161. Editorial Note
When Fowler Hamilton resigned as AID Administrator (see footnote 1, Document 154), he recommended that President Kennedy create a permanent advisory group of private citizens on foreign assistance, which would make an ongoing study of the Agency for International Development and suggest steps to revive public support for its programs. The President followed through with the establishment of the Committee To Strengthen the Security of the Free World, headed by General Lucius D. Clay. President Kennedy’s letter to Clay, December 6, outlining [Page 353] the terms of reference of this Committee, is in the Washington National Records Center, RG 286, AID Administrator Files: FRC 67 A 1530, FY 1963, Folder #1. Other members of the Clay Committee, as it was commonly called, were Robert B. Anderson, Eugene R. Black, Clifford Hardin, Robert A. Lovett, Edward S. Mason, L. F. McCollum, George Meany, Herman Phleger, and Howard A. Rusk. For text of the White House announcement of the creation of this Committee on December 10, see Department of State Bulletin December 31, 1962, page 1007. White House announcements of January 29 and March 1, 1963, summarizing the first and second series of meetings of the Committee, are ibid., March 4, 1963, page 329, and March 25, 1963, page 431, respectively. For comments on drafts of the Clay Committee’s work, see Document 160. See also Forrestal’s March 11 memorandum to McGeorge Bundy and Dungan, Komer’s March 14 memorandum to Dungan, and Forrestal’s March 19 memorandum to Kaysen, all in the Supplement.
The Committee’s 25-page report was entitled The Scope and Distribution of United States Military and Economic Assistance Programs: Report to the President of the United States from The Committee To Strengthen the Security of the Free World, March 20, 1963 (Washington, 1963). An extract from the report is also printed in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1963, pages 1148-1163. George Meany dissented on the report. He conveyed his views in a March 19 letter to President Kennedy. (Washington National Records Center, RG 286, AID Administrator Files: FRC 67 A 1530, George Meany) For text of the President’s March 22 letter to General Clay, thanking the Committee for its “intensive and searching review” of foreign assistance programs and its recommendations, “including greater selectivity, stricter self-help standards, greater participation by the developed countries in aid efforts and continued improvements in administration,” see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, page 288.
The Clay Committee was allowed to terminate without public announcement at the end of 1963. Background on the termination is in Clay’s letter to Robert B. Anderson, December 3, 1963, and Bell’s memorandum to President Johnson, January 6, 1964. (Both in Washington National Records Center, RG 286, AID Administrator Files: FRC 67 A 1530, Clay Committee, FY 1963, Folder #2)
Documentation on the Clay Committee’s work, including stenographic transcripts of its meetings, is ibid., Lucius Clay; and Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Foreign Aid, Clay Committee.