Office of the Historian

303. Memorandum From Charles E. Johnson of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1

Washington, November 30, 1965.

SUBJECT

  • December 1 meeting with Governor Ellington on Stockpile

Harry Rowen2 filled me in on the meeting Charlie Schultze and Joe Califano had with the President at the Ranch on Saturday.3 He confirmed the word you had received that the President was willing to proceed as rapidly as possible and Harry had the impression that the President considered the entire stockpile concept as basically rather outmoded.

The President would like to proceed immediately with the disposal of those commodities (platinum and mercury, for example) that are in short supply and could be disposed of at a good price.

In view of the several important elements that are involved, Harry and I suggest that Charlie Schultze and Joe Califano join you and Governor Ellington to discuss the following:

(1)
The kind of an up-to-date letter that either Charlie or you will obtain from Secretary McNamara stating his view (with the endorsement of the Joint Chiefs) that there is no longer a need for basing stockpile objectives on the unavailability of imports and further that a two-year rather than a three-year cycle is completely adequate for planning conventional war stockpile objectives.4 The effect of these two changes will be to practically wipe out the stockpile objectives. In fact, the change in the planning assumption on imports would practically accomplish this by itself. Harry is confident that this letter can be obtained without any difficulty.
(2)
The need, if any, for a meeting of the NSAM 321 Special Committee in order to get agreement on the recommendations embodied in the draft NSAM attached herewith.5 In lieu of the meeting, it might be possible to send copies of the report and NSAM to members of the Committee [Page 751] with a request for their comments and concurrence as a matter of priority. The NSAM is needed to put the bee on OEP to proceed immediately to recalculate all of the new objectives on the basis of guidance contained in the NSAM.
(3)
The legislative package and procedure required. There has been talk of a “single bill” to be used to obtain Congressional concurrence. Presumably this would be a packaging of all of the disposal actions that the President would be recommending to the Congress. Hitherto such recommendations have been in the form of single bills.

For your information, Ellington, under a delegation of authority from the President (EO 11051),6 could designate the materials which are strategic and critical and establish the quality and quantity of each material that shall be stockpiled. The stockpile objectives were last established by the Director in 1963–64 and are normally reviewed and revised annually as necessary. If an objective is reduced so that materials in the stockpile become excess to the stockpile objective, the excess may be sold only after the Congress has approved of such sale if the material is in the National or Supplemental Stockpile. If it is in the so-called Defense Production Act Stockpile, OEP can sell it without Congressional OK—if they can find buyers—this is largely stuff that’s harder to sell.

It might be useful to scan the latest OEP Stockpile Report to the Congress.7 I have marked in red certain sections that are particularly pertinent.

CEJ
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, National Security Action Memoranda, NSAM 321, Review of Strategic Stockpile Objectives, Box 6. Confidential.↩
  2. Henry S. Rowen, Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Budget.↩
  3. November 27.↩
  4. On December 1, Charles E. Johnson sent a memorandum to Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus R. Vance that transmitted the draft Stockpile Report and asked for “formal DOD review and concurrence.” (Johnson Library, National Security File, National Security Action Memoranda, NSAM 321, Review of Strategic Stockpile Objectives, Box 6)↩
  5. Not attached.↩
  6. Section 402 of Executive Order 11051, September 27, 1962; Federal Register, Vol. 27, p. 9686.↩
  7. Not further identified.↩