738.5 MSP/10–654

Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Mutual Security Affairs ( Nolting ) to the Acting Director of the Office of Military Assistance, Department of Defense ( Wilson )1

secret

Subject:

  • Grant Aid Military Assistance Program for Haiti.

I refer to General Stewart’s memorandum of October 6, 1954,2 which stated that the Department of Defense would be prepared to reduce the FY 1955 mutual defense assistance programs for France and Italy, in order to provide funds necessary to conduct a grant military assistance program for Haiti, in the event a bilateral military assistance agreement should be concluded with that country.

The Department of State was informed by the Assistant Secretary of Defense, in a letter of January 7, 1954,3 that the Department of Defense considered U.S. defense plans to require Haiti to participate in a hemispere defense mission requiring the development by Haiti of naval forces consisting of three LSFF’s. On the assumption that no more than $1 million of funds will be required to implement such a program for Haiti during the present fiscal year, the State Department approves the Department of Defense recommendation that funds now allocated for France and Italy be used for that purpose.

[Page 1282]

The Department of State will appreciate being informed of the approximate date on which Department of Defense representatives would be prepared to arrive in Port-au-Prince for negotiations with Haitian representatives for the conclusion of a bilateral military assistance agreement and a secret bilateral military plan. As soon as the Department of Defense has indicated its preference for a date for beginning negotiations, the Department of State will make necessary arrangements with the Haitian Government.4

With reference to the final paragraph of General Stewart’s memorandum, it is suggested that in reporting the new program for Haiti to the congressional committees, this program be related to the hemispheric defense role of Latin America as a whole, with such additional justification as may be indicated in the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to which reference was made in the letter of January 7, 1954 addressed to the Secretary of State by Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mr. Frank Nash.

Frederick E. Nolting, Jr.
  1. Drafted by Mr. Spencer, with the assistance of Leonard H. Price of the Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Mutual Security Affairs.
  2. Supra.
  3. Ante, p. 1275.
  4. In telegram 109, from Port-au-Prince, dated Dec. 21, 1954, the Embassy informed the Department that the Haitian Government was willing to initiate negotiations during the first week of January 1955 for a military assistance agreement (738.5 MSP/12–2154); the negotiations actually began on Jan. 10.