86. Memorandum of Conference with the President1
OTHERS PRESENT
- General Twining
- General Goodpaster
General Twining said that the Chiefs had been considering the situation in China, in the Formosa Straits area. They have started the preparation of contingency plans, and have alerted commanders in the area, but have directed no specific action. He understood the matter would come up for consideration in the NSC this week, and commented that the situation is unclear, perhaps intentionally so, with respect to the objective of defending the offshore islands. The President said he had spoken to Gordon Gray a few minutes earlier on this same subject, and had suggested it might be best to have just the statutory NSC members meet with him to discuss the question. He confirmed that the picture is cloudy regarding the offshore islands. There are good reasons for taking the view that they should be abandoned. However, a great part of the Chinese Nationalist forces are now deployed on the islands, and their removal or loss would be a signal to all of Asia that there is no hope that can be held out against the Communists in China. General Twining [Typeset Page 288] commented that the military authorities are concentrating on getting the F–86s on the islands into operational status quickly.
General Twining next reported briefly on SAC dispersal. He said he understood the President had expressed recent question about this. In general, our plans do not call for going beyond squadron dispersal and he did not think they should. He showed the President a graphic summary indicating that a substantial fraction are kept constantly ready and bombed up; others could be gotten in the air quickly, although not bombed up, unless there had been an alert warning (as in the case of the Lebanese crisis). The President raised for consideration the idea of putting parallel runways on existing bases, since the runway presently limits the number of planes that could be gotten off. He then said he questioned the validity of planning which contemplated putting on one field more planes than could be reasonably gotten away. Additional runways [Facsimile Page 2] on the base would cost much less than additional aircraft which probably can’t get off anyhow. He thought we should make all possible arrangements to “bomb up” rapidly and get the planes into the air. General Twining undertook to have this matter studied.
General Twining said that the Chiefs are making plans for troop withdrawal from Lebanon, so that when the time comes we will be in position to do it in a proper way. He thought any out-movement of troops should be done quietly and with dignity, without making a fanfare. The President indicated general agreement, commenting that he would have to look at any specific proposal.
As a final item, General Twining said that Defense is moving forward on the question of reorganization. A phased series of steps will be taken over the next three or four months. The President stressed the importance of watching the allocation of research and development projects very carefully—to see that once a project is assigned, other services do not duplicate the activity.
The President asked me to make sure Gordon Gray understood that General Twining should attend any meeting of the statutory members of the NSC, and I did so.
Brigadier General, USA
- Source: Formosa Straits; SAC dispersal; withdrawal from Lebanon; Department of Defense reorganization. Secret. 2 pp. Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries.↩