Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXXIII, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; United Nations

137. Memorandum Prepared by the Staff of the Senior Interdepartmental Group¹

Washington, November 28, 1968.

SUBJECT

• The Senior Interdepartmental Group and the Coordination of Foreign Affairs and National Security Policy

I. An Overview

The Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG), established by the President in 1966, is the principal mechanism for the coordination of foreign affairs below the NSC. A policy group at the Under Secretary level, its function is to advise and assist the Secretary of State in his responsibilities under NSAM 341 to oversee, coordinate and direct interdepartmental activities.² The SIG has five regional subcommittees, the Interdepartmental Regional Groups (IRGs), which are at the Assistant Secretary level, and a recently created interdepartmental group for Political-Military Affairs.

Despite its sweeping mandate, the composition and membership of the SIG have determined the scope and nature of its program of work.³ Most of the issues considered in this channel fall under the jurisdiction of State, Defense, AID, and CIA. SIG has dealt only peripherally with international economic policy and matters involving international scientific cooperation or cultural affairs.

The SIG has operated without a new bureaucratic super-structure. Rather, it utilizes the existing staffs of the various agencies. A major part of its work is accomplished through the IRGs. But not all of its work is done through meetings—particularly meetings of the senior group. Occasionally, documents are approved simply by memorandum or telephone when there is agreement that the facts and issues are well understood and there is unanimity on the recommendations.

During its relatively brief existence, the SIG has concerned itself with major operational problems requiring immediate decision; broader questions of general policy guidance; problems of resource allocation in foreign affairs; and a number of managerial and planning functions cutting across agency lines. The product of SIG deliberation frequently has been a memorandum to the President outlining alternative courses of action. At times, consideration of an issue by the SIG has been the prelude to an NSC discussion. The SIG’s operating philosophy has been to search out and articulate policy disagreements—rather than burying them in a mistaken effort at bureaucratic harmony. Its objective has been to provide the President and the Secretary of State with a greater range of facts and options on which to base final decisions.

The SIG has not attempted to cover the full range of operational and policy issues requiring interdepartmental concurrence or coordination. To do so would overwhelm it. Rather, it has been deliberately selective—dealing with those major issues where senior policy guidance is called for and leaving to other established procedures the bulk of the day-to-day interagency business. Similarly, once an issue is defined and conclusions are reached in the SIG, its disposition is returned to normal line-operating channels. The SIG continues to monitor the issue in only a general way, watching for possible changes in conditions that would render the recommendations inappropriate and ensuring that recommendations, once approved, are promptly and effectively carried out.

More specifically, the focus of the SIG’s work has been on the following:

• —To work toward a clearer concept of priorities—of what is essential, important, or merely desirable in United States foreign policy;
• —To encourage a more critical attitude throughout the foreign affairs community towards the claims made for particular programs, activities, policies and actions;
• —To stimulate more thorough, careful and considered analysis, both in Washington and in the field, of alternative courses of action before particular programs and policies are recommended for adoption;
• —To give greater coherence and consistency to our numerous programs overseas, carried forward by a multiplicity of agencies;
• —To encourage more and better forward planning for future contingencies and crises;
• —To foster greater cost consciousness in the Department of State and focus attention on the problem of resource utilization and management across geographic and agency lines. (In this latter activity, the SIG has worked closely with the Director of the Bureau of the Budget.)

Two important aspects of the SIG should also be noted—its relations to the Armed Services and to the White House. The JCS participates in its own right, both in the SIG and in the IRGs. While this has led on occasion to some debate within Defense on the primacy of the civilian voice, it has on the whole been useful to allow the JCS to express its point of view at all stages of policy making. The JCS representatives have exercised their role constructively and with discretion. (In fact, there is some evidence that the SIG/IRG structure may have been, at times, a useful tool—and catalyst—for the coordination of positions within Defense.)

The other aspect concerns relations between the SIG and the White House/NSC Staff. The SIG/IRG channel is one way in which the White House Staff keeps itself informed and influences the handling of major interdepartmental issues before they reach the NSC or the President. The President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs is a member of the SIG, and members of the NSC Staff sit on the IRGs. The NSC Staff has often suggested topics it would like the SIG to take up, and SIG discussion has been useful in defining an otherwise amorphous subject prior to NSC discussion. In other cases, issues are taken directly into the NSC without first going through the SIG.

