465. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer and Ulric Haynes of the National Security Council Staff to President Johnson1
Tanzania-Zambia Railroad. This is to bring you up to date on a looming problem. We now hear that the Chicoms did make an offer to Nyerere of Tanzania to (a) survey the Tanzania-Zambia rail route, and (b) possibly build the Tanzanian segment. Chicom “surveyors” reportedly will soon arrive in Tanzania for this purpose.
President Kaunda of Zambia was apparently unaware of how deeply Nyerere had become involved with the Chicoms. The British are sore at Nyerere for having brought in the Chicoms while a private railroad survey offer by a British firm is still under consideration. The British are ready to finance half its cost, and a Zambian mission is currently in Tanzania in an attempt to formalize arrangements.
Some experts think the likely cost of a railroad has been grossly inflated, but we still think a road would be cheaper and better. So we’ve offered a parallel highway study by a US firm. Kaunda seems interested, but Nyerere’s determination to construct a rail link for political reasons makes us dubious that he’ll accept. At any rate we’ve probably bought some time.
This whole question arises primarily because of landlocked Zambia’s fear of having its main copper export routes cut off following a possible unilateral declaration of independence by Southern Rhodesia and a break in its relations with Zambia. To avoid dire effects on the Zambian economy, we and the UK are developing contingency plans. But an alternate [Page 801] rail route via Tanzania may not be the best solution: (a) it could take ten years or more to complete, by which time the Rhodesian threat might be long past and the railroad a multi-million dollar “white elephant,” and (b) the present mutual interdependence of Zambia and Southern Rhodesia through common ownership of the existing rail route is precisely what discourages each from taking precipitous vindictive action against the other.
Also the Chicoms may lack the financial resources for a mammoth railroad construction effort. Although Nyerere says the Chicoms have made a firm offer to survey, he says in the same breath that their agreement to construct is only a “possibility.” But this whole problem bears close watching, since a major Chicom bridgehead in East Africa could be highly painful.
Ulric Haynes, Jr.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. 12. Confidential.↩