10. Memorandum of Discussion at the 396th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, February 12, 19591
[Here follows a paragraph listing the participants at the meeting.]
1. U.S. Policy Toward Latin America (NSC 5902; NSC 5613/1; OCB Report, November 23, 1958, on NSC 5613/1; NSC Action No. 1930; NIE 80/90–58)
Mr. Gray requested the Director of Central Intelligence to provide the Council now with that portion of his regular intelligence briefing which dealt with Latin America.
Mr. Allen Dulles in agreeing with this suggestion pointed out to the President that his run-down of developments in Latin America would naturally tend to be gloomy since he would be touching upon trouble spots rather than upon those areas of Latin America where conditions were favorable from the point of view of the United States. Of these trouble spots Mr. Dulles indicated that Cuba was the most worrisome. In Cuba, he pointed out, we were threatened with a partial breakdown of the machinery of government. Thanks to the thoroughness of Castro’s recent revolution, there were very few trained government personnel remaining to undertake the routine tasks of administration. While President Urrutia was a good man, he was indecisive. [Page 80] Accordingly, Castro, who was only thirty-two years old and had no previous experience in government, was obliged to make all the important decisions. Meanwhile labor unrest in Cuba was spreading and this might affect the current sugar harvest. There were also evidences of growing unemployment, a fact which the Communist Party, which was now in the open, would seek to take advantage of. Finally, Castro considers himself the man on horseback, destined not only to liberate Cuba but to liberate all the other dictatorships in Latin America, including Puerto Rico. However, Betancourt in Venezuela and Munoz Marin apparently exerted considerable influence on Castro.
Secretary Anderson interrupted at this point to state that a group of officials from the new Cuban Government were coming to the Treasury Department this afternoon to talk with him about a stabilization fund. These officials apparently wanted $100 million for this purpose from the United States. Secretary Anderson said that he and his associates merely proposed to listen to the Cuban delegation at this afternoon’s meeting but he pointed out that a decision would have to be made in the next few days as to how far the U.S. Government was going to go in support of the Castro Government.
The President commented that he found it difficult to comprehend how we could do anything to stabilize the Cuban currency until the Government of Cuba itself had become stabilized. Secretary Anderson replied that as far as we knew in the Treasury Department, Cuban finances were not in particularly bad shape if we could rely on their figures. On the other hand, he felt that the President was right as to the requirement for a stabilized government prior to a stabilized currency.
Secretary Dillon expressed the opinion that such matters as Secretary Anderson had brought up could not be decided quickly. They must be gone into very thoroughly. He warned that a financial blowup in Cuba could very well lead to a blow-up of the new Cuban Government. Mr. Allen Dulles pointed out that the new Cuban officials had to be treated more or less like children. They had to be led rather than rebuffed. If they were rebuffed, like children, they were capable of doing almost anything.
Turning to the conflict between Nicaragua and Honduras, Mr. Dulles stated that the regime in Honduras was threatened by a revolt which had been started on Nicaraguan soil. The American Ambassadors in Honduras and Nicaragua were working on the problem. As a result Nicaragua may deport the Honduran rebels working on Nicaraguan soil. If this occurred, the revolt might abruptly end.
In Panama Mr. Dulles pointed out that the Administration was being threatened by political opponents who were preparing for the 1960 elections in Panama. While the opposition to the present Administration was divided, there could be trouble.
[Page 81]From Mexico, continued Mr. Dulles, came certain reports to the effect that Leftists and labor groups might organize demonstrations against the President when he made his forthcoming visit to Mexico. Mr. Dulles doubted whether such demonstrations, if carried out, would amount to very much. The President said that he doubted that he need anticipate any trouble in Mexico. No American visitors have encountered significant trouble in Mexico in the recent past.
In Venezuela Mr. Dulles suggested that there might be some agitation and riots tomorrow when the new President, Betancourt, was to be inaugurated. While Betancourt was very popular in the country as a whole, he was not well thought of by the majority in the city of Caracas.
Mr. Dulles felt that President Frondizi had returned to Argentina strengthened by his recent visit to the United States. While Frondizi is threatened by enemies of his austerity program for Argentina—the only program that can save the country—Mr. Dulles predicted that Frondizi would nevertheless do his best to carry out this program.