The SIG is the outgrowth of efforts of the last three Presidents to prod the Secretary of State and his Department to provide leadership in the formulation of interdepartmental policies and recommendations in foreign affairs and national security policy. The foreign affairs community in Washington has come to accept—and indeed encourage—this pattern of policy formulation and review under Department of State leadership. Equally important, Chairmanship of the IRGs has enhanced the stature and authority of the regional Assistant Secretaries. This, in turn, has given them a stronger position:

• —To provide more vigorous policy leadership; and,
• —To approach foreign affairs programs and activities from a managerial-executive point of view.

In sum the SIG/IRG structure has played a complementary and supporting role to the Secretary of State and the NSC. It has achieved this without requiring a large additional staff. At the same time, it has been successful in easing the burdens of the White House/NSC Staff with respect to interagency coordination and follow-up, permitting them to concentrate on their principal and most important function of meeting the President’s needs.

II. The SIG: What it is in Detail and How it Works

A. Background and Composition

The SIG, established in 1966, represents the extension of the Country Team concept from our overseas missions to the Washington foreign affairs community. It has long been accepted that in missions overseas it is the Ambassador—as the personal representative of the President—who bears responsibility for the coordination and direction of all policies and programs in that country, regardless of lines of agency subordination and responsibility.⁴ In effect, NSAM 341 accorded to the Secretary of State, and through him to the Executive Chairmen of the SIG and the IRGs, similar Presidential authority to coordinate and direct interdepartmental matters in the field of foreign affairs and national security policy. Activities of concern to one department only, as well as those of the Armed Forces operating under direct military command, are exempt from the authority of the SIG and the IRGs.

The need for a focal point for foreign affairs coordination at a level below the White House has become increasingly apparent since World War II as our commitments have grown in scope and complexity. Our overseas operations, comprising a vast array of programs managed by independently constituted and sometimes competing agencies—each with a separate Congressional mandate, a separate budget, a specific policy orientation, and a somewhat different domestic constituency—demand a central point of coordination and control. The SIG offers one solution to the problem, centered on the role of the Secretary of State as the principal foreign affairs advisor to the President.

The Senior Interdepartmental Group has as its regular members:

• The Under Secretary of State, Chairman
• The Deputy Secretary of Defense
• The Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
• The Director of Central Intelligence
• The Administrator, Agency for International Development
• The Director, United States Information Agency
• The Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

In addition, other departments and agencies may participate when an issue affects their interests. Treasury and Agriculture do so regularly. The Department of Commerce, the Export-Import Bank, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Justice, NASA and the Bureau of the Budget have participated from time to time.

In the SIG as well as the IRGs, the presiding State Department officer has the role of Executive Chairman: he is empowered to rule, even in the absence of a consensus. To protect the interests of the other members, agencies may dissent from the ruling of the Chairman and force consideration of the matter to the next higher level—from an IRG to the SIG, from the SIG to the Secretary of State and, ultimately, to the President.

B. Mode of Operation

Several points are worth noting:

• First, the SIG’s dual function. The SIG/IRG is both an interdepartmental committee structure and a channel for the orderly interdepartmental clearance and review of important policy documentation. Meetings are generally reserved for topics where there is disagreement or the Chairman feels a discussion is needed to explore the issue. Even without a meeting, processing of a document through the SIG channel ensures that the recommendations have been reviewed in the various agencies at an appropriately high level.
• Second, preparations for a SIG meeting. The emphasis is on the sharpening of issues, the identification of options for required decisions. Before the SIG meets, there is an “in-house” meeting in the State Department (including AID). Offices other than the bureau charged with operational responsibility—such as Policy Planning, L and INR—are encouraged to submit their views. Drawing on this “in-house” discussion and on informal soundings in other agencies, the SIG Staff (attached to the Under Secretary’s office) prepares an “issues” paper which is circulated to SIG members. This paper focuses on the points in dispute or matters which otherwise require discussion.
• Third, informality and confidentiality. These are essential if senior policy officers are to give their views openly and candidly. To this end, attendance at SIG meetings has been limited to the principals and a few aides directly concerned with the SIG. The Under Secretary of State personally has chaired all meetings. Attendance of deputies in place of the SIG principals has been the exception. The SIG Staff’s record of meetings, while reporting fully on the discussion, generally avoids attribution of particular views unless the SIG member clearly enunciates an agency position. There have been very few leaks to the press. The SIG’s work program—much of it highly sensitive—has remained largely unknown-as, indeed, it should.

