Office of the Historian

157. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom0

Washington, July 24, 1962, 8:10 p.m.

498. Eyes Only Ambassador. There follows for your information text of Prime Minister Macmillan’s message to the President of July 19:

“Dear Friend

Thank you for your message of July 61 about fighters for the Indians.

The Indian team were here last week and carried out an evaluation of the suitability of Lightnings for their purposes. Indications are that [Page 311] they would be interested in both purchase of Lightning Mark IIs and manufacture under license in India of Lightning Mark IIIs. It looks as if they would not regard the development of the Orpheus 12 engine for use in their own HF 24 aircraft as an alternative to the manufacture of Lightning Mark IIIs. They might in fact wish to have both.

We are proposing to play the financial part of the discussions long and not to put any specific proposition at this stage. Meanwhile I am grateful for your helpful undertaking that you would find some way to compensate us for three-quarters of the cost of a squadron of Lightnings. I should add that what the Indians mean by a squadron is sixteen front line aircraft plus four back-up aircraft. I also welcome your offer to send over a small group of experts to discuss the matter in more detail and I hope that this can be arranged as soon as possible. It would be helpful if this group was empowered to discuss other possible ways in which you might compensate us as well as the one you have mentioned, which is through our participation in joint R and D projects.

I quite understand the difficulty you would feel at this time, particularly while Congress is still sitting, over making any offer of Lightnings to India openly a joint United States/United Kingdom financial responsibility. There are also difficulties for us in taking the whole public responsibility on ourselves. But I think we can postpone further discussion on this particular issue for the moment.”

Ball
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 791.5622/7-2462. Top Secret; Verbatim Text. Drafted and approved by Cameron and cleared with BNA and the White House. Repeated to New Delhi and Karachi eyes only Ambassadors.↩
  2. See Document 152.↩