Preface

The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major United States foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity of the United States Government. The series documents the facts and events that contributed to the formulation of policies and includes evidence of supporting and alternative views to the policy positions ultimately adopted.

The Historian of the Department of State is charged with the responsibility for the preparation of the Foreign Relations series. The staff of the Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, plans, researches, compiles, and edits the volumes in the series. This documentary editing proceeds in full accord with the generally accepted standards of historical scholarship. Official regulations codifying specific standards for the selection and editing of documents for the series were promulgated by Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg on March 26, 1925. A statutory charter for the preparation of the series was established by Title IV of the Department of State’s Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 USC 4351 et seq.), which was signed by President George Bush on October 28, 1991.

The statute requires that the Foreign Relations series be a thorough, accurate, and reliable record of major United States foreign policy decisions and significant United States diplomatic activity. The volumes of the series should include all records needed to provide comprehensive documentation of major foreign policy decisions and actions of the United States Government, including facts that contributed to the formulation of policies and records that provide supporting and alternative views to the policy positions ultimately adopted.

The statute confirms the editing principles established by Secretary Kellogg: the Foreign Relations series is guided by the principles of historical objectivity and accuracy; records should not be altered or deletions made without indicating in the published text that a deletion has been made; the published record should omit no facts that were of major importance in reaching a decision; and nothing should be omitted for the purposes of concealing a defect in policy. The statute also requires that the Foreign Relations series be published not more than 30 years after the events recorded.

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The volume presented here, which was originally compiled and prepared as a book manuscript in 1987, meets all the standards of selection and editing prevailing in the Department of State at that time and complies fully with the spirit of the standards of selection, editing, and range of sources established by the statute of October 28, 1991. This volume records policies and events of more than 30 years ago, but the statute allows the Department until 1996 to reach the 30-year line in the publication of the series.

Structure and Scope of the Foreign Relations Series

This volume is part of a triennial subseries of volumes of the Foreign Relations series that documents the most important issues in the foreign policy of the final 3 years (1958–1960) of the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This subseries comprises 18 print volumes totaling more than 16,000 pages and 7 microfiche supplements presenting more than 14,000 pages of original documents.

The focus of this volume is on the main foreign economic issues confronting U.S. policymakers and on the formulation of major policies dealing with monetary and trade issues, mutual security (or military assistance), economic aid, international investment, strategic resources, and economic defense. Related documents on U.S. policies toward the European Economic Community and military assistance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are included in Volume VII, Part 1. Some aspects of military assistance are documented in Volume III in the compilation on U.S. national security policy, while the bilateral and regional dimensions of economic and military assistance to developing nations are treated in volumes on the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. U.S. policies on economic defense and strategic materials and commodities also receive some coverage in Volume X, Eastern Europe Region; Soviet Union; Cyprus.

Sources for the Foreign Relations Series

The original research, compilation, and editing of this volume were done in 1987 under the Department regulation derived from Secretary of State Kellogg’s charter of 1925. This regulation prescribed that the Foreign Relations series include “a comprehensive record of the major foreign policy decisions within the range of the Department of State’s responsibilities.” The regulation further stipulated that the additional required records “needed to supplement the documentation in the Department” be obtained from other government agencies.

The Department of State’s historians have had, for the series in general and for the particular volume published here, complete and unconditional access to all records and papers of the Department of State: the central files of the Department; the files of the Department’s [Page V] Executive Secretariat that comprehend all the official papers created by or submitted to the Secretary of State; the special decentralized files (“lot files”) of the Department at the bureau, office, and division levels; the files of overseas diplomatic and consular posts and U.S. special missions; and all the official correspondence with foreign governments and with other Federal agencies. Any failure to include a complete Department of State record in the Foreign Relations series cannot be attributed to constraints or limitations placed upon the Department historians in their access to Department records, information security regulations and practices notwithstanding.