Chile was still beset by its traditional problems. It had nevertheless at the present time one of the best governments in the history of the country.
At the conclusion of Mr. Allen Dulles’s run-down of recent developments in Latin America, Mr. Gray began to brief the National Security Council on the new draft statement of policy which had been prepared by the NSC Planning Board (a copy of Mr. Gray’s briefing note is filed in the Minutes of the Meeting and another is attached to this Memorandum).2 He pointed out in his briefing note that the Vice President, who was unable to be present at this morning’s meeting, found the new draft generally acceptable. The draft had also been submitted to Dr. Milton Eisenhower who had likewise generally approved of it but had made certain specific suggestions for revision. Several of these suggestions had been agreed to by the NSC Planning Board. Other suggestions of Dr. Eisenhower had not found favor with the Planning Board although Mr. Gray stated he would nevertheless in the course of his briefing indicate these revisions as proposed by Dr. Eisenhower.
After briefly noting the main characteristics of NSC 5902 and indicating the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with respect to the paper as a whole, Mr. Gray suggested that the Council withhold judgment as to the wisdom of the proposal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the paper be returned to the Planning Board for revision, until the Council had had an opportunity to go through the main provisions of the new draft paper. After noting a number of specific new points contained in NSC 5902, many of which followed recommendations by [Page 82] the Vice President or Dr. Eisenhower, Mr. Gray said he wished to call attention to two split views in the paper which the Planning Board had been unable to resolve and on which he hoped the Council could come to a decision today. The first of these occurred in Paragraph 27–c on Page 13 reading as follows:
“To the extent feasible [taking into account the need to maintain a spirit of partnership and equality, and also the U.S. policy of expanding U.S.-Soviet bloc exchanges and encouraging the selective expansion of Free World-Soviet bloc exchanges,]3 encourage individual and collective action by the other American Republics against Sino-Soviet bloc influence and Communist or other anti-U.S. subversion, including: ”
After explaining to the best of his ability the nature of the disagreement about the above-mentioned sub-paragraph and noting that the bracketed language had been proposed for insertion by the representatives of Treasury, Budget, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Gray called on Secretary Anderson to elaborate, if he wished, on the reasons why the Treasury felt it desirable to include the bracketed language.
Secretary Anderson commenced by stating that he realized that the problem set forth in this paragraph was essentially a matter falling under the jurisdiction of the State Department. He nevertheless wanted to explain the Treasury point of view. He called attention to the fact that the U.S. Government, in dealing with this problem, was in the habit of differentiating between what we say for propaganda purposes and what we actually do in the matter of encouraging exchanges and trade between the U.S. and the Sino-Soviet Bloc. Whatever we may say for propaganda purposes, we decide on exchanges and trade with the Bloc on a case by case basis. However, as long as we continue to take this kind of propaganda stance and at the same time try to dissuade our Latin American friends from similarly engaging in exchanges with the Soviet Bloc, they will inevitably feel that we are talking down to them. Moreover, there are occasions when, for instance, the Russian offer to take Brazilian coffee (even though the Russians do not drink much coffee), such transactions take a burden off of the United States.
Secretary Dillon said he still believed it would be best if the bracketed language proposed by Treasury, Budget, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were deleted. We in the State Department did recognize that there was some inconsistency with respect to our policy on exchanges between Latin American countries and the countries of the Soviet Bloc. Nevertheless, ever since the Caracas meeting it has been basic U.S. policy to stress the danger of Communism in the Latin American countries. We have always felt that Latin Americans were [Page 83] insufficiently aware of the dangers of international Communism so that if we were to let down all barriers to exchanges between the Latin American countries and countries of the Soviet Bloc, the Latin American countries would go far beyond our own restrained program governing such exchanges. For these reasons we in the State Department feel that we should continue to discourage too free a policy of exchanges by the Latin American Republics.
There was yet another reason, said Secretary Dillon, which supported the deletion of the proposed language; namely, the existence in the earlier portions of the paper of language stressing the desire of the U.S. for an expression of partnership and equality among the Latin American Republics. Secretary Dillon felt that this kind of guidance belonged where it was found under the section headed General Guidance rather than in the specific guidance concerning the threat of Communism in Latin America.