• Fourth, the question of staff support. The SIG’s objective has been to mobilize the existing line-staff structure—rather than to duplicate it. Hence, the SIG Staff has been kept small, mobile, unspecialized—just large enough to meet essentially four functions, viz.:

  • —Monitor the foreign affairs community for significant developments warranting SIG discussion;
  • —Coordinate the preparation of appropriate SIG documentation;
  • —Draft “issues” papers for SIG meetings; and,
  • —Prepare appropriate records of SIG action and discussion.

  This approach has had two advantages: On the one hand, it has precluded the staff from specializing along regional or functional lines, with the attendant risk that staff members would themselves become advocates of a particular point of view. On the other, it has made it more difficult for the staff members to yield to the temptation of undertaking extensive substantive work assignments on their own.

  The various projects directly under SIG auspices are undertaken by ad hoc task forces and study groups. In this way, the SIG has been able to draw widely on all the agencies to assemble the best available personnel for the particular studies undertaken.

  Staffing practices at the IRG level vary. In several cases, the IRG Staff Directors are drawn from the Assistant Secretary’s immediate staff—usually a Special Assistant. In the others, while designations nominally vary, the IRGs in effect are supported by the existing regional policy staffs (all of which predate the SIG and the IRGs). This latter approach has considerable merit. Assistant Secretaries need a strong central regional staff office to assist them in evaluating embassy and country office recommendations and meet staff and planning functions cutting across country lines. It seems reasonable to combine this function with the staffing of the IRG.

• Fifth, the SIG’s relations with the IRGs. The guiding principle has been to give the IRGs as much autonomy as is compatible with overall policy control. Major issues discussed in the IRGs are submitted for review and approval to the SIG—and, where required by the importance of a subject, through the SIG to the Secretary of State and, ultimately, the President. But most of the IRG’s business should be settled in that regional forum. To require submission of all IRG actions to the senior group would undercut the authority of the regional forum and make it impossible for the Assistant Secretary to settle any controversial matter at his level.

Conversely, the SIG is more than a board of review. One of its roles has been to provide leadership. The SIG raises issues on its own, and commissions studies and policy recommendations, relying on special task forces when necessary. Such an approach is compatible with an active IRG pattern so long as the IRG has the opportunity of comment and review.

III. The SIG’s Program of Work

Excepting Viet-Nam⁵ and international economic relations the SIG has over the past year considered most of the major foreign policy issues confronting the American government (see Annex B).

The SIG’s program of work can be conveniently discussed under several headings:

• —“Threshold decisions”: i.e., operational problems being dealt with for the first time in a particular context and having important domestic and foreign policy implications;
• —Preparation for major international negotiations;
• —Long-term policy guidance;
• —Foreign affairs management;
• —Resource allocation.

Threshold Decisions: In any evaluation of the SIG’s utility, its effectiveness for dealing with important policy decisions is a key issue. As shown in Annex B, the SIG has been a useful forum for such decisions on a variety of occasions. For example:

• —Before King Hassan’s State visit in February 1967 the SIG considered the question of how the President might respond to the King’s request for military assistance—taking into account the developing arms balance in the Maghreb and United States relations with these countries.
• —In 1966, when Fiat announced plans for construction of an automobile plant in the Soviet Union, the Senior Group considered the Italian concern’s request for Export-Import Bank financing of United States-made equipment which the Italians proposed to install.
• —In 1967, following De Gaulle’s decision to withhold delivery of Mirage aircraft to Israel, the SIG considered the merits of a favorable decision on the Israeli request for United States Skyhawk aircraft and Phantom jets, taking into account the Middle East arms balance, the likely Soviet response, and the attitudes of the Congress.
• —In early 1968, after an urgent request from Panama’s National Guard for tear gas supplies from stocks in the Canal Zone, the SIG reviewed this matter against the background of Panama’s then precarious domestic political situation (including the Presidential election and the danger of a coup—which subsequently materialized).
• —Following the Tet offensive, when there was mounting concern about our knowledge of the insurgency threat in Northeast Thailand, the SIG commissioned a special study concerning the reliability of our intelligence data.
• —More recently, while Jarring negotiated with Israel, Jordan and the UAR in New York, the Senior Group met with our Ambassadors to Amman and Tel Aviv to consider the future of Jarring’s mission and what, if anything, the United States might do to enhance prospects for a settlement.

