88. Editorial Note
At its 297th meeting on September 20, the National Security Council discussed the matter of a reappraisal of United States policy regarding the entry into the United States of radioactive materials through diplomatic shipments. The Council considered a Department of State study, which had been authorized at the NSC meeting on March 8. This study, transmitted to the Council by a memorandum from Executive Secretary Lay, dated August 21, noted that neither international agreements nor unilateral United States action on this [Page 359] subject was feasible at this time. William H. Jackson, who replaced Dillon Anderson as Acting Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs on September 1, stated that the NSC Planning Board concurred in the Department of State’s conclusions. J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who was acting as chairman of the Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference, also endorsed the conclusions of the Department of State report, and added that the IIC and ICIS would keep the problem under continuing review. After additional comments on this topic by Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr. and the President, the National Security Council, in NSC Action No. 1603, concurred in the conclusion of the Department of State study that “neither international agreements nor unilateral U.S. action to prevent entry into the United States of radioactive materials through diplomatic shipments is feasible at this time,” and requested the IIC and the ICIS to keep the problem under continuing review and report to the Council if developments occurred which would warrant reconsideration of this conclusion. (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File,NSC Records) NSC Action No. 1603 was approved by the President on September 25. (Department of State, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Record of Actions by the National Security Council)
Regarding the March 8 NSC discussion, see Document 63. A copy of the Department of State study, transmitted by Lay’s memorandum of August 21, is in Department of State,S/P–NSC Files: Lot 62 D 1, Diplomatic Shipments (NSC 5527), as are various intradepartmental and interdepartmental memoranda on the development of this issue between the NSC discussions of March 8 and September 20.