28. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Komer) to President Johnson1
A few weeks ago we asked your OK of our proposed new food deal with Algeria—a relatively tight one for $12.6 million in Title IV dollar sales with provision for phasing out Title II and III.2 I haven’t pressed further because of Boumedienne’s bad public performance on Vietnam (indeed I purposely delayed this agreement a little myself).
But I want to keep you abreast of the play, since Tom Mann may call you. We’re about two weeks beyond when negotiations would normally have led to signing, and the Algerians need food in February. So we’re at the point where they’ll begin reading further delay as our backing out.
The issue is whether we want to bid for a working relationship with the Boumedienne regime as it sorts itself out. Mann, Soapy, our Ambassador, and I feel it’s worth this small food sale (mostly dollars anyway). I doubt that we’ll ever see eye-to-eye with Algeria on Vietnam, but it has little influence on this issue, Boumedienne still looks more hopeful than Ben Bella, and we have a stake in Algerian oil.3
- R.W. Komer
- McG. B. 4
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Algeria, Vol. II, Memos & Miscellaneous, 7/65–11/68. Secret.↩
- On January 4, Komer sent a memorandum to the President asking for approval of a modest new P.L. 480 program on the grounds of Algeria’s strategic importance. (Ibid.)↩
- On January 20, Komer sent a third memorandum to the President, again asking for approval of the Title IV food sale to Algeria and again receiving no response. On January 22, Saunders notified McGeorge Bundy that a definite answer had to be given to the Algerians, since they needed the food in February and would have to buy it elsewhere. Later that day, Saunders sent Bundy another note, saying that the President had seen the “third Algerian memo” and laid it aside. (Ibid.)↩
- Bundy initialed below Komer’s signature.↩
- None of these options is checked.↩