constant purpose to try to abate those tensions, as exemplified by our efforts on behalf of Yemen disengagement. In this regard I repose full confidence in Your Highness’ undertaking to assure the complete cessation of all cross-border shipments from Saudi Arabia into Yemen since this undertaking is a key to the success of the disengagement operation, the other key being President Abd al-Nasser’s undertaking to withdraw the UAR forces from the Yemen. The US expects both parties will fulfill their obligations toward disengagement as the UN observers by [Page 621] themselves cannot function effectively without their full cooperation and goodwill.
I wish again to re-emphasize the identity of our interests and the mutuality of our concerns, aspirations and objectives. Whatever minor differences have occasionally arisen between us do not in my view derogate in any way from the ties which bind our two governments and peoples together. On the contrary, our successful surmounting of these difficulties only strengthens further our bonds of friendship. May I conclude by asserting that you have as always my sincere personal friendship and support for success in your noble endeavor to shape the future of your country.
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Saudi Arabia, 6/15/63–6/30/63. Secret. A typed note on the source text reads: “Following is JFK message to Faysal (Deptel 855 to Jidda 6/22/63 as amended by Deptel 870 to Jidda 6/26/63 delivered to Saqqaf June 30 (Jidda’s 1148) and to Faysal July 1 (Jidda’s 7).” These telegrams are in Department of State, Central Files, POL 15–1 US/Kennedy.↩
- See Document 88.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature. A typed note at the bottom of the source text reads: “White House desires text this message not become public.”↩