305. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Kennedy 0
SUBJECT
- Ambassador Berger’s call at 12:00 noon today1
This is an informal call, with no immediate business. Berger has settled with Dave Bell’s people the particular question of economic assistance funds for the current fiscal year which brought him to Washington. (He wished to keep a contingency bargain which he had made with the Koreans using funds already committed to him by Washington, while AID was trying to recapture the money as a windfall; Berger has won.)
You will probably want to hear from Berger about the current political situation in Korea which Roger Hilsman reports as “balanced on a knife edge.” Roger and I agreed that Berger can tell you much more about it than we can.
For the long pull, you may want to raise with Berger the possible prospect of an urgent further need for further reductions in both military and economic assistance to Korea. He has been cooperative in responding to these pressures so far, and will no doubt point out that he is the most virtuous of ambassadors on this score. Nevertheless, programmed assistance for next year runs at $205 million for MAP and $125-to-$145 million on the economic side (of which 80 million is PL 480). You may want to point out to Berger that with the growing claims of India, and the possibility of major reductions in the overall appropriation, something may have to give, and Korea is necessarily a likely target. Berger understands economics better than most ambassadors, and anything you can do to get him thinking as a member of your own team on this problem will help.