253. Notes of the Legislative Leadership Meeting0
[Here follow a list of participants, a summary, and discussion of unrelated topics, including the International Development Association. For that part of the discussion, see Document 193.]
Mutual Security—(The President left the meeting for the period of Mr. Dillon’s presentation.)
Mr. Dillon said the Admininstration was asking $155 million less in grant programs than last year and only about $150 million more than was authorized last year.
Mr. Dillon thought the big problem would come in the appropriations process where money would have to be provided for things already authorized, as the Development Loan Fund and military assistance. The big increase of the total program, he said, was entirely in military assistance where $2 billion is being requested as compared with the $1.3 billion appropriated last year.
Mr. Dillon emphasized that we had used up the possibility of living off the pipeline, which was once as high as $8 billion. Now, it will be necessary to appropriate about $2 billion every year to maintain an expenditure rate of $2 billion. This year, deliveries will be at only $1.8 billion, and even so that is $0.5 billion over the appropriation.
Of the $2 billion being requested, $1.2 billion would be for maintaining forces in various countries in the Far East, Turkey, and Greece; $800 million would be for modernization of forces, about equally divided between NATO and elsewhere.
Mr. Dillon said that no new commitments would be made for military assistance to Germany, the United Kingdom, or France. And in other countries, we are asking that they themselves make a larger contribution to their own defense. He stated that last year our allies had increased their efforts by about $1 billion, and that there would be a further increase this year. Hence we look to the time when they will be on their own.
Mr. Dillon noted that the liaison with Congress would be handled by Mr. Ben Brown, the ICA director in Libya, who has been recalled to substitute for the ailing Mr. Claxton.
(The President returned to the meeting.)
[Page 491]Sen. Bridges ascertained that the United States would expend funds to help in the Thor combat training of the English, and he concluded that despite Mr. Dillon’s earlier statement, we would be giving the British some military assistance. Mr. Irwin said that this would amount to $3.8 million for 1961.
Mr. Halleck asked about overseas missile bases that form a part of our deterrent, and Mr. Dillon enumerated them. Messrs. Bridges and Saltonstall recalled last year’s hassle over the status of the UK Thor bases. Mr. Dillon said that the RAF had announced, and appropriately demonstrated, that these bases are fully operational.
Mr. Halleck digressed for a moment to inform Mr. Dillon about the uneasiness that is developing over rumors that there would be a great many tariff reductions resulting from the next GATT negotiations. Mr. Dillon said this stemmed from confusion over the preliminary list, that each item was subject to study by the Tariff Commission which could set peril points, and that in many of these items the reduction could be at best only very small. Rep. Byrnes urged that a greater effort be made to eliminate from such lists, before announcement, any items that had very little potential for negotiation. Mr. Dillon noted the innovation this year of having Commerce Department work up for publication a list of items on which the U.S. would ask concessions from other countries.
Reverting to the mutual security program, Sen. Saltonstall thought that all of the mutual security items ought to be in a single bill instead of partially in the Defense appropriations bill, so as to give the Administration greater flexibility and increase its ability to get the best possible bill out of Congress.
Sen. Bridges foresaw some very serious votes when some of the demagogues would endeavor to take funds away from mutual security and apply them to our domestic security programs like the B–70 or airborne alert, etc., etc. Sen. Dirksen also thought so, then pointed to the probability that Sen. Russell would accept an increase of only $150 or $200 million.
The President commented that he had been breaking his heart over this for seven years and apparently must do so once more. The United States just did not seem to realize what was at stake here. It was essential to look at this program not as something deserving sympathy but rather with a hardheaded concern for our own best interests. Senators Bridges and Dirksen referred to the difficulty of getting Democratic Presidential candidates to support this, and Sen. Bridges opined that there were even more such candidates in the Senate than have yet been announced.
The President recalled how Lyndon Johnson had taken note of the $800 million increase, making a total of $4 billion in the program for next year, then had said that while he of course was not against it, [Page 492] nevertheless every place he went in Texas he heard people complain about money being spent overseas when there was no money available for a particular dam they felt necessary. The President was insistent that this program must be considered on a much broader basis than just any single dam. There must be recognition of the fact that there were 1,250,000,000 people outside of Red China who would have to have some sort of help unless chaos is to result.
The President recounted his conversation with the King of Morocco2 who urged that the United States must be solidly in support of independence movements, and must take the lead in finding ways to make it possible for these new countries to sustain themselves. The President said he had agreed that these two things must be done, but that they might better be done in reverse order; that is, that independent countries might best maintain helpful ties with their parent countries, as Algeria did in the past, until their economies gave promise of sustaining independence. The King would not agree to this, however, and went on to stress the great morale factor that is involved when a nation is able to take a seat in the United Nations. The President said that despite this mild debate he made it clear to the King that the United States does stand firmly for the right of self-determination.
The President continued his remarks, noting that these African countries are going to become independent and are going to look for help in one place or another. He thought that the one way he could see for accomplishing anything in this respect was to get a cooperative effort established where these countries could jointly put much into development and thus have a stake in maintaining the political stability and the growth of a whole area, something that would not result from simply a bilateral program between the United States and any individual country. For the moment, the President said, it was essential to get some of these people educated a little bit on the need for a little more political stability; but actually the task is a terrific amount bigger than just a business of putting $200 million or even $700 million additional into the mutual security program.
The President concluded by noting how long he had been talking about this problem over the years and by joking that there was no point citing to him the argument about high taxes—he was well experienced in that, particularly since there had been an effective cut in the [Page 493] Presidential salary just as he came into office by eliminating a tax exemption that had applied previously.3
[Here follows discussion of unrelated topics.]
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Legislative Leadership Meetings. Confidential. Drafted by Minnich.↩
- The meeting was held at the White House.↩
- A memorandum of this December 22, 1959, conversation is printed in vol. XIII, p. 795. Eisenhower visited Casablanca during his December 3–22, 1959, good will trip to Italy, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Greece, Tunisia, Spain, and Morocco, during which he also attended a meeting of the Western Heads of State and Government in Paris.↩
- The President sent his request for the fiscal year 1961 Mutual Security appropriations to the Congress on February 16. For text, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, pp. 830–836.↩