312. Personal Note Prepared by the Deputy Secretary of State (Dam)1
[Omitted here is material unrelated to Tunisia.]
I met with Tunisian Ambassador Ben Yahia this afternoon. He came in to brief me on the food riots in Tunisia that have followed the more than doubling of the price of bread and of rice in Tunisia. This was a budget measure agreed upon by President Bourguiba, who seems to have made a serious mistake in introducing the price increase all at once. Ben Yahia of course emphasized their suspicion that the Libyans were either behind the riots or at least taking advantage of them.2 He had a series of requests, including a request for intelligence-sharing on what the Libyans were up to, as well as various financial measures to assist Tunisia. I agreed that we would provide them, at least on a foreign office to foreign office basis, with information that we had and that we certainly would look at a variety of measures that might be conceivable on the financial side, including the acceleration of military deliveries under our security assistance program. But I suspect there is very little we can do, and I did not hold out a great deal of hope.
[Omitted here is material unrelated to Tunisia.]
- Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records: Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files, Lot 85D308, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary—Kenneth W. Dam—Oct. 1983–Sept. 1984. Secret. Shultz summarized Dam’s meeting in a January 4 memorandum to Reagan. (Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, President’s Evening Reading, January–March 1984)↩
- In telegram 20 from Tunis, January 3, the Embassy reported: “President Bourguiba called in Chargé January 3 to request that U.S. accelerate deliveries of military equipment as a deterrent to Qadhafi, whom he saw as being behind disturbances in Tunisia.” Essebsi also said “GOT could get over current disturbances, but that Tunisian military feared Libya and looked to U.S. for support.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D840004–0137)↩