US-Egypt Diplomacy under Johnson by Gabriel Glickman

Author:Gabriel Glickman [Glickman, Gabriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Social Science, History
ISBN: 9780755634040
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

12

Johnson’s Reluctance

With progress vis-à-vis Nasser on the horizon, Komer renewed his efforts to convince Johnson of the merits of giving aid to Egypt. Once again, however, Congress was standing in the way with its dislike of Nasser.

In the middle of the six weeks of arms negotiations with Israel and Jordan, Egyptian officials sought a resumption of PL 480 aid, which had been temporarily placed on hold during the problems with Congress over the library burning. US officials had been too consumed with the Israel-Jordan arms negotiations to properly deal with the request. Battle, however, took the time to write to State that he saw “another Aswan Dam” coming—albeit on a minor scale—if the administration did not resume aid to Egypt.1

State replied to Battle to keep the situation frozen (as best he could) until the administration was able to brief Nasser on the arms sale to Israel. In the meantime, Egypt could fulfill its corn requirements by obtaining credit from the federally subsidized Credit Commodities Corporation (CCC)—which was essentially a loan that needed to be repaid in three years, but was still better than the standard market rates and market repayment period of eighteen months. Also, nongovernmental charity agencies were authorized to begin planning for a program that provided free school lunches to 3.4 million Egyptian children, and US embassy officials were authorized to discuss with Egyptian officials preliminary plans for spending US holdings of Egyptian pounds received from PL 480 sales—a portion of which the United States was contractually obligated to spend on development projects. “This at least puts us in a position to say, ‘yes’, or ‘not now,’ ” wrote Saunders to Bundy on March 10, “[and] to permit current business to continue while reserving our two big political cards—the $37 million and a new agreement.” Indeed, $37 million of Title I PL 480 aid from the existing agreement remained untouched. It had been frozen since Nasser’s Port Said speech, and Johnson had not yet authorized its release. Johnson was reluctant to clash with Congress again.2

In light of Johnson’s hesitation to resume PL 480 aid, State pushed for moving forward with CCC sales. They were typically seen as less controversial and did not require approval from Congress. Saunders wrote to Bundy that State saw CCC sales “as a low-key signal to Nasser that we’re still in business[,] to keep him from setting us up too readily beside his West German target.” Surprisingly, Bundy shot down the idea. He didn’t explain his reasons, but perhaps he too was reluctant to reopen the conflict with Congress over aid to Egypt. “They [the Egyptians] can appeal to LBJ if they want,” Bundy wrote.3

Saunders disagreed with Bundy. He immediately wrote to Komer that Bundy was turning something routine into a higher level political issue. Komer replied that he too disagreed with Bundy’s decision. But he was heading to London for a week and did not have time to do anything about it.4

The situation stewed for a few more weeks without Komer involved to move things along.

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