Office of the Historian

31. Letter From Secretary of State Rusk to Secretary of Defense McNamara1

Washington, March 26, 1965.

Dear Bob:

To follow up our discussion at the White House on Tuesday,2 I thought it would be useful to get to you in written form a summary of State and A.I.D.’s current views concerning the increasingly acute need for more funds for the current year’s military assistance program.

The currently approved FY 1965 MAP levels for Laos and Viet-Nam are $43.4 million and $278.8 million respectively. Their total is $100.8 million higher than the levels included in the augmented program of $1,055 million presented to and approved by the Congress for FY 1965.

Even after taking into account the already agreed upon $55 million transfer from the A.I.D. contingency fund, these program levels can be met from presently appropriated funds only by withholding from the programs for Greece, Turkey, Taiwan and Korea some $40 million more than I believe it is politically feasible to withhold. Indeed, the programs for those countries are already desperately low. To reduce them still further is in my view unthinkable.

I am now informed, however, of the following additional $57.5 million of FY 1965 MAP requirements:

  • —$31.9 million firm, plus $8 million probable, for Viet-Nam,
  • —$7 million probable for Laos,
  • —$10.6 million probable for Thailand.
  • There may, of course, be still further requirements for Viet-Nam.

I know you would like to live within currently available appropriations if you possibly could. Under existing circumstances, however, I do not see how you can possibly do so. I am convinced that we should plan on either a supplemental appropriation request for FY 1965, or a use of Section 510—the latter of which would require replacement through a supplemental appropriation for FY 1966.

The Section 510 route seems to me to be preferable. Given the tangled state of affairs now prevailing in the Congress—particularly the controversy in the Senate over the way in which military aid is to be handled—I question the practicality of going for a supplemental.

With warm regards,

Sincerely,

Dean
  1. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 286, AID Administrator Files: FRC 68 A 2148, DEF 19 Military Assistance, February–June FY 1965. Secret.↩
  2. March 23.↩