These examples illustrate the variety of action issues considered in the SIG. In the usual case, the result was a firm decision and recommendation. On a few occasions, the SIG felt that the decision was a marginal one between the several options and confined itself to outlining the alternatives for higher-level review.

A good many of these policy issues will require further consideration by the new Administration in terms of its own priorities and objectives. For example, the SIG in recent months discussed and recommended alternative courses of action to the President on arms supply policy to India and Pakistan and whether and at what level to resume arms shipments to Greece (the latter having been suspended after the Colonels coup). In both cases interim measures were recommended in order to leave a new Administration free to make its own decisions. (See Annex C⁶ for pending SIG business and past policy decisions under the SIG program of work which the new Administration might wish to review.)

Preparation for International Negotiations: A recent example was the package we offered Spain for a five-year renewal of our base rights facilities. As their price for renewal, the Spanish originally proposed a five-year $1 billion program of military assistance, a strengthening of the 1963 communiqué setting forth the common security interests of the two countries and the relaxation of our controls on direct investments in Spain. The SIG recommended a counter-proposal (later approved by the President) that we hold military assistance to about $100 million but offer phasing out one of the two air bases. The Spanish Government rejected this proposal but talks are continuing. Final decisions on this matter will have to be made by the new Administration.

Long-Term Policy Guidance: The purpose of these studies has been to lay out a policy framework for specific operational decisions, reach interagency agreement on general lines of policy, and provide a critical assessment of the judgments of value and fact on which our policies are based, together with an examination of feasible alternatives.

Major studies in process or completed on behalf of the SIG include:

• —United States policy in the Middle East (completed);⁷
• —United States security policy in Latin America (Martin Study;⁸ follow-on studies are under way);
• —United States policy toward southern Africa (completed);⁹
• —Review of United States worldwide overseas base requirements (reporting date December 15, 1968);
• —Analysis of United States strategy in Korea and possible future alternatives (first stage completed; second stage due in early 1969).

These studies have generally revealed—as indeed they should—sharp policy differences both between and within foreign affairs agencies. An example is the proposed policy guidance towards the southern Africa region (encompassing the ten-country area south of the Congo and Tanzania): Our policy must balance conflicting interests such as our ideological commitment to human rights and racial equality, the importance of black African votes in the United Nations, and our substantial economic and logistical interests in southern Africa. Not surprisingly, different agencies with different policy perspectives strongly disagree on our priorities.

One other aspect of these studies should be noted: They are developing a genuine interdepartmental planning effort, which:

a) Is carried out by an interdepartmental staff; (In the case of the Korea Study, each of the three services as well as the JCS are represented. Analytical techniques are drawn freely from all the agencies and departments.)

b) Deals with policies and programs across agency lines (such as the mix of local military forces structures and United States deployment patterns, or the inter-relationship of political and economic development strategy).

Studies ready for review early next year include: our worldwide base requirements; the new interagency study on Korea; possibly, two new studies on Latin America.

Foreign Affairs Management: The SIG has also been a good forum for managerial problems affecting the interests of several agencies.

One task in this area is the program for the reduction of overseas personnel—directed by President Johnson as part of his balance of payments message in January 1968. The first phase of the program, which was completed last August, reduced American personnel by 18 percent and local personnel by 16 percent. Follow-on efforts to achieve additional savings continue, including possible reductions in our military assistance/advisory groups in Latin America and East Asia, and the combining of Western European MAAGs into regional units serving several countries. Finally, a study now under way examines our massive government-wide overseas reporting requirements to determine where further economies can be made.

A serious policy issue concerns United States efforts to combat insurgency situations overseas. Profiting from the experience of the past eight years in Viet-Nam and elsewhere, the SIG last spring approved new policy guidance, which reemphasized the socio-economic bases of insurgency and the need to determine whether strategic United States interests are affected. Under the new policy, the SIG must specifically review and approve those military and economic programs whose principal justification is counterinsurgency (i.e., the Foreign Internal Defense Action List). An evaluation of seven country programs justified on this basis is now under way. Recommendations for the final list will be submitted to the new Administration early next year.

Finally, the SIG also provides the steering mechanism for forward planning against contingencies and crises. Responsibility for crisis planning and management has now been lodged firmly with the regional Assistant Secretary and his IRG. The new procedures paid an early dividend when the European Bureau, using such advance planning, was able to deal quickly and effectively with the operational problems created by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. A series of studies for major contingencies is now under way in the various IRGs. The more important of these will be submitted to the SIG.

