Office of the Historian

118. Airgram From the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State1

London, December 9, 1967.

A-1898

SUBJECT

  • Bleak Prospects for Southern Yemen?
1.
It is the personal view of the Foreign Office officials who deal on a day-to-day basis with PROSY affairs that the new republic’s chances for holding together long under the present NLF (or for that matter, any foreseeable) regime are slight. They do not regard FLOSY as a serious threat. Nor do they think the Sharif of Beihan, even with Saudi backing, can traverse the comeback trail.
2.
Rather, our sources’ pessimistic estimate is based on the assumption that PROSY’s cash income will prove inadequate to meet Adeni post-independence expectations and to buy continued tribal loyalties. They point out that even when the Suez Canal is open and Aden Port bustling, the country requires an annual input of sixteen to twenty million pounds merely to stand still.
3.
Our contacts wonder where this money, and the additional funds the Southern Yemen authorities want in order to demonstrate they are doing something for the people, will be found. Many Labor and Conservative voters are writing to 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office to protest HMG’s twelve million pound aid to PROSY over the period ending June 1. There appears to be no public support for this assistance program. As of now, it appears unlikely to be renewed on the same scale.
4.
The USG is not disposed to fill the gap. The FRG probably will not be willing to shoulder virtually the entire burden. Assuming the Saudis decide next year to seek an accommodation with PROSY, they are likely to attach unacceptable conditions to offers of assistance. Kuwait probably will hang back unless both Saudi Arabia and the UAR are favorably disposed to the Southern Yemen regime. Whether the Soviets or Chicoms can and want to subsidize PROSY indefinitely with large amounts of hard cash is problematical.
5.

But if a major benefactor is not found by mid-1968, this line of reasoning goes, Southern Yemen will be subjected to serious internal stresses. Old rivalries will reassert themselves, tribal leaders will turn [Page 252] to outside sources of gold and rifles, and the volatile Adeni proletariat will become disenchanted with the NLF.

Comment: It should be noted that the officials who privately express the line summarized above were quite attached to the Federalis, on whom so much effort and money had been expended. One Britisher who participated in the Geneva negotiations with the NLF confided that he hoped those talks would fail. We very much doubt that George Brown shares the sentiments of these officials. But the combination of their personal dispositions and the British public’s distaste for aiding “those terrorists who killed our boys” augurs ill for major, long-term UK assistance to PROSY.

Bruce
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967-69, POL 15 S YEMEN. Secret; Limdis. Drafted by Political Officer Stephen J. Palmer, Jr., and approved by Political Officer William J. Galloway. Repeated to Aden, Beirut, Bonn, Dhahran, Jidda, Kuwait, Tehran, Tel Aviv, and USUN.↩