Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean, Volume VIII

611.00/10–2453

No. 49
Memorandum by the President to the Secretary of State

top secret

Washington, October 24, 1953.

I think that the men who got together to submit the attached report¹ should be complimented on taking hold of this thorny subject and giving us their opinions on it. I would like to see them encouraged to continue their study of the matter; in this way we shall certainly get more valid reports than we would otherwise.

At any point where we think they have gone a bit astray, we should give them the benefit of our own thinking.

I do believe that they treat the term “psychological warfare” in too narrow a fashion. After all, psychological warfare can be anything from the singing of a beautiful hymn up to the most extraordinary kind of physical sabotage.

I agree with their report that during this period our work should be carefully thought out and should be in concert with the ideas of our allies. On the other hand, I agree with C. D. Jackson that we must have a very definite American objective and know exactly what it is. There may come a time when it will be very important for us that we make no mistake on this point.

Finally, I must remark that it seems strange to me that here at home and abroad prominent officials of our government have completely diverse opinions as to what happened in East Berlin and East Germany. It would seem that we could at least have the same understanding of the facts. The attached document² and C. D. Jackson’s memorandum show that this is not so.³

D.E.

1. Although no report was found attached to the source text, this is presumably a reference to Document 43.
2. Reference is to a memorandum by Minnich to President Eisenhower, Oct. 14, which briefly summarized Document 45.
3. In a memorandum of Nov. 6 to President Eisenhower, W. B. Smith responded to the President’s final point by remarking that the parenthetical passage in Part II(C) of the psychological warfare memorandum should have made clear that the U.S. psychological efforts mentioned therein came after the outbreak of the riots, and not before. (762B.00/11–653)