Office of the Historian

294. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to Secretary of State Rusk0

Washington, May 10, 1963.

SUBJECT

  • Meeting with the President on India, May 9, 1963
1.
The President approved going forward with the arrangements on Air Defense for India called for in the Secretary of State’s memorandum of May 8, 1963,1 contingent upon UK participation.
2.
The Departments of State and Defense should examine how we can best go forward unilaterally, should the UK prove reluctant to commit itself.
3.
The Department of State in consultation with other appropriate agencies is to prepare a scenario on steps to carry out these decisions covering: (a) consultations with the UK; (b) appropriate Congressional soundings; and (c) the best means of conveying our decision to the Indians and Pakistani.
4.
The President also directed that the State Department recommend what we should say in the talks with Indian Defense Coordination Minister Krishnamachari so that he would leave the United States with a clear feeling the United States wanted to help India.2
McGeorge Bundy
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, NSC Meetings, 1963, Meeting No. 514. Top Secret. The substance of this memorandum is drawn from NSC Action No. 2467, May 9, which is the only record of the 514th meeting of the NSC that has been found. (Ibid.) The memorandum was mistakenly sent to Secretaries Rusk and McNamara as NSAM No. 243. NSAM No. 243 had been issued on May 9 and dealt with a survey mission for the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.↩
  2. Document 292.↩
  3. In response to items 3 and 4, the Department of State prepared a “scope paper” for the impending Krishnamachari visit, and a “Scenario for Air Defense Arrangement for India.” The two papers were forwarded to McGeorge Bundy on May 16 under cover of a memorandum from Brubeck. (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Krishnamachari visit)↩