The Foreign Service Journal, May 2014

46 MAY 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL began to unravel, and Amb. Yost warned Washington that the king “wondered whether Moroc- cans would soon be slitting each other’s throats.” Yost added that though the king was under tremendous pressure to close the bases, Mohammed V was trying to put his critics off. He urged Washington to meet the king halfway on the base question, or risk inciting opposition forces that, once unleashed, might be impossible to control. U.S. security interests in North Africa and the Middle East were then, as now, a critical issue. Negotiating with the Brass The Pentagon recognized the gravity of the situation but objected, in no uncertain terms, to the idea of closing the facili- ties. During consultations in Washington in June 1959, General Nathan Twining (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Admi- ral Arleigh Burke (chief of naval operations) told Yost they saw no reason to soften the U.S. negotiating stance. The endless discussions with the Pentagon caused Yost to doubt that soldiers, who “perceive the components of foreign affairs through the prism of what they believe to be overriding military necessities, were psychologically best fitted to define and judge national security in its broadest sense.” As the situation became more urgent, he warned that if Washington took no steps to defuse tensions over the bases, the likelihood that the king would be assas- sinated would increase. And that outcome would put the hard-line, unpopular and volatile Prince Hassan on the throne. It would be best, he felt, if the U.S. trod as lightly as possible on Moroccan sensibilities, keeping a minor breach in relations at a man- ageable level. “I suggest,” Yost wrote, “that what we need is not more crisis management but more crisis neglect. Small ills, like pimples, are more likely to be inflamed than cured by scratching.” Yost knew that if he succeeded in convincing the Pentagon to agree to close the bases at some future date, both Rabat and Washington could pull back from the brink of a major military and diplomatic confrontation. If he failed, the consequences for his career and the U.S.-Moroccan relationship could be momen- tous. A “Triumph for Royal Diplomacy” In his initial conversation with Amb. Yost, General Curtis LeMay (Air Force vice chief of staff) assumed that he was dealing with a lightweight. As Yost wrote: “LeMay gagged at giving up those [bases] in Morocco and spoke grimly of ‘bombing them into the Stone Age’ if the Moroccans should use force.” Yost’s reserved manner fooled many, friend and foe alike, who faced him across the negotiating table. But he did not hesi- tate to remind LeMay that the Moroccans could simply deprive the bases of access to drinking water. He also reminded the general of the larger implications for American alliances if the It would be best, Yost felt, if the U.S. trod as lightly as possible on Moroccan sensibilities. In New York in 1962, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Charles Yost, then deputy to U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, cross the street from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations for a meeting with U.N. Secretary General U Thant. Associated Press