Office of the Historian

514. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson1

Washington, November 8, 1967, 4:15 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Talking Points for King Hussein, 5:30 p.m.

Here is the file of background material for your talk with Hussein, including (Tab A)2 the cable from Arthur Goldberg that Secretary Rusk mentioned at lunch.

In brief, we recommend you make these points:

1.
Secretary Rusk and Ambassador Goldberg have told you in detail of their conversations with His Majesty.
2.
You wish to reaffirm what they have told him: We are prepared to make a maximum diplomatic and political effort to obtain for Jordan the best possible deal in a settlement with Israel. (The exact language Secretary Rusk used is at Tab B.)3
3.
Our ability to make good on this reassurance will depend on what kind of arrangement comes out of the UN. We need a resolution that both sides will work with. Anything else would be no more than a hollow tactical victory.
4.
We hope His Majesty can persuade his Arab colleagues to accept a workable resolution. (We do not think the Indian draft is workable. We think ours is.)
5.
Time is not on the side of peace. What we can do today we may not be able to do 2 or 3 months from now.

If he asks about military aid, you might explain your tough problem in bringing Congress along. You have to say honestly that we can’t resume military shipments now, but you hope the situation will improve if there’s some movement toward a settlement. Meanwhile, you hope he’ll be able to buy what he needs in Western Europe. His turning to Moscow at this stage of the game would just kill chances of progress toward a settlement and make it very hard for us to help.

Walt
  1. Source: Johnson Library, President’s Appointment File. Secret; Exdis.↩
  2. A memorandum from Rostow to the President, November 8 at 3:15 p.m., contained a summary of Document 501. Other briefing memoranda from Rostow to the President and talking points prepared in the Department of State for his meeting with King Hussein are in the Johnson Library, President’s Appointment File.↩
  3. Document 513.↩