21. Intelligence Memorandum Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency1
OCI No. 1781/65
Washington, June 19, 1965.
SUBJECT
- Consequences of Algerian Coup
- 1.
- The apparently bloodless coup which early on the morning of 19 June brought the Algerian military, and more particularly Vice Premier and Defense Minister Houari Boumedienne, to power will probably not produce any abrupt changes in either Algeria’s domestic or foreign policy. So far there appears to have been no general shakeup of the ministers, and Foreign Minister Bouteflika has stressed that Algeria will continue to recognize all international commitments. He has indicated that the Afro-Asian Conference will open in Algiers on 29 June as scheduled.
- 2.
- Boumedienne’s government is likely to pay more attention to the badly faltering Algerian economy than to foreign ventures and entanglements—especially in Black Africa. He is likely to orient Algeria more toward the Arab East, and may well ultimately establish a regime similar to Nasir’s Egypt. He is an avid nationalist and socialist, and has long felt that the army had a political mission to lead the people of Algeria. In fact, in many areas of Algeria the army has probably already provided sounder leadership and administration than Ben Bella’s government or the FLN party.
- 3.
- Boumedienne will probably lead Algeria on a more genuinely non-aligned course than did Ben Bella. He is realistic enough to appreciate that French assistance—some $200 million a year in direct financial aid, plus many hundreds of millions more in indirect benefits and the salaries of nearly 20,000 French technicians and school teachers—is not likely to be forthcoming from any other source. He is also aware that US surplus food feeds nearly one-third of Algeria’s 11.5 million people, although he still probably thinks of the Western world in imperialistic terms. He has been warm, open, and attentive with US officials. At the same time, he knows that the Soviet Union’s some $85 million in military aid has transformed his once ragtag forces into a well equipped army, with a respectable air arm of modern jet fighters and bombers. The Soviet Union has also extended some $250 million in economic credits, for long-range projects. Only a small portion of this has been utilized, and Boumedienne probably does not intend to sacrifice this. Algeria also has a $50 [Page 42] million credit from Communist China. Boumedienne will probably attempt, however, to deal warily with the Communists, and to preserve Algeria’s independent status. He is said to have become disillusioned with Castro’s Cuba, following a visit there in 1963, largely because it was so patently a Soviet satellite.
- 4.
- Algeria’s neighbors, Morocco and Tunisia, will not be pleased by Boumedienne’s coming to power. During the border fighting with Morocco in the fall of 1963, the Algerian army fared badly. It was largely as a consequence of this humiliating treatment that the Soviet-backed build-up of the Algerian forces was begun. King Hassan has watched this build-up with deep misgiving, and recently went out of his way to effect a reconciliation with Ben Bella. Hassan will regard a military regime in Algeria as a dagger pointing straight at Morocco. Tunisian President Bourguiba, always distrustful of Ben Bella, will be even more so of Boumedienne toward whom he was at best coolly polite during the years Boumedienne spent in Tunisia during the Algerian revolution.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Algeria, Vol. I, Memos & Miscellaneous, 12/63–7/65. Secret.↩