Office of the Historian
  1. Home
  2. Historical Documents
  3. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIV, Africa
  4. Document 634

634. Memorandum From the Secretary of the Navy (Nitze) to the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Vance)1

Washington, March 4, 1967.

SUBJ

  • DOD Requirements for Facilities and Contractual Support in the Republic of South Africa (U)

This is in response to your Memorandum of 21 February 19672 which requested an assessment of DOD requirements of RSA (Republic of South Africa) and an analysis of alternatives for satisfying such requirements should RSA facilities no longer be available to DOD. The analysis at Tab A3 identifies the three-way importance of RSA to the Department of the Navy.

  • First, with respect to ship deployments to seas near southern Africa in support of NASA and NSA mission requirements, RSA ports are extremely useful but not indispensable. Use of these ports enable us to utilize our ships more efficiently than would otherwise be possible. NASA and NSA support ships could be serviced from other ports, but we would be depriving ourselves of an arrangement of proven benefit.
  • Secondly, with regard to fuel for aircraft carrier transits to and from the Pacific theater through the Indian Ocean, RSA ports are convenient but again there are alternatives. We could divert oilers from other important tasks to fuel the carriers at sea or we could eliminate or reduce reliance on oilers by building an austere naval fueling facility on Diego Garcia as previously proposed.

Finally, the strategic location and potential wartime value of RSA are of even greater importance to the USN than its obvious short term utility. RSA, with its five major ports, ten major airfields, and technical competence, represents a potential that could, in time of war, be of significant value to the United States. From the naval viewpoint, the use of facilities in RSA would be essential to control of vital sea lanes to the Indian Ocean and Far East should the Suez Canal be denied for any reason. In this connection it should be noted that the UAR has recently limited US military overflights and could bar Suez to US ships in the same manner as it has already barred Israeli ships.

All of the above paragraphs are classified Secret.

Paul H. Nitze
  1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 71 A 4546, 680.1 South Africa. Secret.↩
  2. Document 633.↩
  3. Not printed.↩