403. Memorandum for the Record1
SUBJECT
- Israel
I had a telephone conversation with McGeorge Bundy today at approximately 1900. He had seen Evron at 1700. Evron admitted that his acceptance on Friday2 of Bundy’s promise to provide approximately $300,000 worth of tank spares, etc. in exchange for friendly lobbying against the Church amendment had been made with the understanding that this dollar figure represented the extent of Israel’s urgent military requirements. On checking with his Military Attache, he had learned that this was quite wrong; the fact is that pending Israeli requests for export licenses (for purely cash transactions through commercial channels) aggregate about $7.2 million. This is of course exclusive of other requested items (APCs, Hawk and tank spares, Hawk battery, etc.).
Bundy told me that he has subsequently reached an agreement with Evron which had the President’s endorsement. The agreement is that the US will accept and act upon Israeli purchases (cash and credit) amounting to $3 million of military equipment during the first 15 days of August or until the arrival of the Israeli military team.
I told Bundy that we had recommended to Nitze a more deliberate pace with regard to the team’s arrival: namely, a meeting in early September which would give US officials time to digest the JCS paper (due 25 August) and the DIA paper (due at an earlier date). Bundy [Page 746] expressed the view that this would cause political problems, and that he did not quite see the need for “diddling with small things” while we were at the same time refusing to provide Israel with requested military equipment.
I checked with Nitze who had signed out the letter to Rusk on Saturday. Nitze said however that he had done so on the assumption that the situation involved neither political nor military urgency. He said that, if the White House considers that we faced a political problem, DoD was willing to be flexible. I then called Bundy again who said that he would like to make an agreement with Evron for the US to receive the Israeli team some time during the week of 21 August. He said he would confirm this with Rusk and would represent this date as being acceptable to Nitze and DoD. I concurred in this.
Principal Deputy
- Source: Washington National Records Center, ISA Files: FRC 330 76–140, A/I/S, 2–12–6, 1967 Crisis Special File. Secret. Drafted by Townsend Hoopes. Copies were sent to Nitze, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Paul C. Warnke, and Colonel Amos A. Jordan, Jr., Regional Director for Near East and South Asia in Warnke’s Office.↩
- July 28.↩