Department of State historians preparing the Foreign Relations series, including the volume published here, have enjoyed full access to the papers of the Presidents and to ail other White House foreign policy records. All of this documentation has been made available for use in the preparation of the Foreign Relations series thanks to the exceptional cooperation and support of the National Archives and Records Administration, its Office of Presidential Libraries, and the particular Presidential library. The Department of State owes particular thanks for the research of this volume to the staff of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.

In addition to Presidential correspondence and records of Presidential meetings and conversations, the documentation in the White House files at the Eisenhower Library were the most important sources for the preparation of the volume published here. Department historians had full and complete access to all the institutional documentation of the National Security Council (NSC) including the memoranda of discussion at NSC meetings, formal NSC documents, and related papers, There was also full access to the subject files of Presidential records (particularly the Whitman File), the files of other White House officials, and more informal policy documentation in other collections in the Eisenhower Library. It should be noted that the editors supplemented the NSC records from the Eisenhower Library with documents in the Department of State files.

The records preserved and maintained at the Presidential libraries include some of the most significant foreign affairs documentation of other Federal agencies such as the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Department of State historians, with the considerable cooperation of the various agencies, have obtained access to records requested for possible inclusion in the Foreign Relations volumes. Access to records of other agencies maintained at the Presidential libraries has been supplemented by special research visits to the historical files retained by these agencies or transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration. Department historians have enjoyed steadily broadened [Page VI] access to the records of the Department of Defense, particularly the records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Completion of the declassification of this volume and the final steps of its preparation for publication coincided with the development since early 1991 by the Central Intelligence Agency in cooperation with the Department of State of expanded access by Department historians to high-level intelligence documents from among those records still in the custody of that Agency. The Department of State chose not to postpone the publication of this volume to ascertain how such access might affect the scope of available documentation and the changes that might be made in the contents of this particular volume. The Department is, however, using this expanded access, as arranged by the CIA’s History Staff, for compilation of future volumes in the Foreign Relations series.

The statute of October 28, 1991, requires that the published record in the Foreign Relations series include all records needed to provide comprehensive documentation of all the major foreign policy decisions and actions of the United States Government. It further requires that government agencies, departments, and other entities of the United States Government cooperate with the Department of State Historian by providing full and complete access to records pertinent to foreign policy decisions and actions and by providing copies of selected records. Although prepared in compliance with an earlier Department regulation, this volume was prepared in a manner fully consonant with the standards and mandates for compilation contained in the 1991 statute.

The List of Sources, pages XIII-XVII, identifies the particular files and collections used in the preparation of this volume.

The editors also consulted copies of the journals of Clarence Randall, who was Chairman of the Council on Foreign Economic Policy during this triennium, at the Eisenhower Library. They gratefully acknowledge the permission of Mr. Randall’s daughters, Mary R. Gilkey and Lemuel B. Hunter, to publish in this volume references to and quotations from the journals.

Principles of Selection for Foreign Relations, 1958–1960, Volume IV

In selecting documents for the volume published here, the editors sought to present as complete a record as possible of the President’s policy decisions and instructions regarding the basic elements of foreign economic policy. The editors selected for inclusion policy recommendations placed before the President both in written documents, in meetings of the National Security Council, in major recommendations of the Council on Foreign Economic Policy, and in other oral presentations and briefings from various officials and agencies. The role of the [Page VII] Secretary of State in formulating major foreign economic policies and in executing the President’s policy decisions was also a focus of the editors’ selection of documents for this volume.

The editors concentrated on the formulation and execution of the major lines of foreign economic policy and left to other volumes in this series the documentation of regional and bilateral policies and agreements. The location of some of these other foreign economic policy records in the 1958–1960 segment of the Foreign Relations series is described earlier in this Preface. In this volume, the editors did not seek to include documentation other than that available to the White House and the Department of State on the efforts in other Federal agencies to recommend foreign economic policies or to implement and support policies finally adopted; nor did they seek to document foreign economic intelligence activities.

In selecting documents for this volume, the editors have concentrated exclusively on presenting previously classified or undisclosed records. In general public statements and agreements have not been included, although previously released information has been identified where it is particularly relevant in understanding documents printed here for the first time.

