156. Memorandum From Harold H. Saunders of the National Security Council Staff to W. Howard Wriggins of the National Security Council Staff1
Howard:
Jim Critchfield called to explain the two tacks the Agency is going to take with the Shah:
- 1.
- In the next few days [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] will be giving the Shah a rather complete technical commentary for his eyes only on the performance of the Soviet missiles. He feels this will thoroughly demonstrate that the Soviet missile is a third rate product which will be increasingly obsolete in the next couple of years, especially as the countermeasures to it will become as widespread as the missile itself.
- 2.
- [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] will tell the Shah that no one of his friends [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]—though they have sympathized with the Shah’s viewpoint for many years—agrees that he is doing the right thing now. First, he will set off a train of events here in Washington where everyone is preoccupied with Vietnam [Page 284] that no one can see the end of. If he can just be patient, Washington is increasingly aware of the Shah’s legitimate interest in the Persian Gulf and is working its way to encouraging him to take a larger role there. On the Middle Eastern theme, with recent developments in Iraq, the gap between the Shah and his potential adversaries is narrowing. Moving to the Soviet Union now would just undermine this very hopeful trend.
Critchfield reiterated his feeling that the chief ingredient of this problem is the Shah’s sense of being cut off from the President. The Shah believes that the letters the President sends him are drafted in the State Department and, therefore, he has had no direct communication with Lyndon Johnson since the President took office.
Critchfield says he argued with Bill Moyers and others in the White House discreetly that during the Shah’s recent trip we should invite him to fly over from Morocco for a few hours to see the President. Moyers and others felt the President should not be involved, so we missed that opportunity for a quiet morale boosting exercise which would have stopped this whole Soviet ploy in its tracks.
I commended Critchfield for the private approach he is planning to have made. I told him what we had in mind to proliferate the impression that Washington is deeply disturbed by the Shah’s move. Critchfield feels we missed a golden opportunity to have the Shah here back in June but is not sure that now, in the wake of Brady’s article, we could do this. He promised to keep us posted.