Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIV, Africa

326. Memorandum From Secretary of State Rusk to President Johnson¹

Washington, February 11, 1967.

SUBJECT

• Ethiopian Emperor’s Visit—Military Assistance Requests

The primary difficulty that will be faced during Emperor Haile Selassie’s visit (February 13–15) will be his desire for greater U.S. military assistance. His principal objective is to try to convince you of this need.

The Emperor is seriously concerned about external and internal threats to his regime. In addition to his worries about UAR and Soviet efforts to undermine the Red Sea basin in general, he is concerned about the Somali threat in particular. The Somalis have received considerable Soviet military assistance, and they claim the large Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia which is inhabited by Somali tribes. In furtherance of its irrendentist claims, Somalia has sent guerrillas into the northeast province of Kenya (which it also claims) and into Ethiopia. The upcoming French Somaliland plebiscite heightens the tensions. In addition, a Muslim dissident movement in northern Ethiopia has become increasingly serious, particularly as a result of military and financial support given it by various Arab States. (The Emperor will probably gloss over internal dissidence problems.)

We cannot and should not at this time satisfy the Emperor’s demands for a great deal more military assistance or a possible request for U.S. guarantees of Ethiopia’s defense. We are already providing $14 million in grant military assistance to Ethiopia in FY 67, of which $11 million is in equipment. This constitutes a very large share of our military assistance to Africa as authorized by the Congress under the $25 million ceiling for defense articles, which can only be exceeded by Presidential waiver. A similar amount is tentatively planned for the next fiscal year. Even if we could provide Ethiopia with significantly more military equipment, it would seriously aggravate the arms race in the area. Greater military training, better trained and equipped police forces and economic and social development are the answers to Ethiopia’s principal problem of internal dissidence—not a great deal more sophisticated hardware. (The West Germans are assisting the Ethiopian police; funds are not available for significantly increasing our own relatively modest police program.)

On the other hand, the maintenance of friendly relations with Ethiopia is important to our interests in Africa and especially to the maintenance of Kagnew Station, as essential U.S. military communications installation (with important intercept functions, a fact not to be mentioned to the Emperor) located in northern Ethiopia. There is no alternative site presently available for many of these facilities. Defense is accordingly prepared to provide $2 million more assistance, if possible in helicopters, and to try to expedite shipment of the most important items presently planned for Ethiopia.

This will probably not be enough to satisfy the Emperor. If not, there is the risk that he might ask the Soviets for arms (he plans to visit Moscow at the end of the month), harass Kagnew on military jurisdiction questions, or take some other undesirable action. However, despite the possibility of veiled threats to Kagnew, we do not believe that the Emperor would oust us from Kagnew Station completely or affect our operations significantly, given the leverage on us this base gives him.

Nevertheless, a special effort should be made to reassure the Emperor of our continuing interest in Ethiopia and to convince him that our present and planned military programs, plus a relatively small additional increment, are sufficient to assure Ethiopian security—and all that we can provide at this time. Our military people are convinced that with our current and planned military assistance programs for balanced forces and particularly with greater emphasis on training, Ethiopia can meet any threat from Somalia. Should there nevertheless appear to be a real danger to Kagnew Station, Defense would be willing to reexamine the situation. Some readjustment in future years programs could be made to accommodate a limited number of additional items. Such changes could be subsequently communicated to the Ethiopian Government through our Embassy at Addis.

Dean Rusk

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 ETH. Secret. Drafted by Looram; cleared by Trimble, Hughes, G/PM Director for Operations Joseph J. Wolf, Lang, and Director of AID’s Office of Eastern and South African Affairs Eugene M. Reed.