Office of the Historian

S/S–NSC files, lot 63 D 351, “NSC 5434”

Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Mutual Security Affairs (Nolting) to the Secretary of State1

secret
Washington, October 4, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • NSC Agenda Item “Procedures for Periodic NSC Review of Military Assistance Program”.2

Discussion

The subject paper establishes procedures designed to gear in more closely military assistance programs and related mutual security programs to policies established by the National Security Council and the President.

Two steps are proposed: (1) modification of the semi-annual NSC Status Report on the Mutual Security Program to provide understandable summaries of the progress toward the creation of armed strength in the various areas and countries which receive our aid; and (2) establishment of a high-level interdepartmental committee (State, Defense, FOA; with Treasury, ODM and the Budget Bureau as observers) to review the semi-annual Status Report and to flag important issues to the attention of the National Security Council.

There are two splits in the paper. FOA suggests that FOA should act as chairman of the interdepartmental committee in view of Governor Stassen’s role as coordinator under the statute. The feeling [Page 780] of the other members of the Planning Board is that State should chair the committee. The second split is important. It involves the question of whether the committee can concern itself with priorities between international and national programs, the allocation of end-items from current production, and the development of the mobilization base and levels of production at home and abroad. Since these are the root factors which really determine the rate of buildup abroad, it is important that they be included in the frame of reference of the committee if it is to discharge its responsibility. Defense objects on grounds that the question of allocation and levels of production is strictly a Defense Department matter.

Recommendation

It is recommended that you strongly support the objective of this paper and the proposed procedure. It is further recommended that you support the position that the State Department should chair the committee in view of the overall foreign policy considerations involved, and that you support inclusion of the bracketed portions on pages 4 and 5 as essential to the committee in carrying out the objectives of the paper.

  1. Concurred in by the Policy Planning Staff, the office of the Deputy Under Secretary of State, and the Bureaus of European, Far Eastern, Inter-American, and Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs. Prepared in connection with the scheduled discussion of the subject at the 216th meeting of the National Security Council on Oct. 6, 1954. The NSC deferred discussion until its next meeting on Oct. 14. For the memorandum of discussion at the Oct. 14 meeting covering NSC 5434, see infra.↩
  2. NSC 5434; see the memorandum by Parelman, supra.↩