Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XII, American Republics

84. Memorandum From the Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Budget (Hansen) to the Under Secretary of State (Bowles)¹

Washington, September 28, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Presidential determinations for Caribbean Countries

As you requested, I have made a hurried appraisal of the proposed MAP determinations and have discussed this with Dick Goodwin in the White House. We came out on the matter as follows.

1. From a review of the WAT report² we are concerned as to whether the team did the type of thorough review of the problem with regard to each country which appears required for such a determination by the President. Our main concern stems from whether or not the right questions have been asked with regard to the nature of the internal security threat in each country (i.e., there appears to be a standard finding that such a threat exists), and as to whether this particular addition of military hardware represents the optimum use of our resources to meet such actual or potential threat (i.e., if the country team had their “druthers” would they choose this particular means of meeting the threat?). The process of evaluation and the rather hasty manner in which the evaluations appear to have been made do not inspire our confidence. On the other hand, we do not know the team members and might have a quite different reaction had we reason to believe that the exercise was conducted in a hard-headed, objective manner by personnel who were required to make a judgment as to whether this form of assistance was of the essential nature which would require a Presidential determination of this type, at this time.

Frankly, the impression left by the report is that this was a rather narrow inquiry to establish deficiencies in military armed strength against stereotyped or presumptive findings of threats to internal security.

2. A second aspect of these proposals is the very real question of what we are buying with the arms, not only in terms of the immediate security problem but also the pattern of supplying assistance to these countries in this unilateral manner. From the viewpoint of the Presidential determination, it would appear preferable that such arms aid, if granted, be given in the context of some Caribbean security force or in attribution to a framework of cooperation by the Caribbean countries to meet the Castro threat. This does not mean that the arms aid would be granted to a collective organization, but that presumably it would be done in response to a collective agreement that the internal security of member nations should be strengthened in the face of their joint determination to resist Castro subversion.

3. It is not clear from the information available to us that the provision of these arms is in satisfaction of commitments already made by the United States, but presumably the general political noises we have been making in that area following the Cuban crisis would lead these countries to believe that we were going to be forthcoming in assisting them to meet internal security problems. It is not clear that our various program actions to create and train more efficient police forces are far enough along to indicate that more than those efforts are currently required, although in sifting through these proposals some of the items appear to be of obvious utility related to these efforts.

4. Finally, we have seen no indication that the request for approximately $7 million assistance for these areas has been reviewed against the global total of MAP assistance provided for all of Latin America, i.e., $57 million. We are not sure that present MAP planning for Latin America is far enough advanced to indicate a clear priority for the use of this $7 million requiring Presidential determination. (In this connection there is no legal need for urgency on this matter, since the passage of the new Act requires that the funds be paid out of the total $57 million allowance, under Sec. 511 of the new Act,³ and determination now would not count these grants against the earlier authorized ceiling.)

In summary, and based on brief study, we are extremely uneasy as to the adequacy of the process by which these determinations have been proposed to you. But at the same time, we cannot document that the conclusions of these earlier studies are not valid. This puts the issue to whether or not you have confidence that the judgments you are being asked to endorse have been made in a responsible, accountable manner. If you do not feel that this is the case, we would suggest that you place a review of the matter in the hands of Assistant Secretary Woodward, with the requirement that he review this with the assistance of staff in whom you both repose high confidence as to the results. This is not to say that we like to recommend that the answer to one study is another study, but we clearly cannot judge the competence and comprehensiveness of the original review of this problem by the WAT.

If you determine to your satisfaction that these determinations (except the one for Haiti, which is subject to much more substantive political argument) should go forward to the President, we suggest that the determinations be posed in the context of regional action rather than dealt with as purely bilateral actions addressed to the internal security problems of each individual recipient.

I hope these considerations will prove helpful, although I must confess they represent “second guessing” of a nature that I do not ordinarily indulge. Dick Goodwin or I will be glad to discuss this further with you if you so wish.

Kenneth R. Hansen

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 710.5-MSP/9-2861. Secret. No drafting information appears on the source text.
2. Reference is to a Washington Assessment Team, with State, ICA, and Defense representatives, that visited Central America in April and May. No report has been found. Related documentation is ibid., primarily under 620.37 but also under 611.20, 710.5, and various country numbers.
3. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, approved on September 4; for text, see 75 Stat. 424.