Office of the Historian

425. National Security Action Memorandum No. 1831

Washington, August 27, 1962.

MEMORANDUM TO

  • Secretary of State
  • Secretary of Defense
  • Director of Central Intelligence
  • Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
  • Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission
  • Director, Office of Science and Technology

SUBJECT

  • Space Program of the United States

The President desires that the space program of the United States be forcefully explained and defended at the forthcoming sessions of the [Page 969] UN Outer Space Committee and the General Assembly. The Department of State is requested to consult with the Department of Defense, CIA, NASA, AEC, ACDA and the Office of the Science Adviser to develop positions which meet the following objectives:

1.
To show that the distinction between peaceful and aggressive uses of outer space is not the same as the distinction between military and civilian uses, and that U.S. aims to keep space free from aggressive use and offers cooperation in its peaceful exploitation for scientific and technological purposes.
2.
To build and sustain support for the legality and propriety of the use of space for reconnaissance. This position should proceed from the approved recommendations of the report submitted on this subject on June 30, 1962.2
3.
To make it plain that neither U.S. nuclear tests nor other U.S. experiments in space were undertaken without a proper sense of scientific responsibility, and that, in the case of the nuclear tests, these were a response to previous Soviet tests.
4.
To demonstrate the precautionary character of the U.S. military program in space.
5.
To show that U.S. policies for communication satellites are fully consistent with cooperative international arrangements.

McGeorge Bundy3
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, NSAM No. 183, Space Program for the United States, Box 338. Top Secret. An August 28 memorandum by Charles E. Johnson of the NSC Staff indicates that NSAM No. 183 was distributed as an unnumbered memorandum before its inclusion in the NSAM series.↩
  2. Document 421.↩
  3. Printed from a copy that indicates Bundy signed the original.↩