Office of the Historian

Secretary’s Staff Meetings,1 lot 63 D 75

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Executive Secretariat (Scott)

secret
[Washington,] April 23, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • Summary of Acting Secretary’s2 Staff Meeting, 9:15 a.m., Secretary’s Office

[Here follow a list of the 16 participants and a brief reference to a report on intelligence developments.]

2. PBOS Meeting.

The Acting Secretary stated that at this meeting yesterday he felt that we were out numbered and that our case was not too good. The military had insisted that on D-Day they should have control of 25% of U.S. military tonnage requirements. He stated that he had presented our case as best he could but he felt that the military were probably correct; that on D-Day this was a minimum requirement of supply tonnage to have under military orders; that commercial shipping was not satisfactory as officer and crew were not required to go into combatant waters.3 He also stated that the PBOS planning for D-Day plus 24 months was completely unrealistic, as no one could see that far into the future and it should be abandoned. In reply to Mr. Bonbright’s statement that this was to our advantage because it gave the British and ourselves control of merchant shipping far greater than that given to us unilaterally, [Page 428] both The Acting Secretary and Mr. Murphy4 replied that experience of the last war in dealing with the British in shipping matters would lead them to believe that the military were still right—that we had always come out on the short end of the stick when dealing with the British in this field.

[Here follows discussion of a Coal and Steel Community loan and Indochina.]

  1. The Secretary’s Staff Meetings were held several times a week during the period 1953–1961. Usually presided over by the Secretary, these meetings dealt with a wide range of policy questions. The Under Secretary of State, Deputy Under Secretary, Assistant Secretaries, and various office directors also attended the meetings.↩
  2. Walter B. Smith.↩
  3. At this point in the source text appears an illegible, crossed-out word. Inserted in its place, uninitialed, is the word “waters”.↩
  4. Robert Murphy, Deputy Under Secretary of State.↩