Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XXIV, North Africa

339. Telegram From the Embassy in Tunisia to the Department of State¹

2360.

Tunis, March 10, 1986, 1533Z

Department please repeat to USCINCEUR Specat Exclusive. Following repeat sent action Lisbon March 8th repeated for your action/info. Quote. For the Vice President’s Party. Subject: The Vice President’s Visit to Tunisia: An Overview.

1. Secret—Entire text.

2. The Vice President’s March 8 visit to Tunisia was strongly welcomed by PriMin Mzali in the plenary (closing) session for which he had assembled most to the Cabinet. Mzali said that some time in which to discuss current issues and views face to face humanized facts and figures and made reality more comprehensible. He thanked the Vice President for coming.

3. The Vice President’s stop over did give GOT’s senior members an opportunity to put their concerns directly to the administration at leadership level and this was appreciated. It permitted the Vice President to express confidence in Mzali, in words the latter needed to hear. It provided an occasion in which concerns by both sides with Qadhafi could be aired and shared. Indeed, we now have an advance expression of Bourguiba’s support for any Gulf of Sidra penetration we may choose to make to illustrate the international nature of these waters.²

4. The Vice President telephoned Habib Bourguiba Jr., an old friend, to greet him. Bibi had not expected to participate in the event and had called me earlier to decline (with regret) to come see A/S Murphy “socially” at the residence on the grounds that, as a private person, he had really nothing to say to him. But the Vice President’s call moved him deeply and he appeared at the initial session (where his father asked him to translate President Reagan’s letter) and at the lunch. Unfortunately, father and son had another falling out for reasons as yet unclear after we had retired to the restricted afternoon session. Still, Bibi knows that we remain interested in him and in his well-being and that is potentially quite important.

5. Mme Wassila Bourguiba did not appear. Mme Mzali did the honors for Mrs. Bush. Mme Bourguiba, however, sent a touching letter to the Vice President and Mrs. Bush bidding them welcome, in very dignified language, as warmly as she had been welcomed to the U.S., and citing her health as the reason for her absence.

6. President Bourguiba was in relatively good form. He drifted occasionally back and forth between the Libyan threat to his new social housing program—currently uppermost in his mind—and reviewed his responses to the Israeli bombing, but the theme was unchanged: Tunisian friendship for the U.S.—as deep as Israel’s. His sense of relationship to President Reagan, whose warm letter he would certainly answer and his expectation of understanding and support from the U.S. He ate somewhat untidily but amply at lunch and did not fail to invite the Vice President’s attention to the fact that he (Bourguiba) remained erect in his posture and his walk. . . .

7. Substantively, Mzali made the expected pitch for extra aid; he could not—in Tunisia’s current circumstances—do otherwise. The potentially major novelty in the Tunisian line was the FonMin’s invitation to us to consider Tunisia as a confrontation state (vis-à-vis common enemy Libya). While this clearly had self-serving aspects, it nevertheless deserves careful reflection in Washington because new factors adduced in its support are real enough there has been introduction of new and more highly sophisticated weapons; they do change the tactical and perhaps even the strategic givens; events including the Israeli raid and Libyan challenges are tending to expand the problems of the Machreq into the Maghreb; and, finally, there are new grounds for concerns of an East-West nature in Soviet support for Libya at present.³

8. Request clearance of Vice President’s party and retransmission to appropriate addressees with Tunis as an info addressee.

Sebastian

1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D860183–0377. Secret; Immediate; Exdis. Sent for information to Algiers, Cairo, Paris, Rabat, and Rome.
2. See Document 338. In telegram 2359 from Tunis, March 10, the Embassy reported that Bourguiba “reiterated Tunisia’s long-standing, firm friendship for the United States. He concurred in the need for a strong stand against Libyan threats and territorial claims.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D860183–0704)
3. In telegram 76106 to Tunis, March 12, the Department reported that Bush “took Prime Minister Mzali aside and told him privately” that “far be it for me to interfere in Tunisian internal affairs, but I want you to know that you have my personal confidence whatever happens and, of course, none of can read the future, but should you assume the Presidency you can be assured of my personal support and assistance and that your calls to the White House will always be answered. I am saying this to you and nobody else.” Mzali “expressed gratification and assured the Vice President if God should will him to have the burden of the Presidency descend upon him, he would faithfully pursue and follow ‘Bourguibism.’” (Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S Records, 1986 Nodis Telegrams: Lot 95D23, Tunis)