318. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson1
SUBJECT
- Reply to Emperor Selassie’s request to see you
At Tab A, Nick Katzenbach recommends that you politely decline Haile Selassie’s request for an early Washington meeting with you.2 At Tab B is a proposed message which attempts to do this as gently as possible, offering to send a personal representative if the Emperor thinks it would be useful.3
Selassie is worried about two related problems: possible Somali domination of French Somaliland, which contains Ethiopia’s major outlet to the sea; and fear that the Russians are providing more sophisticated weapons to the Somalis than we are to the Ethiopians. There is some cause for the first worry. The second is primarily a tactic to get us to give him more MAP. Both are the latest manifestations of an old blood feud between Ethiopians and Somalis which is reminiscent of the India-Pakistan problem.
Ed Korry has handled the Emperor very well. (You may want to glance at the cables at Tab C.)4 Essentially, we are trying to keep the lid on—to avoid violence over French Somaliland and/or an escalation of the arms race. There is some evidence that the Soviets are in fundamental agreement at least on the latter. The proposed message (1) avoids a crash meeting which could worsen things by stirring up the Somalis, (2) pushes Selassie toward a less bellicose position, and (3) notes in passing that the real answer might be regional disarmament plan for Africa. (President Nyerere of Tanzania has already suggested this.)
I recommend that you approve the message.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Special Head of State Correspondence File, Ethiopia, 9/1/66–5/31/67. Secret.↩
- Memorandum from Katzenbach to Johnson, October 7; not printed.↩
- See Document 319.↩
- Telegram 1162 from Addis Ababa, September 22; see footnote 2, Document 316.↩
- This option is checked.↩