159. Memorandum From W. Howard Wriggins of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1
SUBJECT
- McNamara turns down planes at concessional prices for Iran
McNamara and Vance have decided that we cannot add $30 or $40 million to the nearly $1 billion supplemental in order to provide planes for the Shah at concessional prices (and simultaneously modernize the U.S. air force more rapidly) by taking 2 squadrons of F–4’s out of inventory for the Shah in 1968.
McNaughton tells me that there were three reasons for this:
- (1)
- FYI, the F–4C’s are not as maneuverable as they should be, and he doesn’t want the Shah to have them because this fact would then become widely known.
- (2)
- He does not want to decide now whether and at what pace he wants to permit the air force to replace the F–4C’s. This decision will not be coming up for six weeks to two months. (These reasons have nothing to do with the Shah or Iran.)
- (3)
- He thinks that if the Shah wants to be so foolish as to go to the Russians for equipment and risk cutting off his supplies from us, as was made unambiguously but delicately clear in the letter to the Shah, he should feel free to try it. McNamara does not think it the end of the world for the Shah if he does procure something from the Soviets. What is important is what he procures and our own reaction to it.
McNaughton has warned McNamara that he should expect flak from State on this. And he admits he might be amenable to the argument that
—the Shah is unusually nervous and in a particularly irrational season; this has been accentuated by the action we took last year vis-à-vis Pakistan to bring them in line;
[Page 290]—the Shah is now particularly anxious about the Persian Gulf, Nasser and the British pull-out;
—we are seeking to ensure rights for intelligence facilities;
—by the Shah’s peculiar chemistry, the prices and quantity of planes have become for him the touchstone of whether or not the President is his friend.
I would add:
- —the political climate here, in an election year, may or may not permit us to control our own reaction to an Iran which appears to be following Ayub off the reservation, however understandable this may be to us specialists;
- —you will recall the President’s hope, expressed to Armin Meyer and you, that “his people” would “do their best” to meet the Shah’s needs;
- —a forthcoming offer now may well direct the Shah’s purchases to purely token acquisitions of ack ack. No offer now maximizes the chances of a substantial lurch toward the Soviets as the Shah broods over the Gulf and Nasser-in-Iraq.
I would therefore urge a call to Alex Johnson to see how hard he weighed in (probably not very hard) on political grounds yesterday, and then a call to Vance or McNamara to express the President’s concern. This should wait till Secretary Rusk makes a personal push with McNamara tonight or tomorrow.