On the 50th anniversary of the beginning of John F. Kennedy’s presidency and King Hassan’s enthronement, this paper based on newly available diplomatic sources aims at improving our knowledge of US relations with independent Morocco between 1961 and 1963, and thus at re-evaluating their significance. There have been interesting contributions regarding Kennedy’s policy towards the Arab Middle East (on the question of Nasser, the Saudis and the Yemen War, for example) but much less attention has been paid to Washington policies toward North Africa, particularly Morocco, during this President’s term of office. In order to better understand this 3-year period and its consequences for US-Morocco relations, this paper will analyze the role played by Kennedy’s administration during two important episodes that marked relations between Washington and Rabat at the time. First, it will explain how the acquisition of Soviet MIGs by Morocco (1961-1962) made Washington fear for the future of its military bases and so triggered the beginning of the US military aid program to this North African country. Second, it will show how Algerian-Moroccan tensions over Tindouf (1962) and their eventual border dispute (Sand War, 1963), coupled with Rabat’s poor relations with Madrid due to the Spanish presence in North African territories, represented a challenging dilemma for American policymakers who tried not to jeopardize their relations with two countries that hosted US military facilities in the Western Mediterranean. This paper analyses a combination of regional and global factors in order to shed new light upon an understudied but significant period in contemporary US-Moroccan relations. It is my contention that the 1961-1963 period is relevant to study for having influenced the development and consolidation of a pro-Western foreign policy orientation by the Maghrebi country. It will conclude that despite important disagreements between Rabat and Washington, which severely hindered at times their respective appreciation for each other’s policy interests even causing mutual distrust, these years witnessed the strengthening of a US-Moroccan military and security relationship. This paper is part of a Ph.D. dissertation research already completed and based upon diplomatic documentation, much of it only recently made available, from the American, British, French, and Spanish governments.