69. Editorial Note
“Studies of Executive branch organization” was an agenda item discussed by the National Security Council at its meeting of February 1, 1961. Following this discussion President Kennedy approved, among other items, NSC Action No. 2399-c, which “Noted the President’s view that the foreign assistance program must be reorganized before presentation to the Congress; and that the Director, Bureau of the Budget, was planning to submit such a reorganization along with the new foreign aid program.” (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/S-NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by the National Security Council) This assignment was confirmed in National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) No. 6, February 3, 1961, from Bundy to David E. Bell, Director of the Bureau of the Budget. (Ibid., S/S-NSC Files: Lot 72 D 316, NSAM No. 6)
On March 22, in a special message to Congress on foreign assistance, President Kennedy discussed, among other things, a proposed reorganization of foreign aid programs that would integrate into a single agency all the Washington and field operations of the International Cooperation Administration, Development Loan Fund, Food-for-Peace, Export-Import Bank, and the Peace Corps. Field work would be under the direction of a single mission chief in each country who would report to the Ambassador. “Similarly, central direction and final responsibility in Washington will be fixed in an Administrator of a single agency-reporting directly to the Secretary of State and the President.” (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, pages 203–212)
On May 26 President Kennedy sent identical letters to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives describing major features of a draft bill on foreign aid he was forwarding to Congress. The bill assigned overall responsibility and authority for the formulation and execution of foreign development aid programs to a single entity—the Agency for International Development (AID)—within the Department of State. It would replace the International Cooperation Administration and the Development Loan Fund, which were to be abolished. The new agency would be headed by an Administrator of Under Secretary rank who would report directly to the Secretary of State and the President. For text of President Kennedy’s letter, see ibid., pages 407–411. The draft bill became S. 1983, which Senator J. William Fulbright introduced for the administration on May [Page 131] 31. For text of the bill, see International Development and Security: Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Eighty-seventh Congress, First Session, Part 1, pages 1–25. Hearings on the bill in the Senate and House of Representatives were held from May 31 to July 6. For text of these hearings, see ibid., Parts l-2, and The International Development and Security Act: Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Eighty-seventh Congress, First Session, Parts 1–3. Testimony in closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been published in Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical Series), Eighty-seventh Congress, First Session, 1961, volume XIII.
For additional documentation concerning reorganization of the foreign assistance program, see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, volume IX, Documents 84–177.