228. Editorial Note
At 3 p.m. on June 13, 1961, the National Security Council met in the Cabinet Room of the White House for its 485th meeting. With the President presiding, 32 people attended the meeting including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer, Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Walter McConaughy, Ambassador-designate to Korea Samuel Berger, the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy, and his Deputy, Walt Rostow. The first part of the meeting was taken up with a report by the President on his European trip, including the summit meeting at Vienna with Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev. The other topic of discussion was Korea.
According to cryptic notes by Lemnitzer, Rusk began by reviewing past events in South Korea. He stressed that the current government had “no experience” and “no honest administrators.” The question of the invitation of the leader of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction to visit the United States was discussed. Ambassador Berger would assess the prospects. Lemnitzer’s notes outlined his presentation of the military problem: South Korea was in a suspended state of war; in light of U.S. lives and money expended during the Korean war, the United States had a great stake in Korea: and, there was “great pressure” for subversion and infiltration, “like Vietnam and Laos.” Lemnitzer noted that South Korea had a 155-mile front line. He highlighted substantial problems with the flow of refugees from north to south (presumably during the Korean war) and the problem of unemployment. Dillon raised the issue of South Korean economic viability and Rostow stated that Korea was “not as hopeless” as it might seem. The revised recommendations of the Task Force were approved as amended and deemed “adequate.” (Lemnitzer’s handwritten notes of the June 13 NSC meeting; National Defense University, Lemnitzer Papers, L-215-71)