Office of the Historian

167. Memorandum From W. Howard Wriggins of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1

Washington, August 2, 1966.

Walt

Tuesday2 lunch discussion of military sales for the Shah.

1.
The attached cables (Tehran 492)3 point out:
(a)
Soviets reportedly have responded positively to Iran’s request for military equipment, but no details agreed on yet;
(b)
Shah finally aware purchases from Soviets will present us with security problems;
(c)
Shah assures us he can deal with these;
(d)
Armin believes a forthcoming U.S. position will keep the Shah’s purchases to a minimum;
(e)
the President’s letter was very helpful in reassuring the Shah of the President’s personal interest.
2.
By a “forthcoming” position, Meyer means (Tehran 378):4
(a)
mark-down of F 4’s;
(b)
reduction of $21 million in batallion price of Hawks—Shah believes this to be the R & D add on which he thinks should long ago have been amortized;
(c)
scaling of surcharges on other items;
(d)
expeditious schedule of deliveries;
(e)
USG credit available for Sheridan tank in the future.
3.
This is obviously a very tall order. We can’t do all this, but now to fall back positions. Having seen the Secretary of State cave on prices for the planes, Hare is still hoping to remove R & D costs on the Hawks. I hope you can persuade McNamara to do at least that.
4.
Attached is a memo from DOD5 on price variations in the military equipment purchased by Iran.
Howard Wriggins 6
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, NSC Files of Harold Saunders, Iran Military, 4/1/66–12/31/67. Secret.↩
  2. August 2. No record of the Tuesday lunch discussion has been found, but see Documents 168 and 169.↩
  3. Dated August 1. (Department of State, Central Files, DEF 19–8 U.S.-IRAN)↩
  4. Document 161.↩
  5. Attached but not printed.↩
  6. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