170. Memorandum of a Conference With the President, White House, Washington, December 5, 19571
PRESENT
- Secretary McElroy
- General Goodpaster
Mr. McElroy said he would like to have the President’s concurrence in the over-all figure for the Defense budget, and in the split between FY 58 and 59. After discussion with Secretary Anderson, he felt that he should go in for an additional $1260 million NOA in FY 58 (he had tried to put as large an amount as seemed solid and well justified into a request for the current year.) This would cover acceleration [Page 703] and augmentation relating to Polaris, to SAC dispersal, to ballistic missile detection, to procurement of the ICBM, and to procurement of Thor and Jupiter.
The President said he thought he gathered from Dr. Killian that the latter felt a decision should be made as between Thor and Jupiter. Mr. McElroy said that after the NATO and other conferences we should have an indication of the speed at which the IRBM’s are desired, and could then make a decision. He added that we need to have a number of successful flights of complete missiles before we make the decision. He also said that the JCS think there would be value in putting the IRBM in Turkey, Okinawa, and Alaska.
For FY 59, Mr. McElroy said he would like a gross total of $39.153 billion in NOA—taking account of a reduction through stock fund liquidation, the net NOA figure would be $38.828. Thus the over-all NOA pattern would be $36.6 billion in FY 58 and $38.8 billion in FY 59—thus showing a step-up of about $2 billion.
Mr. McElroy said he had dropped out of his budget $300 million for the “6%” increase for military and civilian pay. This was based on yesterday’s decision reported to him to limit proposals to the Cordiner proposals, and hold back with regard to other pay until pressures required some Administration action. The President asked whether the $430 million figure remaining included a 6% increase for some military people (those not benefiting from the Cordiner proposals). Mr. McElroy said it did not—that would add $150 million. The President said he did not feel we should raise the pay of people in their first enlistment, and Mr. McElroy said the $150 million would not include any increase for a man fulfilling his period of obligated service.
Mr. McElroy said that, second, he needed to tell the services what force levels for FY 60 and FY 61 they should use for their planning. He wanted to say that they should continue to use the 2,525,000 figure, with a further proviso that this figure would probably not change more than 5%. The President indicated general assent to this proposal.
The President said he still sticks a little on the proposed $140 million add-on for research. He recalled that Dr. Killian said he could justify these figures, but his interest is really to know whether they are necessary. After further discussion on this point, Mr. McElroy said he would keep an eye on this matter, but no change or reconsideration was definitely agreed upon.
The President said what he is really giving a lot of thought to is what is the figure that will create confidence. He thought that a feeling of greater confidence in the security sphere might go over into economic confidence as well, and thus help the economic picture. The President said that he thought that about two-thirds of the supplementary funds are more to stabilize public opinion than to meet the real need for acceleration, and Mr. McElroy agreed. Mr. McElroy said that [Page 704] expenditures for FY 58 are now set for $38.61 billion, and for FY 59 at $39.441 billion, and added that there is no panic in that kind of a program.
Brigadier General USA
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries. Secret. Drafted by Goodpaster. A note on the source text indicates the meeting took place following We NSC meeting.↩