Office of the Historian

192. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Kennedy0

Washington, February 15, 1962.

SUBJECT

  • Aid to the UAR

This memorandum is in response to your comment to Carl Kaysen that we seemed to be giving too much aid to the UAR.

The facts are as follows—our aid to the UAR has been rising since the FY 1957/58 post-Suez low, and FY 1962 level will be higher than in any of previous six years (see attached table).1 However, it is primarily PL-480 sustaining aid to meet Egyptian economic difficulties; only $13.7 million in 1960 and the recent $17 million for grain storage silos (plus $23 million in PL 480 local currency) are for development.2

Moreover, both the silo loan and the latest $32.2 million PL-480 grant were based on existing policy toward UAR. The high level of PL 480 in FY 1962 is in response to urgent Egyptian requests stimulated largely by the 1961 crop disaster. None are part of the new “action program” outlined by Secretary Rusk in his 11 [10] January memorandum to you,3 which called for a series of cautious further overtures: (a) a multi-year PL 480 agreement; (b) offering a top planner (Ed Mason); (c) Bowles exploratory visit; and (d) if the UAR was sufficiently responsive, an invite to Nasser for April or December. The first three steps have already been taken.

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Our aim in providing aid, in all cases upon UAR request, has been to: (a) provide Nasser with some alternative to total dependence on the Bloc; (b) help turn UAR energies inward, as has seemed to be happening after Syrian coup; (c) give Nasser some vested interest in good relations with us—and by inference with our allies; and (d) help reassure Nasser that the US, while not endorsing his policies, is not actively hostile. In essence, our aid has been part of a long-term strategy toward an important neutralist state, still the most influential in the Arab world.

Those of us who favor this strategy are fully conscious both of the risks involved and the limited prospects for any quick or far-reaching results. At best we can only expect to pull Nasser back from leaning too far eastward, exert some moderating influence on his meddling in ME and African affairs, and encourage him to focus his energies as much as possible on Egypt’s own internal development. But if one regards even these goals as important, they seem to justify aid at least as great as that we are now providing the UAR.

Whichever way we go, however, our policy toward the UAR is a matter of sufficient import to deserve a full review. We don’t want to back into a new policy via a series of aid offers, without knowing where we want to go. Therefore, in view of your reservations about our UAR policy, I urge a frank airing of the whole issue with Secretary Rusk and your key advisers. The best timing would be as soon as we have Bowles’ full report from Cairo, which should be in by the middle of next week (he will not be back till 21 March).

R.W. Komer
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Staff Memoranda, Robert W. Komer. Secret. Komer transmitted this memorandum to Bundy under cover of a brief memorandum that reads: “Here is my response to JFK on aid to UAR. It avoids re-argument in extenso, but urges confrontation with Rusk, et al, on whole issue of UAR policy. This simply revives idea you had at end of January, for which time now seems ripe.” To this Komer added the handwritten remark: “Bowles reports will give us peg!”↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. The United States and the United Arab Republic signed a P.L. 480 agreement on February 10 that provided for the sale of 200,000 tons of wheat and 50,000 tons of edible oil valued at $32.3 million. On February 11, the United States informed the United Arab Republic that it had approved a Development Loan Fund (DLF) loan of $17 million for a major grain storage project in Egypt. (Reported in circular telegram 1399, February 12; Department of State, Central Files, 611.86B41/2–1262)↩
  4. Document 159.↩