531. Record of Telephone Conversation Between Herter and Gates1
The Secretary telephoned Mr. Gates to say he had spoken to the President this morning about nuclear production cut-off and the conversation the Secretary and Mr. Gates had on this subject yesterday. The Secretary said the President wanted to decide the matter right then, but that the Secretary had asked the President not to do this since Defense and the JCS were not present. The President agreed to defer his decision, but said he wanted to have a meeting on this following the NSC on Thursday, although the Secretary said he had just had word the meeting was arranged for 9:00 a.m. Thursday to be followed by NSC at 10:00 a.m. The Secretary said the participants would be Defense, JCS, State, AEC and Allen Dulles. The Secretary said he told the President Thursday morning might be too soon for Defense, but the President wanted to go ahead and the Secretary told Mr. Gates it might be well to see where we stand at the meeting. The Secretary said the issue, as he put it to the President, was very simply is it or is it not in our interests to move on this. The Secretary said because of the prior positions taken by the U.S. Government, including past statements by the President, that if we now decide we are not going ahead we have to have a strong negative position. The Secretary said he thought it would be well before the meeting on Thursday to have a preliminary meeting at the staff level, and that Mr. Farley would be getting in touch with Defense. The Secretary said he thought what we will probably do is distribute in advance a piece of paper on which we want approval or disapproval so we can get squared away. The Secretary said he couldn’t feel that more study is going to solve this problem because the JCS will be against it anyway, but the Secretary said he felt that unless this is really opposed to our national interest, we will have to be for it.
Mr. Gates said as far as he knew neither the JCS nor himself have sufficient facts to reach sound conclusions. The Secretary referred to the figures which General Loper must have and Mr. McCone’s information [Typeset Page 1948] on reworkability of fissionable material. Gates reiterated his feeling that we don’t have sufficient data to make an intelligent appraisal. After further discussion as to available information, Mr. Gates said perhaps he had not been informed by his own people as to what they had available, and he would look into it immediately. The Secretary said he thought Mr. Gates would find we had the essential facts.
- Source: Cut-off of production of fissionable material. No classification marking. 1 p. Eisenhower Library, Herter Papers, Phone Calls and Miscellaneous Memos.↩