PPS Files, Lot 64 D 563
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Miller) to the Executive Secretary of the Policy Planning Staff (Watts)
Subject: United States Programs for National Security.
I return herewith copy No. 97 of document entitled, “United States Programs for National Security” and attachments.1 This document is returned without comment on the part of ARA since there is no reference in the document to the area with respect to which ARA has responsibility and, in fact, this area appears to be specifically excluded in paragraph 22 on page 16 of the document which enumerates the areas of the world of importance in building strength.
In returning the document without comment as to its text, however, I hope that I may be permitted to express once again the astonishment of ARA over the persistence in excluding Latin America from any consideration whatever in world strategy. It is beyond our comprehension how we can classify U.S. national territory as of basic strategic importance and not include Mexico; how we can include Iran as of basic strategic importance and make no reference to Venezuela, which is today producing nearly 1,800,000 barrels of petroleum a day and is capable of producing much more; how it is possible to include the Near East as a strategic area and make no reference to the Panama Canal; in substance, how it is possible to consider global strategy without taking into account in any way an area which because of geographical proximity, entirely aside from ideological considerations, would appear to merit consideration in the preparation of papers such as the attached.
In the meantime, the greatest possible care should be taken that a document which purports to review world strategy without referring to Latin America be preserved in the greatest possible secrecy so as to avoid repercussions which would attend any leakage of this document both from the standpoint of U.S. public opinion and the relations of the United States with Latin America.2
- Reference is to a preliminary draft of NSC 114/2; for partial text of the final report, see p. 182.↩
- For documentation on U.S. relations with the American Republics, see vol. ii, pp. 925 ff.↩