Turning to the matter of trade between the Latin American Republics and the Soviet Bloc, Secretary Dillon emphasized that the present paper already contains a considerable revision of our previously more stringent objective of preventing such trade as dangerous (Paragraph 27–a–(7)). In addition to this revision in favor of encouraging larger trade between the Latin American countries and the Sino-Soviet Bloc proposed by the Planning Board there had been a further revision in the same direction as a result of suggestions made by Dr. Eisenhower. Thus while we may have gone too far in the past in trying to prevent trade in such surplus Latin American products as coffee and cocoa, these restrictions have been considerably eased in NSC 5902. Accordingly, this matter no longer seemed to Secretary Dillon to be a real issue. Still more to the point was the fact that the U.S.S.R. had only three embassies in Latin America; namely, in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City. All three of these were lively centers of espionage and propaganda and we hope that we can prevent the establishment of Soviet embassies in any other Latin American countries. Mr. Allen Dulles commented that a Soviet embassy might well be re-established in Cuba.
With respect to the problem raised by Paragraph 27–c and the proposal of the Treasury, Budget, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to include the bracketed language, the President observed that the problem seemed to be related chiefly to methods of operation and implementation. He felt that it would be a pretty slick and sensitive matter to carry out the injunction in Paragraph c to try to encourage action by the other American Republics against Communist or Sino-Soviet Bloc influence. It could be successfully done if the operators knew how to operate but the U.S. has often been criticized in the past for taking on a superior attitude on such matters. It is this, said the President, that worried him.
[Page 84]Mr. George Allen said there was yet another aspect of the problem of restricting the influence of Communism in the Latin American Republics which had not yet been mentioned. In a number of instances when Latin American musicians, scientists and the like were invited to visit the Soviet Union, they came to us and asked us whether they should accept such invitations. Moreover, they went further and asked whether, if they accepted a Soviet invitation, the U.S. would subsequently refuse to provide them with a visa to visit the U.S. Indeed, one of the main reasons for Latin American anger against the U.S. was the feeling that we treated Latin Americans with condescension. Accordingly, Mr. George Allen said, he was inclined to go along with Secretary Anderson’s suggestion that the U.S. should not continue to have a double standard with respect to exchanges between Free World countries and the Sino-Soviet Bloc.
The President said that he understood Mr. Allen’s remarks and added that we flatter ourselves that we are more sophisticated than our Latin American neighbors which of course presented a problem as to how we can discourage exchanges between Latin American countries and the Sino-Soviet Bloc without seeming to assume a superior attitude. For these reasons, the President said he believed that we should insert in this part of the paper a clear directive which would state that efforts to encourage action by the other American Republics against Communist influence would have to be approved by the Latin American desk in the State Department. In fact, continued the President, this whole matter was so tricky that it almost required a handbook of directions in order to be successfully carried out. Secretary Dillon stated his agreement with the President’s point. The President added that the essence of the problem was how we carried out the guidance against Communism in Paragraph 27–c without giving offense to our Latin American friends and without doing more harm than good to ourselves.
Mr. Allen Dulles commented that the language seemed to him a little strong and indicated that President Frondizi had personally asked Mr. Allen Dulles what he, Frondizi, should do about Communism in Argentina. The President again called for a statement containing very precise guidance on procedures for encouraging action by the other Latin American Republics against Soviet and Communist influence. Mr. Allen Dulles added the point that we had in the past very often given very detailed guidance to Latin American Governments on this point.
The Director of the Bureau of the Budget then suggested that he might have a solution. Could we not drop the present bracketed language in Paragraph 27–c and substitute for it more general language such as “taking into account other related U.S. policies”? This might avoid the risk of alienating our Latin American friends by too much [Page 85] rigidity or too great pressure. The President, however, felt that the language proposed by Mr. Stans was still somewhat too weak and suggested instead language to the effect that we should encourage action by the other American Republics against Sino-Soviet Bloc and Communist influence under methods of procedure which would be prescribed by the State Department for operations in this field. The President again stressed the need for the opinions of experts and specialists in dealing with this problem.
