458. Intelligence Note From the Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Hughes) to Secretary of State Rusk1
SUBJECT
- Mediators for Yemen Face a Rough Road
The first tangible result of the Arab Summit meeting in Khartoum2 is its authorization of a plan proposed by the Government of Sudan to end the Saudi-UAR confrontation over Yemen. This paper examines the latest mediation effort and its chances of success as one aspect of the summit meeting. The results with regard to the Arab-Israeli dispute are not yet clear enough to be analyzed and these aspects will be dealt with later.
The conference-approved device proposed by Sudan does little more than remove the Yemeni dispute from contention at the moment. Deliberately general, the summit-meeting resolution reflects an agreement in principle on the part of the UAR and Saudi Arabia, but neither protagonist has given significant ground on the issues in dispute or on the timing of the proposed disengagement. In sum, this new approach only transfers the task at which two earlier mediators had failed to a tripartite committee (Morocco, Iraq, and Sudan); Prime Minister Mahgoub serves as the “neutral” chairman. Although Mahgoub has stated that he wants to start from the viewpoint of the Yemenis themselves, both the Yemeni republicans and the royalists have denounced the plan before it has even gotten under way. And the committee has no magic formula for gaining access to the several dissident factions within Yemen.
The most optimistic development is a slightly softer attitude on the part of the UAR, to whom the cost of the Yemen occupation must now be doubly burdensome. Nasser no longer demands the exile of the former Yemeni ruling house, the Hamid al-Dins, as a condition precedent to his withdrawal. But there is no sign that he is willing to accept open and humiliating defeat. Furthermore, Nasser’s “reasonableness” could be merely a tactical device to help create a facade of Arab unity and to secure moderate support against radical pressures [Page 849] from Algeria and Syria. Saudi King Faysal, who now feels that he has the upper hand, is in an even less generous mood than before.
Another factor also enters into the calculation. According to reports from Khartoum Saudi Arabia will contribute $140 million to a fund of $378 million designed to alleviate the economic difficulties of the UAR and Jordan. Kuwait ($154 million) and Libya ($84 million) are the other two contributors. It is not clear when and how these funds are to be made available and what proportion of the total for the UAR ($266 million) will come from Saudi Arabia. In any event, the fact that the UAR needs Saudi money strengthens Faysal’s position and may give him a weapon to obtain concessions from the UAR.
Finally, Sudan’s internal politics will affect the performance of the Committee. Sudanese President al-Azhari desired the original plan as part of an intricate maneuver to expel or neutralize the leftists and Nasserites in his government, and to carry it back to the former moderate coalition. But the leading role now has been seized by Mahgoub, whose backing includes the more radical nationalists. Political maneuverings within the Sudan may thus affect the committee’s chances for success.