Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Foreign Economic Policy, Volume IV

235. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower⁰

March 17, 1959.¹

OTHERS PRESENT

• General W. H. Draper, Messrs. Dillon Anderson, Joseph Dodge, Marx Leva, John McCloy, George McGhee, James Webb, Generals Gruenther and McNarney, Admiral Radford, Colonel G. A. Lincoln, Messrs. Tyler Wood and Tracy Voorhees, General Goodpaster²

Mr. Draper reviewed with the President the Interim Report of his group, and a covering letter,³ both of which he then handed to the President.

He commented that the group had found that some of the criticisms of the program are justified. There have been long delays, and programming has been slow on many occasions. They feel that the errors in execution are of some importance, but stress that they are quite incidental and minor in relation to the value of the program. The President said that it is frustrating to him that after six years of constant effort we still can’t get the degree of efficiency we wish.

Mr. Draper next commented that the group is thinking in terms of clear recognition and acceptance that this is a long-term program. He pointed out that as long as it is kept on a short-term basis we will not get the best people to man it.

At Mr. Draper’s request Mr. McCloy next spoke about the NATO area. He said that this area is so potentially strong that any idea of not building up its strength would be both fantastic and foolish. There is a need to modernize the weapons of the forces in the area. These weapons in almost every case have quite long lead times. General McNarney said he and Mr. McCloy had gone carefully into the strategy in the area and he concurred that there is a great lack of modern weapons such as the Honest John, the Sergeant and the Mace which have great value in deterring the Soviets.

The President asked what impression the group had gotten of NATO thinking on the problem of authorizing the use of atomic weapons in the event of attack. He also mentioned a Chamber of Commerce survey which concluded by proposing to save money for the United States by cutting mutual security. He added that the argument that there has been excessive carry-over has been used to defeat the program in the past.

Mr. McCloy said there is much that is ominous in French attitudes.⁴ The President agreed, commenting that de Gaulle tends to take a tough attitude towards the Soviets while withdrawing his own forces and using them as he wishes—thus being firm with other people’s troops. The President said he has always thought that we should be ready to have the French fleet put on the same basis as the U.S. and U.K. As for himself, he would have gone further and would have put the U.S. and U.K. fleets completely under NATO.

With regard to the final report of the group, the President asked if they would have to go back for more material or whether their remaining task is chiefly one of analysis. Mr. Draper said it is a problem of analysis, study of the legislation, etc.

With regard to the Development Loan Fund, the President recalled that we have studied the matter carefully and felt that we should have about $600 million a year or so. It has been terribly hard going to get anything like adequate funds to make this program effective.

Mr. Draper next assured the President that the group is ready to help in any way it can. The President was very grateful for this comment and said that action by the group would be a very fine thing. Our people know the members of this group and have confidence in them. The members have investigated the situation themselves. He asked them to organize what they thought they could do and let him know what they thought the Administration could do. The President recalled an incident which he called “the conversion of George Humphrey,” who was a strong opponent of the program initially. The President said on several occasions he would lay out the problem to Mr. Humphrey and ask what he would do. Invariably Mr. Humphrey would come to accept the program but always on an intellectual basis, still saying that while he would do it he wouldn’t like it.

G.
Brigadier General, USA

0. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. Secret. Drafted by Goodpaster on March 20.
1. The meeting was held at the White House. Lincoln’s notes of this meeting are ibid., Draper Committee Records.
2. Lincoln and Wood served on the steering committee for the Draper Committee, while Voorhees was its counsel. The other participants in this meeting, except the President and Goodpaster, were members of the Draper Committee itself.
3. For text of the report, “Preliminary Conclusions of the President’s Committee to Study the United States Military Assistance Program, Submitted to the President With the Committee’s Letter of March 17, 1959,” see Department of State Bulletin, June 1, 1959, pp. 798–804. For text of the letter, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1959, pp. 1549–1551.
4. The French Government had decided to withdraw its fleet from the NATO Mediterranean Command.