SECRET/NODIS
-8-
King Hussein: Our principal question now is are we in for disengagmeent or not? We are perfectly prepared to stay on the East Bank. If the Arabs want us to we will remove ourselves from the Palestinian problem. We believe the PLO should be the representative of the Palestinians and in dealing with matters which are beyond not our concern. On the West Bank, we do not believe they are the sole representatives of the Palestinians. We do not claim ourselves to be the sole representatives of the Palestinians. They can deal with questions arising between beyond the West Bank, compensation, settlement of claims and Palestinian rights, etc. Symbolically they should be there and involved in the process. In all of this we are willing to cooperate and coordinate with the other Arab states.
We If we do not move ahead with disengagement, the Syrians have threatened and are likely to become more adventurous. We believe there is not much time available to us. We are faced with growing political pressures and military pressures and unless we are able to meet them we have strong reason to believe they could become overwhelming. Syria or Israel could get involved in the conflict again, and in that event it would be most difficult for Egypt to stay out. Failure to make progress encourages the Syrians to use force.
As as our own military position is concerned, Sir, we discussed this with our friends in the Pentagon following the October war. As a result, we came up with a fresh program to keep up with the tremendous input of armaments to our neighbors. Our proposal was for two times as much in money as you indicated
