41. Letter From the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Murphy) to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Gray)1
Dear Gordon: I have deferred answering your letter of August 12 (I–14386/6) because our military policy was under review by the National Security Council and I thought that our reply should await the completion of that review. The President approved on September [Page 270] 25 a new policy statement on Latin America (NSC 5613/1) which includes modifications in our military policy.3
The second paragraph of your letter expresses some concern that we propose “to confine the reimbursable aid program within the limits of a policy having as its criterion only hemisphere defense.” I stated in my letter of May 8 that “We believe that the criteria for cash and credit sales to Latin America should be hemisphere defense and internal security.” Paragraph 33 of NSC 5613/1 also makes it quite clear that we should provide the minimum military equipment, on a grant basis if necessary, required by Latin American governments for the maintenance of both internal security and hemisphere defense. I do not believe that there is any difference of opinion between our two Departments on this point, or in fact within the Executive Branch.
I should hope that the gauge for the measurement of our reimbursable and grant aid programs which you have asked the JCS to provide will be sufficiently precise so that we can make the determinations required by NSC 5613/1. We have felt that an estimate of force requirements for internal security, as we now have for hemispheric defense, would give us a satisfactory gauge to consider Latin American arms requests. It has been our thought that our military missions in Latin America could provide adequate information on which to base an estimate of internal security force requirements. It has also been our thought once we had an estimate for force requirements that our military mission might review reimbursable aid requests so that our two Departments could have their comments before acting upon a request, especially if the request were of a substantial nature.
As I stated in my letter of May 8, we believe that an assured source of a modest amount of funds for credit operations is indispensable. We would, therefore, be prepared to support your proposed request in fiscal year 1958 to establish a revolving fund for this purpose.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 720.5/8–156. Secret. Drafted by Sayre; cleared by Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Rubottom, Barnes, and Kalijarvi.↩
- Document 39.↩
- Document 16.↩
- Printed from a copy which bears this typed signature.↩