Secretary Dillon said that the State Department would agree to such an approach as this and insisted that we did not wish to be in a position of preaching to our Latin American neighbors. On the other hand, he thought the problem which was being discussed was essentially a matter of operations rather than of policy although he could see no objection to putting in a directive along the lines suggested by the President to insure the compliance of the operators. The President cited various past experiences in support of his argument and again stressed the vital necessity to avoid giving rise to injured feelings by the other American Republics. Mr. Gray pointed out that in due course the Operations Coordinating Board would prepare an operational plan to carry out the policies agreed to by the Council on Latin America and that perhaps this OCB operational plan would be the best place to cover the President’s point about a directive to the operators with respect to the problem of Paragraph 27–c. The President, however, still insisted that the problem was primarily a matter for the State Department and he wanted the responsibility clearly placed on the Department of State. Mr. Gray indicated that he would work out language which would meet the President’s point.
At this juncture Secretary Anderson asked permission to have the floor. He stated that almost from the beginning of its existence the Export-Import Bank had as a matter of policy steadfastly declined to make loans to newspapers, radio stations, television stations, and other opinion-forming enterprises in Latin America. Secretary Anderson said he felt that was an incorrect policy on the part of the Export-Import Bank and as a result of it very few American nationals were now engaged in publishing newspapers or other such activities in any of the Latin American countries. The vacuum had been filled by the nationals of other countries. He therefore asked whether we should not change the policies of the Export-Import Bank to permit the Bank to lend money to U.S. nationals desiring to enter into the newspaper or radio field in Latin America.
The President said that he agreed with the view expressed by Secretary Anderson. Secretary Dillon added the view that if policymakers are in agreement on the desirability of loans to such enterprises, the policies of the Export-Import Bank should not stand in the way.
[Page 86]At this stage Mr. Gordon Gray asked the President’s permission to quote Scripture illustrating the dilemma which had been posed by the problem of the U.S. desire on the one hand to treat other American Republics on a basis of partnership and equality in the matter of exchanges with the Sino-Soviet Bloc and on the other hand the U.S. desire to encourage the other American Republics to take action against Communist influence. He then read St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Chapter 14:21 reading as follows: “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.”
Thereafter, Mr. Gray asked permission to turn to the second split view in NSC 5902 occurring in Paragraph 53 on Page 27 and reading as follows:
“53. Provide adequate quotas for qualified personnel for training in U.S. armed forces schools and training centers.
Majority | Budget |
“Seek appropriate legislative authority to permit the military assistance program to bear the complete cost of training military personnel of all Latin American countries in U.S. armed forces schools and training centers. | “Seek, as appropriate, new legislative authority to facilitate provision of the training authorized by para. 45–a. |
“Encourage Latin American states to fill their authorized quotas at the three Service Academies.”
He explained that the Majority opinion believed that such legislation was necessary to cover situations where there was no bilateral agreement with a country which we may desire to assist with training so that a special Presidential determination was necessary. On the other hand, the Budget Representative had pointed out that while this problem affected Latin America primarily, it also applied to certain other situations such as Burma and might be better treated in our statement of Basic National Security Policy. He then called on Mr. Stans who said that the essential issue was simple and that this particular Latin American paper was the wrong forum for handling such matters. They should instead be handled by the Mutual Security Steering Group. He therefore favored deletion of both the Majority and the Budget version although if some language still seemed to be needed he would prefer the Budget version.
[Page 87]The President inquired whether it had not long been our practice to provide special inducements to Latin American officers to study at our U.S. Service Academies and training centers. If this were not the case the President thought that we should certainly provide such special inducements and privileges.
Secretary Dillon said that the State Department’s only objection to the Budget version of Paragraph 53 was that it limited the provision of training of Latin American military personnel to the kind of training prescribed in Paragraph 45–a; namely, the training necessary to assist the Latin American armed forces to carry out measures related to hemispheric defense. Secretary Dillon, on the other hand, believed that the criteria for training Latin American military personnel in the U.S. Service schools should be broader than that suggested in Paragraph 45–a. Such training might well be offered for political rather than for strictly defense reasons. Mr. Stans said he did not disagree with the point made by Secretary Dillon.
After further discussion the President turned to General Twining and asked how the expense for the training of Latin American personnel in U.S. Service schools was absorbed. The President said he would like to see the several U.S. Military Services take all of this in hand, and pay for everything except the board bills and the transportation of the Latin American personnel. He would ask for funds to accomplish this in authorization bills for the Department of Defense.