Editorial Methodology

The documents are presented chronologically according to Washington time. Incoming telegrams from U.S. missions are placed according to time of receipt in the Department of State or other receiving agency, rather than the time of transmission; memoranda of conversation are placed according to the time and date of the conversation, rather than the date the memorandum was drafted. Washington has not been included in the dateline if a document originated there or if a conversation took place there.

Editorial treatment of the documents published in Foreign Relations series follows Office style guidelines, supplemented by guidance from the General Editor and the chief technical editor. The source text is reproduced as exactly as possible, including marginalia or other notations, which are described in the footnotes. Obvious typographical errors are corrected, but other mistakes and omissions in the source text are corrected by bracketed insertions: a correction is set in italic type; an addition in roman type. Bracketed insertions are also used to indicate text that deals with an unrelated subject (in roman type) or that remains classified after declassification review (in italic type). The amount of material not declassified has been noted by indicating the number of lines or pages of source text that were omitted. The amount of material omitted because it was unrelated, however, is not accounted for. All ellipses and brackets that appear in the source text are so identified by footnotes.

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The unnumbered first footnote to each document indicates the document’s source, original classification, distribution, and drafting information. The source footnote also provides the background of important documents and policies and indicates if the President or his major policy advisers read the document. Every effort has been made to determine if a document has been previously published, and this information has been included in the source footnote.

Editorial notes and additional annotation summarize pertinent material not printed in the volume, indicate the location of additional documentary sources, provide references to important related documents printed in other volumes, describe key events, and provide summaries of and citations to public statements that supplement and elucidate the printed documents. Information derived from memoirs and other first-hand accounts have been used when appropriate to supplement or explicate the official record.

Declassification Review

The declassification review process for this volume resulted in the withholding from publication of 0.14 percent of the documents originally selected. None of the documents was completely denied. Most of the withheld material was in the compilation on economic defense. In the opinion of the editors, the deletions do not substantively impair the comprehensiveness or accuracy of the record of United States foreign economic policy.

The Division of Historical Documents Review of the Office of Freedom of Information, Privacy, and Classification Review, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Department of State, conducted the declassification review of the documents published in this volume. The review was conducted in accordance with the standards set forth in Executive Order 12356 on National Security Information and applicable laws.

Under Executive Order 12356, information that concerns one or more of the following categories, and the disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security, requires classification:

1)

military plans, weapons, or operations;

2)

the vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, projects, or plans relating to the national security;

3)

foreign government information;

4)

intelligence activities (including special activities), or intelligence sources or methods;

5)

foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States;

6)

scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to national security;

7)

U.S. Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities;

8)

cryptology; or

9)

a confidential source.

The principle guiding declassification review is to release all information, subject only to the current requirements of national security and law. Declassification decisions entailed concurrence of the appropriate geographic and functional bureaus in the Department of State, other concerned agencies of the U.S. Government, and the appropriate foreign governments regarding specific documents of those governments.

Acknowledgements

As noted before, the editors gratefully acknowledge the permission of Clarence Randall’s daughters, Mary R. Gilkey and Lemuel B. Hunter, to publish in this volume references to and quotations from Mr. Randall’s journals, copies of which are in the Eisenhower Library.

The editors also acknowledge the assistance of officials at the National Archives and Records Administration, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, the Department of Commerce, Department of the Treasury, and other specialized document repositories who assisted in the collection of documents for this volume.

Under the supervision of former editor John P. Glennon, Harriet Dashiell Schwar collected, selected, and edited the compilations on general foreign economic policy and international financial and monetary policy; Suzanne E. Coffman the compilations on trade and commercial policy, international investment and economic development policy, and mutual security and foreign aid policy; and Edward C. Keefer the compilations on strategic resources and international commodities and economic defense policy. General Editor Glenn W. La-Fantasie supervised the final steps in the editorial and publication process. Rita M. Baker, Althea W. Robinson, and Vicki E. Futscher did the technical editing. Barbara-Ann Bacon of the Publishing Services Division (Natalie H. Lee, Chief) oversaw the production if the volume. Breffni Whalen prepared the index.