75. Memorandum From Harold H. Saunders of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1
WWR:
Since it might cause a little noise, you ought to have the background on the latest UAR-UK clash in South Arabia. The UN Security Council is meeting on it this afternoon.
The British claim that two Egyptian MIGs last week bombed a town (Nuqub) well within South Arabian borders. They have Soviet-made shell casings to show as evidence but nothing else except eye-witness reports. Our intelligence indicates that two planes were in a position to make this raid but can’t produce tracking. Cairo denies that any of its planes were in the area. New Zealand may try to break the deadlock by proposing a UN investigation, but the UAR opposes.
Motives are hard to assess. The UAR may be trying to intimidate some of the local tribal leaders to swing to their side by demonstrating British inability to protect them. To prove their mettle, both to the locals and to their own Parliament, the British had to do something. They [Page 175] went to the UN in hopes they could avoid retaliating. However, if they don’t get results there, they may still feel compelled to strike back.
There is no planned relationship between this incident and the longer range British problem of getting the UN to lay down satisfactory terms for a UN group to monitor the process of setting South Arabia free. However, they are coincidentally negotiating with U Thant to put together a responsible observer team. So their resorting to the UN is partly to establish good faith there.2
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Saunders Memos. Secret.↩
- The UN Security Council met August 4-16 to consider the British complaint concerning an “unprovoked and indefensible attack” on the town of Nuqub in the South Arabian Federation. The United Kingdom stated the evidence showed the attack was carried out by two MIG aircraft belonging to the United Arab Republic and operating out of an airfield in Yemen. UAR and Yemeni representatives categorically denied the charges. On August 16 the President of the Security Council read a consensus statement noting that the Council had not been able to produce a constructive solution and asking the parties concerned to contribute to lessening the tension in the region and to invite the Secretary-General to continue his good offices. For text, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1966, pp. 543-544.↩