Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XX, Congo Crisis

168. National Security Action Memorandum No. 120¹

Washington, December 17, 1961.

TO

• The Honorable George Ball, The Under Secretary of State

(SUBJECT

• Intelligence on Operations in the Congo)

In your capacity as local Commander-in-Chief of Congo Affairs, you may be interested in this short memorandum from Max Taylor.² It suggests that our military information from the Congo comes in a variety of ways, none of which is first-rate. I wonder if it would be worthwhile for you to ask the Joint Staff to report on ways and means of providing up-to-date, coordinated and accurate information on the situation in that unhappy country.³ It may be that we need to tighten the lines of communication to our military liaison officers both in New York and in Léopoldville, and perhaps also we ought to ask them to work out a directive to Gullion, to be carried out on his behalf by General Walter.

Someone will also have to pull the CIA on board on this.

McGeorge Bundy⁴

1. Source: Department of State, NSAM Files: Lot 72 D 316, NSAM 120. Confidential.
2. The memorandum from Taylor to Bundy, December 15, stated that, since the United States was not a part of the U.N. force in the Congo, “we must get our information as we would from a sovereign but allied power.” It stated that recent U.S. participation in an intra-Congo airlift had persuaded U.N. officials to provide for the first time detailed information on their planned operations in Elisabethville. If this cooperation continued, the situation should improve, especially with the assignment of General Walter as special military adviser to Ambassador Gullion. (Ibid.)
3. In a December 29 letter to U. Alexis Johnson, Lemnitzer stated that he had discussed with the other JCS members the question of military representation in the Congo, which Johnson had raised. In addition to the three service attaches in the Congo, CINCEUR and CINCLANT had representatives to handle airlift and sealift problems. Because of reluctance by the U.N. Command to divulge its military plans, trained observers were needed more than senior officers. The JCS view was that if the assignment of a more senior officer was desirable, he should be assigned as an attache. Dungan sent this letter to Bundy with a January 4 note, which reads: “I’ve been pressing them on getting better on-the-scene intelligence and since this letter military attache staffs are being augmented.” (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Congo)
4. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.