Mr. Gray then proposed substitute language for the two versions of Paragraph 53 running as follows: “Seek, as appropriate, new legislative authority to facilitate such training.” The Council agreed to accept Mr. Gray’s proposal.
Mr. Gray then asked the President’s permission to run through briefly the suggestions for changes in NSC 5902 which had been proposed by Dr. Milton Eisenhower but which the NSC Planning Board had found it impossible to accept. The first of these, he said, related to the problem of non-intervention with particular respect to Paragraphs 21–a and –b on Page 8 reading as follows:
“21. Exceptions to Non-Intervention
a. In the event of threatened or actual domination of any American state by Communism, promote and cooperate through the OAS in the application of measures available under the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro to the extent necessary to remove the threat to the security of the hemisphere, taking overt unilateral action only as a last resort.
[paragraph 21–b (71/2 lines of source text) not declassified ]
[1 paragraph (8 lines of source text) not declassified]
[181/2 lines of source text not declassified] The President indicated his acceptance of language of the sort proposed by Secretary Anderson. General Twining also signified his agreement and said that Paragraphs 20 and 21 of NSC 5902 illustrated some of the “inconsistencies” [Page 88] which the Joint Chiefs of Staff had found fault with in their comments on this report. After further brief discussion the President suggested the language which seemed to be appropriate to him to cover Paragraphs 21–a and –b which language is set forth in the action which followed the Council consideration of this paper.
Mr. Gray then turned to the second of the suggestions made by Dr. Eisenhower which the Planning Board had felt unable to accept. This was Dr. Eisenhower’s feeling that the U.S. should do everything that it could to encourage Latin American countries to divert every available resource to economic development except for the minimum sums needed to maintain military forces for internal security purposes only.
Mr. Gray indicated that the Planning Board, while generally sympathetic to the substance of Dr. Eisenhower’s view, felt that his language was too restrictive and therefore preferred the language of the paper as set forth in Paragraph 44 Page 24. This latter paragraph reflected the view that Latin American countries would have a role to play in hemisphere defense and that in any case they will maintain military forces whatever representations the U.S. made to them.
The President said he believed that the most satisfactory solution would be maintenance by the Latin American Republics of the minimum levels of military forces agreed upon by the U.S. and the Latin American Republics which sought our assistance in maintaining military forces. He again expressed the view that this was likewise an example of an excess of caution by his brother and that no revision was really required to meet his point.
Mr. Gray next turned to Dr. Eisenhower’s belief that if there were to be U.S. military assistance to Latin American states, such military assistance should not be extended to dictatorships. Mr. Gray pointed out that the majority of the Planning Board, while again sympathetic to the motives underlying this comment, felt that such a policy could not be applied solely to Latin America and that it would create serious problems if this were applied world-wide. For this and for other reasons the Planning Board favored the existing language.
The President commented that in respect to this problem, the policy statement should at least contain a word of caution with regard to the extension of U.S. military assistance to Latin American dictatorships. We could at least drag our feet in extending such assistance and besides considering the effect in Latin America of extending U.S. military assistance to dictatorships, we have to consider the effect of such action on our American domestic opinion. Mr. Gray read other portions of the paper, particularly Paragraph 22–b which the majority of the Planning Board believed sought to meet the point raised by Dr. Eisenhower and to counter any impression that the U.S. favored dictatorships, whether of the Right or Left. Mr. Gray went on to point out [Page 89] and to cite figures indicating that at the present time the U.S. was giving only negligible military assistance to the two or three dictatorships still in existence; namely, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and perhaps Nicaragua. Mr. Gray pointed out that we were providing such assistance to the Dominican Republic because we had a missile-tracking station in that country and the military assistance was essentially (as was the case in Brazil) a quid pro quo for permission to maintain a missile-tracking station.
The President asked why it was essential that a missile-tracking station be maintained in the Dominican Republic. Could we not construct such stations in the Virgin Islands, in Puerto Rico, or in other such areas? Secretary Quarles replied that the missile-tracking site in the Dominican Republic had been very carefully surveyed before it was built and that there were sound technical reasons for the construction of the station in the Dominican Republic. The other areas noted by the President as suitable for such stations were also being used.
