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

255. Memorandum from President Eisenhower to Secretary of State Herter⁰

April 23, 1960.

I am interested in two subjects affecting our foreign operations that have come to my attention:

1. Ambassador Byroade told me of his conversations with Secretary Dillon¹ regarding the need for better technical people in the field who gather the information for contracts for the construction of dams, roads, buildings, and so forth and so forth, under the aegis of ICA. He thinks that this contracting is done from the central office on the basis of inadequate information. The result is that facilities constructed are often not those that are desired by the country and in the case of roads, badly located. Moreover, he believes that if we could have better supervision in the field, we could eliminate criticism of peculation and waste. He advocates the use of Army engineers—and I must say the idea has some appeal.

2. My second point concerns an article in the paper this morning,² in which Governor Rockefeller (supposedly a Republican supporter) is advocating a “bold new program” for the United States in its leadership of the free world. The article was not a detailed one, but by inference I gather he was talking about a new type of ICA operation.

I should like for you or Dillon to have a talk with him to see what he has in mind. It is easy to say the words “bold” and “new”—but this means nothing unless he has got a practical program that has escaped our attention. I assume he knows we have been trying to secure the cooperation of other industrial countries in the free world and that we have done everything possible to stir up greater cooperation and public interest in these necessary operations. However, it would be interesting to know just what he is insinuating.

D.E.

0. Source: Eisenhower Library, Herter Papers. Personal. The source text bears the handwritten notation, “CDD saw.”
1. No further record of these conversations has been found.
2. Presumably “Rockefeller Bids U.S. Stop Improvising on Leadership,” by William G. Weart, which reported on Rockefeller’s April 22 address before the Philadelphia World Affairs Council; for text of the article, see The New York Times, April 23, 1960.