U.S. Closes Deal On Tanks for Israel, Moves
On To Planes
(July 29, 1965)
The United States has
closed the tanks deal with Israel and now
they are moving on to planes. The U.S. is
going to try to get Israel planes from Europe
but is prepared, without Rusk's approval to
give Israel the planes they need.
230. Memorandum From Robert
W. Komer of the National Security Council
Staff to President Johnson/1/
Israeli Tanks. I have the
honor to inform you that we finally closed
the Israeli tank sale on the original basis
approved by you./2/ After about five months
of trying to enrich the deal, they finally
conceded and are very happy to boot.
They'll get (a) 110 M48A2C
medium tanks to replace the German ones; (b)
100 M48A1 tanks to match those sold to Jordan;
(c) conversion kits to upgun these plus the
40 Bonn did deliver to 105 mm. guns; and (d)
ammo and spares. Total sale would amount to
around $42 million in dollars over two years
or more. I might add that Israelis have been
very good at keeping mum to date, and we have
a cancellation clause in case they leak later.
Now we'll start arguing about the twenty-four
combat planes we said we'd help get from US
or European sources. Rusk is strong against
any US sale so we'll stall for a while and
try to shift them to Europe. We can always
concede in the end, but it's good to have
leverage on the Israelis because we don't
like their threats to attack the Arab water
diversion works (now it's Lebanon). We're
also still very suspicious they might go nuclear.
R. W. Komer
/1/Source: Johnson Library,
National Security File, Name File, Komer,
Vol. I. Secret.
/2/The agreement was embodied
in a July 29 exchange of letters between Solbert
and Zvi Dinstein, Special Assistant to the
Israeli Defense Minister. (Ibid., Files of
Robert W. Komer, Israel Security, Tanks (1965))
They amended the November 15, 1964, exchange
of letters between Solbert and Colonel Ron;
see footnote 6, Document 99.
Sources: U.S.
Department of State |