Office of the Historian

405. Letter From Secretary of State Rusk to the Permanent Representative to the United States (Goldberg)1

Washington, January 7, 1966.

Dear Arthur:

I agree with the view expressed in your letter of October 292 that our flexibility in dealing with the issues of the Portuguese territories, South [Page 694] West Africa and apartheid is limited by our dependence on our base in the Azores and our tracking stations in South Africa so long as these facilities remain essential to us. As you requested, I am asking Secretary McNamara for the latest military assessment of the importance of the Azores to our military requirements, and I am urging the Defense Department and NASA to speed preparations on alternative space tracking facilities so that we may move out of South Africa without undue damage to our space program if this should prove necessary or desirable on political grounds.

In the meantime, you should know that NASA now estimates it will not be able to meet its earlier estimate of July 1, 1966 as a target date for the completion of alternative facilities because of difficulties encountered in acquiring the necessary land in Spain. NASA now estimates that suitable alternative facilities will not be ready before December 31, 1966. In addition, NASA has expressed a strong preference to maintain the tracking facilities in South Africa if political circumstances permit since, in its view, this area continues to be the optimum location for instrumentation supporting all unmanned lunar and planetary programs.

With warm regards,

Sincerely,

Dean 3
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 10 PORT/UN. Secret. Drafted by Donald McHenry of IO/UNP on December 28, 1965; cleared by EUR Regional Planning and United Nations Adviser Edward T. Lampson, Captain Asbury Coward of G/PM, Pierson M. Hall of AFE, Colonel James W. Milner of SCI, and UNP Office Director Elizabeth Ann Brown.↩
  2. Document 403.↩
  3. Printed from a copy that indicates Rusk signed the original.↩