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

386. Memorandum for the Record¹

Washington, December 28, 1962.

SUBJECT

• Daily White House Staff Meeting, 28 December 1962

[Here follows discussion of other matters. Bundy presided throughout the meeting.]

3. Kaysen then summarized General Truman’s informal briefing at the State Department late yesterday afternoon² (which I attended with Kaysen at his invitation). Obviously there is no point in summarizing here General Truman’s presentation as relayed by Kaysen. Bundy, Kaysen, and all concerned, agreed that it was necessary for the United States to obtain political control over any military operations which developed; in other words, if the United States is going to furnish critical materiel and perhaps civilian technical personnel, the United Nations should not expect merely to say, “Thank you very much,” and then ignore us. Mr. Harlan Cleveland and Mr. George McGhee of the State Department are working up a “political scenario” today, and Kaysen proposes to forward this scenario to the President with a covering memorandum which I assume would include some degree of summarizing General Truman’s informal presentation. As I sense it, both Bundy and Kaysen wish that the President would reconsider his basic approach to this Congo problem. They feel that his initial OK was in terms of a US fighter squadron going to the Congo, but that the reinforcing operation as conceived by the UN and General Truman is so enormously complex as to approach the adjective Bundy used: “feckless”. Bundy and Kaysen—perhaps somewhat nostalgically—expressed the wish or half-wish that the United States and the United Nations could both somehow disengage from the whole messy Congo business. Toward the end of the discussion, Bundy and Kaysen agreed that we should tell the United Nations that they must have a political plan (or “scenario”) to parallel their military plan as presented to General Truman, on the ground in the Congo. In other words, and as mentioned above, the United States will not furnish critical materiel and personnel under a political carte blanche to the United Nations.

[Here follows discussion of other matters.]

LJL

1. Source: National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Box 25, Chairman’s Staff Group. Secret; Eyes Only. Drafted by Colonel Legere for General Taylor.
2. An unsigned record of the meeting, headed “December 27, 1962 Meeting, Comments of General Truman,” is in Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 65 D 533, CF 2216. A December 28 memorandum from Sloan to Gilpatric states that Truman had briefed the Department of State and the Joint Chiefs on the mission’s preliminary recommendations. The mission had found the U.N. forces capable of handling the situation without additional forces if they received promptly the equipment they had requested, and the Joint Chiefs had informally approved the recommendations of equipment to be supplied, including some items not on the U.N. list. (Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OASD/ISA Files: FRC 65 A 3501, 092 Congo) A December 31 memorandum from Truman to the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the mission’s final report is ibid., 381 Congo.