Resource Allocation: Another facet of this managerial focus is the SIG’s work on allocation of resources. The SIG obviously is not qualified to review technical questions of program development and effectiveness—this being the responsibility of the particular agency charged with these programs—but it is a suitable forum to consider:

a) broad choices and priorities as reflected in the allocation of appropriated funds by country, region or type of program; and,

b) the political, military and security implications of these allocations—especially the broader implications of steadily declining military and economic assistance appropriations.

To this end, the SIG and the SIG Staff have been working closely with the Bureau of the Budget. Each fall, representatives of the Bureau and the SIG Staff jointly discuss with the five regional Assistant Secretaries the budget submissions of AID, MAP, USIA, the Peace Corps and the Bureau of Cultural Affairs. Before the Budget Bureau submits its own recommendations to the President, major issues arising from these discussions are considered at a meeting of the SIG, in which the Director of the Bureau of the Budget participates.

IV. Critical Appraisal

Experience shows, in our view, that the SIG/IRG structure while by no means a panacea, can be an important instrument of policy control, both intra- and interdepartmentally. Used selectively and judiciously, it is well worth the cost in time and effort which is involved. But conversely, an attempt to expand its scope to the bulk of day-to-day interdepartmental business would produce intolerable duplication and waste.

With respect to urgent business of the day, the SIG has been most useful when dealing with “threshold” decisions, i.e., those relatively few major action issues having wide domestic and foreign policy implications.

On a problem of this nature, a properly prepared SIG meeting serves a useful purpose as a vehicle for pooling the diverse appraisals, interests, and considerations which each of the SIG principals brings to the issue. Under the best of circumstances, such a meeting refines the alternatives, options and criteria on the bases of which the Administration—often the President—must make a decision.

Experience also indicates that tabling an issue in the SIG or its regional sub-groups can be a powerful device for forcing into the open hidden disagreements—provided the members are prepared to discuss their views candidly and the Chairman is willing to sharpen the issues rather than engaging in a search for vague compromise. Furthermore, taking an issue into the SIG can—and has been—an effective way to demonstrate weaknesses in the staffing of policy recommendations and to compel operating desks to submit issues to higher policy levels for review.

Needless to say, not all meetings have been a complete success—either at the SIG or the IRG level. But this does not, in itself invalidate the concept. A meeting may be unsuccessful because the subject matter is not suited for—or does not require—a group discussion, such as when there is general agreement on the facts, appraisal and recommendations. Alternatively, preparations for a meeting may have been inadequate—or the group may have been unwilling to discuss the issue candidly. On the other hand, an inconclusive result—despite best efforts—may simply reflect the intractability of the problem—our limited understanding and knowledge about many aspects of foreign affairs and national security policy.

Most issues that come before the SIG are controversial. Therefore it should not be surprising that a good many SIG decisions have not been universally popular. The SIG has not hesitated, on a number of occasions, to rule against the recommendations of the initiating operating bureau or agency. And many of its decisions have evoked a strongly negative response from one part or another of the Washington foreign affairs community.

The SIG has devoted much time and talent to various long-term studies. Has this effort been justified?

These studies have attempted to provide both a general policy context and some specific guidance for particular operational problems. Also, they have been designed to reappraise situations, programs, and policies. The studies have not always lent themselves easily to discussion in committee. But in our view, they have confirmed the value of comprehensive planning by an integrated interdepartmental staff, at least for those countries and areas where major political, military, and economic-developmental programs and objectives are present.

In two respects, however, this planning process under SIG auspices could be improved:

• —Greater care should be taken in drafting terms of reference. In several cases, the studies attempted to cover too wide an area of subject matter. A better design, a more restricted focus, might have produced better results.
• —Greater thought and effort should be devoted to linking policy and program development. The general policy framework, however persuasively articulated, remains ambiguous, unless it is clearly linked to specific program objectives and these in turn form the basis for military and economic assistance plans (and, ultimately, US military planning).

(While not wanting to prejudge the final results of the follow-on work, we believe an approach notably successful in this respect is the Korea policy study undertaken on the recommendation of Mr. Vance after the Pueblo crisis.)

