Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume III, Microfiche Supplement, National Security Policy; Arms Control and Disarmament

261. Memorandum for the Record¹

Washington, August 15, 1960

SUBJECT

• Conversation with Mr. Gates on the preparation of the NSTL and SIOP, 15 Aug 60

1. I asked for an audience with Mr. Gates at 1345 on Monday.

2. I told Mr. Gates that I had heard enough rumors in regard to my attitude and the Navy’s attitude to warrant explaining directly to him what my attitude was so that there would be no doubt whatever in his mind. In addition to the rumors, there was a smear campaign started against Burke and against the Navy which was as yet in the generating stage. Nothing serious had come up yet. They were just laying the groundwork. This was evident in the papers over the weekend. The papers by themselves would not have caused me any concern but I was warned by one of my friends in the newspaper business who called up and asked what was the campaign going on against Burke. What had I done? What was I so uncooperative about? Why was not I a teamplayer? He thought I was a teamplayer. I told him I did not know what it was all about whereupon he said I just wanted to let you know there are stories that are being spread which you should know about.

3. I told Mr. Gates that because of these stories I wanted him to know directly that although I did not agree one damned bit with his decision and the President’s support of his decision, the decision was made and I and the Navy would support it. I told him that he should know that from his past experience and that I was disconcerted first—when General Twining was talking to the President and stated that the only reason this thing might not work would be that the Navy would not want to make it work. As he would remember, I replied that if this plan were put into effect and it failed, it would not fail because the Navy would not try to make it work but because some other group did or because the system itself was wrong. Also I was concerned when I had heard rumors that Mr. Gates had made statements and I think he had made them to me too, that he expected to bear reverberations from the Navy on this, that he expected to be crucified by the Navy, and other similar things. I said he ought to know better than that. The Navy was not going to do any such thing, although naturally there would be great disappointments and there would be some comment but there was not going to be any general attack on Mr. Gates.

4. Mr. Gates said he really did know that, but that he particularly did not mean the leadership of the Navy. He knew that we would support the decisions that were made if we accepted the decision at all. If we were to fight we would fight above board. However, he said that he had had great experience since he had been in the Secretary of Defense office. There had been many occasions when subordinate people in all Services kept fighting for their own Services against the decisions of the Secretary of Defense. I said that I did not know about that. I didn’t think the Navy was really very much involved in that sort of business. Before the decision was made, that could be true. There would be presentations which all the Services would put on to favor their own projects and that sort of business.

5. I again repeated that I wanted Mr. Gates to know exactly where I stood, that I had taken this thing to the President although I knew when I asked to see the President that the President would have to stand by the Secretary of Defense’s basic decision. What I wanted to do then was to impress upon the President and upon the Secretary of Defense, and everybody else two things. First, the responsibilities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They had to know what they were doing. They had to get into the basic data. They had to have the basic data available to them. They had to analyze the NSTL and the SIOP. They had to be able to do this completely, thoroughly and in any way it might turn out to be most convenient to do it. This meant that all data, raw data, finished data, working data, everything else had to be made available to the JCS in the event the JCS wanted it. And to the [illegible in the original] of the JCS.

6. Mr. Gates said I certainly had made that point clear enough. And he agreed with it. He was sure the President understood it. The President had said that in different words himself when talking about the means of doing this.

7. I then said the second reason why I wanted to take this to the President was to prevent a snow job. I knew that Mr. Gates expected a reasonable target list and a reasonable operational plan to come out of this organization. I did not think it would come out unless extraordinary efforts were taken. I meant to take those extraordinary efforts. And I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that those extraordinary efforts would be necessary and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to make sure that all of the data would be available for checking. What I was afraid of was that the atomic weapons requirements and the force levels, the disposition of forces, the whole budget procedure could be changed radically if these documents were not well analyzed, studied not only by the Joint Chiefs but also by the Unified Commanders.

8. Mr. Gates agreed with this thoroughly.

9. He then said that one of the reasons and by no means the least reason why he wanted to get this done now was because of what he was afraid was coming in the next Administration regardless of who was elected. He said that this would permit the Joint Chiefs to get hold of SAC. He was going to speak to General Power in very harsh terms. He did not like what Power had done to date. He was going to tell Power exactly what he thought and exactly what Power would have to do in order to make this thing reasonable and to make it work. He also said that this procedure would permit the Navy and the other Services, but mostly the Navy because the Navy had the most to lose, to escape from a more radical reorganization later on. He thought that unless something were done now that we would surely be faced with a strategic command in which SAC or the Air Force would take command of the Naval delivery units sometime in the future. He thought this decision he had made would prevent that. He said that perhaps in two years from now the Navy would feel like giving him a Guggenheim Medal. I said that perhaps that was correct if it came out the way he expected it to come out which I was going to try to make it do, he should have a Guggenheim Medal. The thing that I was still afraid of was that there was a long road ahead, and a lot of turning-off paths, a lot of slippery places and I was still fearful that SAC would get hold of a budget in such a way that nobody could reexamine it.

Arleigh Burke

1. Source: Record of a meeting between Burke and Gates on preparation of NSTL and SIOP. Top Secret; Hold Closely; No Distribution. 3 pp. Naval Historical Center, Burke Papers, NSTL/SIOP Briefing.