Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXI, Near East Region; Arabian Peninsula

140. Memorandum From John W. Foster of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)¹

Washington, March 21, 1968.

SUBJECT

• The Situation in South Yemen

We still don’t have a clear picture of the situation in South Yemen, but there are a few things that can be said.

Prior to yesterday’s events,² we knew there was a struggle for power within the government and the National Liberation Front, and we felt—on the basis of sketchy evidence—that the moderates supported by the British trained army were winning over the radicals. The two groups have been at odds since the country became independent late last year, and matters came to a head at a party convention earlier this month. Our limited information on the convention suggested that a compromise was worked out which left the moderates in control at the price of adopting radical policies. If this reading is correct, the latest developments could be a moderate attempt to renege on the agreement, possibly because of pressure from the military.

If the moderates win, South Yemen could swing away from its current efforts to develop close relations with the Communist nations. This doesn’t mean that the government will be easy to deal with, and the government still has to solve tremendous financial problems. A number of side issues will probably prevent the current troubles from developing strictly on moderate-radical lines, and we will still be dealing with some radicals. More important, the moderates are moderate only in South Yemeni terms. They are Arab nationalists and socialists whose outlook is basically anti-Western.

Yesterday’s activities led to some sort of compromise, but we don’t even know the specific issues the new agreement is supposed to settle. Guessing is that the NLF has resolved none of its problems, and that South Yemen is in for more trouble.

It would be hard to argue that any American initiative would be worth the effort, and even if we wanted to influence events there is little we could do. State isn’t planning to do much more than to watch the situation and hope for the best.

John

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Yemen, Cables & Memos, Vol. 11, 7/64-12/68. Secret.
2. On March 20, in response to a series of radical pronouncements by the NLF party congress and a March 18 purge of the civil service, the Southern Yemen army and internal security forces imposed a curfew in Aden and arrested a number of NLF radicals, including the Defense and Information Ministers.