There are also a number of legitimate criticisms of the SIG’s performance to date. Essentially, these reduce to two:

• -Uneven, sometimes sporadic, coverage of issues: Many of the issues, which under orderly operating procedures should have gone through the SIG, have been handled on an ad hoc, more personal, basis. There still is considerable reluctance to take complex, highly controversial issues into the SIG. This reluctance can be seen in all the constituent agencies, including the Department of State. Senior policy officers are reluctant to do so because they believe that the SIG, even under its pres-ent restricted membership and attendance rules, is still too public and diversified a forum for the discussion of highly sensitive matters. Similarly, there frequently is resistance from working levels. Review by the SIG cuts into the desired margin of operating and policy autonomy, and it reduces flexibility in seeking a predictable, hopefully sympathetic, forum for appropriate policy review at higher levels. From the operator or country expert’s point of view, the decisions taken by the SIG are somewhat unpredictable precisely because the SIG represents a pooling of broader, more varied, policy perspectives.
• -The uneven performance of the IRGs: Activity in the regional interdepartmental groups has varied considerably from region to region, depending on the personality of the appropriate Assistant Secretary of State, his work style, and his vigor and energy in pressing his mandate for interagency coordination. Several of the IRGs, notably those for Latin America and Near East/South Asian Affairs, have met regularly to consider virtually all the major policy issues requiring interagency consultation. Senior policy officers for these regions have developed a pattern of close cooperation across agency lines. In other regions, use of the IRG has been more limited in scope.

Some of these difficulties could be overcome by more flexible arrangements for attendance and participation. Issues are of varying interest-in terms of their statutory and policy mandate—to the SIG principals. One possibility would be to give the AID Administrator and the Director of USIA the option of not attending meetings that do not significantly affect their interests. Alternatively, the SIG might formally constitute an Executive Committee, consisting of State, Defense, JCS, CIA and the White House representative, that would deal with sensitive security and intelligence matters (similar to the informal group which now discusses Viet-Nam). Another subcommittee might deal with issues having a security-economic component (such as balance of payments implications of United States military deployments overseas).

In conclusion, the SIG can meet the responsibilities and requirements levied upon it by the Secretary of State and, ultimately, the President, both directly and in support of an active NSC, provided two conditions are fulfilled:

• First, the Department of State must represent more than a parochial interest in foreign affairs: When the Department acts as Executive Chairman of the SIG/IRG, it must learn to adjust its vision to the problem of decision-making at the Presidential level.
• Second, there must be clear and unambiguous encouragement and support from the highest levels of government. The mechanism cannot be really effective unless the Secretary of State and the President keep up steady pressure on the several agencies to staff recommendations through this channel.

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/S-SIG Files: Lot 70 D 263, SIG/DOC #47. Confidential. Under cover of December 4 memorandum Arthur Hartman sent copies of the SIG Staff Study to the Staff Directors for each of the 6 IRGs.
2. Annex A contains text of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 341. [Footnote in the source text. Attached but not printed.]
3. Annex B describes major items. [Footnote in the source text. Attached but not printed.]
4. Annex D contains a copy of President Kennedy’s letter to all Ambassadors making these responsibilities crystal clear. [Footnote in the source text. Attached but not printed.]
5. Viet-Nam, while not formally on the SIG agenda, has been considered regularly and systematically by an informal subcommittee of SIG members, chaired by Mr. Katzenbach and including Mr. Nitze, General Wheeler, Mr. Walt Rostow, and Mr. Helms. While not a decision-making body, this group—encouraged by the Secretary of State—has provided an important forum for the pooling of information and views and the preparation of operational recommendations to the President. [Footnote in the source text.]
6. “Estimate of Major Items on SIG Agenda As of January 1, 1968”; attached but not printed.
7. “U.S. Policy in the Middle East,” circulated to SIG member agencies on July 19. (Department of State, IRG/NEA Files: Lot 70 D 503)
8. “Latin America, a Recommended U.S. National Strategy, April 1968,” prepared by a Special State-Defense Study Group under direction of Ambassador Edwin M. Martin. (Washington National Records Center, RG 330, Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense: FRC 73 A 1250, Latin America 319.2 (12 Apr 68) 1968, Attachment 91)
9. “National Policy Paper on Southern Africa,” 3rd draft (Revised), November 1968, prepared by William Witman of the Policy Planning Council. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/S-SIG Files: Lot 70 D 263, SIG/Memo #98)