Office of the Historian

134. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Kennedy0

Washington, April 4, 1962.

SUBJECT

  • Military Aid Package for Morocco

I recommend you approve State’s request for 1550 determinations on the air transport and naval packages for Morocco.1 These are the heart of our effort to minimize Soviet military aid to Morocco and to increase our influence with King Hassan.

In doing so you will be waiving the requirement in the plan you approved last fall (NSAM 102)2 that we review our air aid program if Hassan failed to give “satisfactory private assurances … that no further Bloc [Page 205] Air Force aid will be accepted” or “if at any future date the Moroccans [did]3 accept further Bloc aid of this nature.” We have only gotten half a loaf. Hassan has told Bonsal he can’t give binding assurances but “hoped to give preference as far as possible” to Western sources for materiel requiring foreign instructors and technicians. The Foreign Minister went further in telling Bonsal March 23rd that “he was now in a position to state that there would be no Soviet instructors and technicians” in Morocco. The Moroccans so far have resisted reported new Soviet air aid offers, although they just bought $3-4 million in Soviet tanks and artillery to accompany a Soviet gift of lighter equipment for their ground forces.

I join State and Defense in urging that we go ahead on this basis. The Moroccan situation is a highly competitive one. The Soviets have pressed consistently since 1956 to increase their influence. Hassan’s early 1961 acceptance of 14 MIGs [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] gave them an opening wedge which they have been trying to widen ever since.

So Hassan will simply turn to the Bloc if he doesn’t get what he wants from the West. We can’t stop him from accepting some Soviet aid to satisfy his domestic leftist opposition and the African neutrals. He’s also determined to build up his armed forces—with or without US help. But by meeting certain reasonable demands we can stimulate his apparent desire to avoid getting in over his head with the Communists. Moreover, we can achieve “preclusion” in fact if we saturate his fledgling air force’s absorptive capacity, which is what proposed transport package tries to do.

R.W. Komer4
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Staff Memoranda, Robert W. Komer. Secret.↩
  2. NSC Action No. 1550 stipulated that no foreign assistance could be offered without determining whether the aid was in accordance with approved policy, whether Congress had approved or appropriated funds, whether the recipient country could support the programs, and what was the probable duration of the assistance. (Department of State, S/S-NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action of the National Security Council) Kennedy signed the Presidential Determination on April 6, and Bonsal was instructed on April 9 to tell the King that the decision to provide a U.S. air transport package had been made, with the final details to be worked out by a team from CINCEUR expected in Rabat shortly. (Telegram 1571 to Rabat; ibid., Central Files, 771.5622/4-962)↩
  3. Document 123.↩
  4. Brackets in the source text.↩
  5. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