1500Z 16 June 1967 drafted message text from
Secretary of State to
American Embassy, Tel Aviv and
U.S. Mission, United Nations

OUTGOING TELEGRAM   DEPARTMENT OF STATE

                    SECRET
                    Classification

ACTION: AmEembassy TEL AVIV
        USUN

INFO: AmEmbassies London, Paris, Moscow, Tehran
      Kuwait, Jidda, Rabat, Tunis, Rawalpindi

NATUS

STATE 211672

    At his request, Ambassador Harman called on Undersecretary
Rostow on June 14.

    1. Ambassador Harman reported that the Israeli Board of
Enquiry investigating the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty would
finish its hearings on Friday afternoon. Its findings would be
made shortly thereafter, and would be given us when ready. The
Ambassador asked when our board would complete its own study of
the matter. Rostow replied that he did not know but would find
out. He assured the ambassador that the findings of our Board
would be made available to GOI when they were prepared. (After
consultation with Secretary McNamara, Rostow informed Harman
that the U.S. enquiry into the matter would be finished within a
few days, and the findings completed shortly thereafter.)

    2. Harman then informed Rostow that GOI now wished urgently
to request a prompt decision with respect to the additional Hawk
battery and the 48 repeat 48 Skyhawks discussed at an earlier point
with Secretary Vance. GOI, like our government, was watching the
pattern of Soviet arms shipments to U.A.R., Algeria and Iraq. Thus
far GOI tended to agree with our assessment that the Soviet Union
was doing no more than rebuilding the inventory of the U.A.R. and
other states for political reasons. For this reason, GOI
regarded the requests as QTE vital UNQTE.

   3. In the course of a brief review of the problems of political
negotiation during the next period, inside and outside the U.N.,
Harman added nothing new to the estimates as to GOI's ultimate
positions he had given in earlier talks, except to stress the
possibility of political change in the Israeli Cabinet in the near
future. Rostow said that his own view of the situation in prospect
required him to put increasing stress on the advice he had offered
Harman in recent conversations, namely, that there was considerable
anxiety, which propaganda was exploiting, about the possibility that
Israel would propose large and permanent territorial changes in the
old frontiers, and adopt views about Jerusalem that might not take
international interests in the city fully into account. In Rostow's
view, an early GOI statement of a moderate position on these problems
would help clear the atmosphere, and perhaps reduce resistance to the
idea of peace arrangements, GOI's primary goal in the next period.

    4. Harman stressed again GOI tactics of delay in the UNGA,
to give the government a chance to recover its breath and think through
its posture.

                                   END

RUSK

Message subject lineage: 171602Z JUN 67 AMEMBASSY PARIS

Note: message format as drafted with EDT time stamp (GMT - 4 hours)

Message displayed as Document 286 in the Department of State Foreign Relations of the United States, Johnson Administration, 1964-1968, Volume XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967.

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