Office of the Historian

S/S–NSC files, lot 63 D 351, NSC 163 Series

Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Intelligence (Armstrong)1 to the Secretary of State

top secret
Washington, October 19, 1953.
  • Subject:
  • NSC–163: Security of Strategically Important Industrial Operations in Foreign Countries2
[Page 1029]

NSC–163 is proposed by the Planning Board to supplant a 1948 directive (NSC–29)3 which established a program for improving the security of foreign sources of strategically important materials. The new directive would (a) reduce by about 50% the number of industrial facilities to be given attention, (b) limit protective action by the U.S. to that considered commensurate with the appraised risks to the installation, and (c) transfer administration of the program from the Department to the Office of Defense Mobilization, with the Department retaining full responsibility for negotiations with foreign governments.

Discussion:

In the Planning Board the Department took the position that NSC–29 was a marginal program and should be discontinued. It was, and is, our view that for a variety of reasons substantial improvement in the security of industrial facilities abroad is not feasible at this time and that further efforts to persuade foreign governments to permit U.S. security surveys of installations on their territory or to improve existing security arrangements would simply create illwill without compensating improvement in the security situation. While acknowledging the difficulties, ODM and Defense nevertheless felt strongly that a continuing effort should be made to maintain such improvements as have been achieved since 1948 and, where feasible, to increase the security of our most important and vulnerable foreign sources of supply. It was eventually agreed that the limited and modified program attached was acceptable to all agencies and should be recommended to the Council.

Recommendation:

That you approve NSC–163 without change. (Including the new language paragraph 3–c added at Wednesday’s Planning Board Meeting.) See red tab.4

  1. W. Park Armstrong, Jr.↩
  2. NSC 163, dated Oct. 1, 1953, not printed, is the same as NSC 163/1, dated Oct. 24, 1953, as revised at the NSC meeting of Oct. 22. For the memorandum of discussion at that meeting and the text of NSC 163/1, see pp. 1032 and 1034.↩
  3. Not printed, but see the eighth progress report on NSC 29, dated Jan. 21, 1952, p. 822.↩
  4. Not printed.↩