Office of the Historian

117.2/7–1250

Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Nitze) to the Secretary of State

top secret
[Washington,] July 12, 1950.

Subject: Relationship with the Defense Establishment1

Supplementing Mr. Jessup’s memorandum to you on this subject, dated July 11, 1950 (copy attached),2 I wish to point out the following:

1.
For some time it has been virtually impossible to obtain speedy and clear-cut decisions on matters involving the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the service departments, and the office of the Secretary of Defense. The situation has become acute recently in connection with the work on NSC–68 and NSC–73.
2.
Decisions have been obtainable swiftly only when events have forced agreement at the highest level. However, this is undesirable since these decisions are forced in haste, often without proper preliminary thought and study, and, in any event, leaving a host of other issues unresolved.
3.
In the preparation of NSC papers on politico-military matters there is no way to obtain the views or comments of the service departments or the JCS at the drafting stage. As a consequence, conflicting views are constantly brought to the NSC. This results in irritating and time-consuming discussions which detract from the matters that ought to receive the full attention of the NSC.
4.
The secretariat of the NSC has not been effective in ironing out differences among NSC members at the drafting stage.

Efforts to seek a solution to the problems set forth above should not be delayed. Action that might be taken includes the following:

1.
Retain the present channel of communication with the Defense Establishment through General Burns for certain urgent matters only.3
2.
Establish lateral working relationships between State and the military, so that their respective points of view will be brought together at the drafting stage. The NSC should designate working groups to prepare a single NSC paper on a subject. The representatives of the Department of State and of the Defense Establishment who are members of those working groups should be of a stature to enable them to consult with the highest level in their respective departments or staffs. If this is done, many conflicts can be ironed out at an early stage and the NSC can be the forum for consideration of only major questions.
3.
The NSC secretariat should be strengthened by the addition of top level personnel so that the secretariat can work effectively with the various working groups established to draft NSC papers. The Executive Secretary of the NSC should function in an executive capacity and should invoke the authority of the chairman if necessary.4

As a corollary to the above, it would be desirable to establish close permanent relationships between the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Strategic Survey Committee. A high-ranking officer selected by appropriate military authority should be designated to sit with the Policy Planning Staff, and the Secretary of State should designate an officer of comparable stature to attend meetings of the Joint Chiefs and of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee.

  1. This memorandum was presumably drafted in preparation for the July 12 meeting between Secretary of State Acheson, Secretary of Defense Johnson, and W. Averell Harriman, Special Assistant to President Truman, during which the question of State-Defense liaison was among the topics discussed. Nitze’s memorandum of conversation of that meeting read in part as follows:

    “8. Secretary Johnson agreed that General Burns could not by himself handle all the complex relationships between the Defense and State Departments, and that one of his principal functions should be to establish lateral contacts between Defense and State. Secretary Johnson said that he would take steps immediately to make it clear to the Defense Establishment that he approved of the development of appropriate contacts between State and Defense and that such contacts, once established, should be continued without specific clearance with General Burns for each conversation. He agreed that it was more important that the necessary contacts be developed than that specific rules for clearance with General Burns be enforced.

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    “10. Secretary Johnson agreed to Harriman’s suggestion that the Secretary, Harriman and he have dinner together once a week.” (Policy Planning Staff Files)

    ↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Regarding the existing State–Defense channel of communication, see memorandum by Secretary of Defense Johnson on “Organization for the Handling of Politico-Military Matters in the National Military Establishment,” August 3, 1949, Foreign Relations, 1949, vol. i, p. 365.↩
  4. The President was the Chairman of the National Security Council.↩