13. Editorial Note
In a memorandum to the Secretaries of the Military Departments, Director of Defense Research and Engineering, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Assistant Secretaries of Defense, and the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, July 10, 1962, Secretary of Defense McNamara submitted a list of projects and actions to try to reduce to $1 billion the net adverse dollar balance entering the U.S. balance of payments. He further indicated that this dollar objective was “to be achieved without reducing our military power abroad.” The action list, known as Revised Project Eight, incorporated into a single project all previous projects relating to U.S. defense expenditures and receipts entering the international balance of payments. It assigned the office responsible for submission of the replies and indicated the tentative due date for submission. In addition, McNamara submitted a Project Eight Action List for prior projects that had been approved with the office assigned responsibility for implementation. (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, NSAM 171)
For a more general summary of these lists of projects and actions, see Document 15.
Both McNamara’s July 10 memorandum and the attached eight-page Revised Project Eight List and one-page Project Eight Action List, are in the Supplement.