Secretary Dillon brought the discussion back to the general point and explained that the State Department felt that in the matter of dealing with dictatorships, it was important for the U.S. to maintain an adequate degree of flexibility, inasmuch as many of the governments of many of the Latin American countries were subject to frequent change. While he did not want a hard and fast prohibition against providing military assistance to any dictatorship in Latin America, he would have no objection to cautionary language with respect to such deals. Mr. George Allen commented that it was often thought that there were both good and bad dictatorships in the world.
After agreement on the introduction of a cautionary statement in the matter of extension of U.S. military assistance to dictatorships, Mr. Gray briefly summarized the remaining points on which Dr. Eisenhower had made suggestions. He indicated that the Planning Board had taken account of certain of these suggestions but that it believed that in the matter of providing for additional flow of external private and public capital, the Planning Board believed that the language set forth in Paragraph 38 on Pages 19–21 provided adequate guidance to U.S. Government agencies. As to Dr. Eisenhower’s doubts as to whether the amounts of economic assistance of various types, projected in the Financial Appendix, were of sufficient magnitude, the Planning Board had pointed out that the proposed Inter-American Development Banking Institution would provide a new and additional means for increased economic development in the hemisphere. The President did not press for the inclusion of Dr. Eisenhower’s views on these issues.
Mr. Gray stated that these were all the points which he felt it necessary to raise and asked if Secretary Dillon or General Twining had any other points to make. Secretary Dillon said he thought the [Page 90] language in the paper was adequate while General Twining expressed the opinion that many of the revisions made in the paper during the course of the discussion had met the complaints of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their written views. The Joint Chiefs he said had called for U.S. competition with the U.S.S.R. in Latin America. They believed that our attitude toward Communism in Latin America was too negative as apparently Dr. Eisenhower had also thought.
At the end of the discussion Mr. Gray announced that he would undertake to make certain revisions in the text of NSC 5902 as suggested at the meeting after which it would be possible to determine whether or not the paper as a whole needed to come back to the Council for another look.
The National Security Council:4
- a.
- Discussed the draft statement of policy on the subject contained in NSC 5902, and revisions thereto subsequently proposed by the NSC Planning Board in the light of the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thereon, as presented at the meeting, and an oral briefing by the Director of Central Intelligence on current developments in certain Latin American countries.
- b.
- Adopted the statement of policy in NSC 5902, subject to the following amendments:
- (1)
- Page 8, paragraph 21–a: Place a period after the word “hemisphere” and add the following sentence: [quoted sentence (23 words) not declassified]
- (2)
-
Page 8, paragraph 21–b: Revise to read as follows:
[1 paragraph (71/2 lines of source text) not declassified]
- (3)
- Page 11, paragraph 25–a: Add the following words:
“; seeking positive means of diverting Panamanian attention from the Canal problem to economic development.”
- (4)
- Page 13, paragraph 27–c: Delete the bracketed words and the footnote thereto and insert in place thereof the words “and under methods and procedures that are prescribed by the Department of State of guide personnel operating in the field,”.
- (5)
- Page 14, paragraph 27–c(7): Add the following sentence: “Within these limitations, normally refrain from discouraging Latin American countries from trading non-strategic surplus commodities to the European Soviet bloc for consumer goods or other products they can use.”
- (6)
- Page 25, paragraph 45: Add the
following sub-paragraph:
“d. In making military equipment and training available to Latin American countries, take into account the provisions of paragraph 22–b relative to the type of Government involved, exercising caution in the provision of such assistance to dictatorships.”
- (7)
- Page 27, paragraph 53: Delete the alternative versions of the second sentence and substitute therefor the following: “Seek, as appropriate, new legislative authority to facilitate provision of such training to personnel from all Latin American countries.”
- c.
- Requested the Director, Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, to undertake in coordination with other interested agencies, including the Departments of State and Defense, a special study to identify the potential contribution of Latin American resources, production and skills to U.S. recovery following a nuclear attack; reporting to the Council any policy recommendations found appropriate or necessary.
Note: NSC 5902, as amended by the action in b above, subsequently approved by the President; circulated as NSC 5902/1 for implementation by all departments and agencies of the U.S. Government; and referred to the Operations Coordinating Board as the coordinating agency designated by the President.
The action in c above, as approved by the President, subsequently transmitted to the Director, Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, for implementation.
[Here follow agenda items 2) “Significant World Developments Affecting U.S. Security,” and 3) “U.S. Policy Toward Germany.”]