890.00TA/6–3050
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Philippine and Southeast Asian Affairs (Lacy) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk) and Mr. Merrill C. Gay, Special Assistant to Mr. Rusk
Subject: Funds for Griffin Mission Programs
I suggest that an early item of business for the new SEA Coordinating Committee might be to consider requesting additional funds from Congress to permit implementation of the Griffin programs in substantially their original magnitude.
It is not so much that I regard full implementation of the programs as a vital contribution to today’s problems in Southeast Asia, but rather that default on them would be extremely undesirable after all the publicity received by the Mission and by the ECA.
The present position is apparently as follows: The original Griffin recommendations for Burma, Thailand, Indochina and Indonesia total over $60 million. Last week approximately $46 million seemed to be in hand from residual China aid moneys, in addition to the small Section 303 contribution, but of this sum the ECA chief in Saigon has publicly committed $23.5 million for Indochina. His action has already required, at least for planning purposes, a cut of approximately 40 percent in the programs originally proposed for Burma, Thailand and Indonesia.
These cuts could be tolerated last week. They are now increasingly obnoxious in view of the changed political situation, in view of SOA’s insistent position that the Burmese program should be restored to the original figure, and in view of the danger that it may become possible, i.e., desirable, to spend more money in Formosa.1
- The source text bears the following marginal notation by Livingston T. Merchant, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs: “I think we shld go ahead with full programs & plan later request to Congress for deficiency.” An additional notation by Assistant Secretary Rusk states “I agree.”↩