Rusk 1967

Learning of War

Johnson did record the early-morning conversation in which Secretary of State Dean Rusk informed him that war had broken out in the Middle East.

President Johnson and Dean Rusk, 5 June 1967, 5.09am

WH6706.01 PNO 1, 11901

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

Dean Rusk: A flash message at this point I’d suggest read as follows:

“Dismayed by preliminary reports of heavy fighting between Israeli and Egyptian forces. As you know, we have been making the maximum effort to prevent this situation. We are expecting a very high-level Egyptian delegation on Wednesday, and we had assurances from the Israelis that they would not initiate hostilities pending further diplomatic efforts.

“We feel that it is very important that the United Nations Security Council succeed in bringing this fighting to an end as quickly as possible, and are ready to cooperate with all members of the Council to that end.”

Now, we’ve been talking about it in these terms. It is probably better for us to get some sort of a message of this sort [out] before the question of who really was responsible is completely clarified. To let them know that we were not a party to any of this business at this stage.

But I wanted to check, get your own reaction—

President Johnson: Yes. Yes, I would.

Rusk: All right.

President Johnson: Good.

Rusk: All right.

President Johnson: So, what—what does it appear to you? Does it appear to you reasonably sure that these [Egyptian] tanks kicked it?

Rusk: Well, the fact that the fighting has been occurring initially over Egypt is a little hard to sort out. [Excised material for national security purposes.] It’s possible. But I’d put more weight on the Israeli claim that they had a large number of Egyptian aircraft headed for Israel, from the sea. But I think it’s just a little too early yet.

My instincts tell me that the Israelis probably kicked this off. But I just don’t know yet, and I don’t think we ought to make a preliminary judgment on that, because it’s just hard to say.

President Johnson: Do they say to us that the Egyptians kicked it off?

Rusk: Well, they’re both publicly—we have nothing, no message yet from the Israeli government, except that they’ve asked for a meeting of the [UN] Security Council. We’ve had no direct message from Eshkol, or [Foreign Minister Abba] Eban, or anybody. Both publicly are claiming that the other started it. But the Israeli claim that a big tank column was moving toward Israel and that they went out to meet it—again, looks just a little thin on the surface. [Excised material for national security purposes.]

Meanwhile, we’ve asked Harlan Cleveland, who’s now in a meeting of NATO that was called to discuss this situation to keep a group of the permanent members on a standby to be consulting throughout the day, to be available for consultation. And, of course, the Security Council will be meeting.

The Security Council will probably call on both sides for an immediate cease-fire. It would be usual and typical for them to do that. But we just don’t know what effect that will have.

My guess is the Israelis kicked this off.