124. Memorandum From Robert Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
McGB:
FYI we face two other India-Pak aid problems, which we haven’t dared put up to the President yet:2
- 1.
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The pre-pledging session of the Pak consortium meets next Tuesday. Normally, we’d tell the other donors what we plan to put in, as an incentive to them. AID would normally lobby during this session to line up pledges for the next. The Paks are asking for $500 million (an economically sound step up from $435 last year), so the main issue will be who ups the ante how much.
But this time we’ll simply say we haven’t made up our minds. This lack of our usual enthusiasm will signal to the Paks that we’re not doing business as usual, even though we’ll say the increased Pak request is justified. There’s enough uncertainty in this kind of signal (since we’ve already done some lobbying with the Germans) not to provoke a sharp Pak reaction, but it will make Ayub wonder. This might provide some restraint on his performance at the Algiers conference. [Page 266] Then, we’ll have to make up our minds before pledging meeting at end of July.
- 2.
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We have to negotiate a new PL 480 agreement for India in June. The present one expires 30 June, and the pipeline will begin running out in July unless the Indians can place new orders mid-June. Meanwhile, there are a lot of technical details to be ironed out here and then negotiated with the Indians. We’ve told the State and AID not to ask the President’s approval until they’ve taken comprehensive Congressional soundings. They’ll finish that process and be in with their request for go-ahead late next week.
In sum, we can probably get through next week’s Pak consortium session without going to LBJ, though we’ll need his guidance before the end of July meeting. But Indian PL 480 is more urgent, since we really have to get going now to keep the food moving.