tary cooperation, with NSC 5612 adding a specific mention of SEATO. Beyond these broad areas of similarity, NSC 5612 included certain specifics not found in the earlier paper. Most significant was the statement of conditions under which the United States would take military action to resist overt communist aggression:

invoke the UN Charter or the SEATO Treaty, or both as applicable, and subject to local request for assistance take necessary military and any other action to assist any Mainland Southeast Asian state or dependent territory willing to resist Communist resort to force: provided that the taking of military action shall be subject to prior submission to and approval by the Congress unless the emergency is so great that immediate action is necessary to save a vital interest of the United States.44

There was one point of disagreement within the Planning Board regarding the new policy for Southeast Asia. At issue was whether, in giving military and economic assistance, the United States should favor countries willing to join free world collective security arrangements. The Defense and Treasury representatives favored such preferential treatment; the State representative was opposed.

The end result of all these actions, the Planning Board believed, would be an "equipoise of power in Asia," presumably balancing the forces of the free and communist worlds. No such concept of equipoise had appeared in NSC 5405 or any other approved national policy on the Far East or Southeast Asia.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff informed the Secretary of Defense on 24 August that, except for three points, they approved the statement of policy in NSC 5612. "Establishing an equipoise of power in Asia" was not a suitable objective for US policy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff maintained. Prior delegation of authority should be obtained from Congress to employ US military forces against communist aggression in Southeast Asia rather than waiting until an act of aggression had taken place. And, finally, the Defense-Treasury position giving preferential treatment in the granting of military and economic aid to states joining free world collective defense arrangements should be adopted.45

The NSC, on 30 August 1956, accepted the first and third of these recommendations. It also made two significant changes in the statement of conditions under which the United States would take military action to resist overt communist aggression: it limited the application of US intervention by specifying that the states and territories to be aided must be not only in Southeast Asia but also in the treaty area; it specifically noted that the President would determine whether a threat to the national interest was so great as to justify military action without congressional approval. In this form, the NSC adopted NSC 5612. On 5 September, President Eisenhower approved the revised paper, which was then issued as NSC 5612/1.46

Southeast Asia Policy in Retrospect

y the end of 1956, the United States had enjoyed some modest success in implementing its policy of containment in Southeast Asia. Most encouraging

was the emergence of what appeared to be a stable noncommunist regime in South Vietnam, a development that offered the United States an opportunity to build up an indigenous barrier to further communist expansion in at least one part of Southeast Asia. A modest beginning had also been made toward establishing a collective defense of the area. A number, but by no means all, of the noncommunist powers of the region had joined with the United States, Great Britain, and France in SEATO. By the second anniversary of the signing of the pact, the SEATO military machinery was organized and beginning to function.

In character, the system of part-time committees that had been set up represented the type of SEATO organization favored by the US Government and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Creation of an elaborate combined military command and staff had been successfully resisted, making it unlikely that the signatories would be called upon in the near future to assign specific national forces to SEATO control. This left the United States free to employ its mobile striking forces in the strategy favored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the general concept of the New Look. In Southeast Asia, the Joint Chiefs of Staff saw this New Look strategy as one of selective nuclear air attacks on centers of aggressor military strength. They conceived only a very limited role for ground forces.

Military Assistance

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The strategy of the United States for general and limited war assigned a key role to forces of countries linked to the United States by mutual defense treaties. Since many of these allies could not afford to maintain the forces needed to play their assigned roles, the United States extended subsidies to them through a program of military aid. The furnishing of military assistance to friendly nations had begun in 1947 with the granting of assistance to Greece and Turkey pursuant to the Truman Doctrine. These initial programs were crash efforts designed to meet immediate communist pressures, both internal and external.

In 1948, following the ratification of the Brussels Treaty, the character of US military aid shifted from a stopgap response to immediate crises to a longer range effort to build up the forces of the major Western powers. The intention was to build a position of strength from which to deter Soviet aggression or to mount counterblows in the event of Soviet attack. During the same period, and increasingly after the outbreak of the Korean conflict in 1950, military assistance programs were extended to free world countries in Asia. Military aid, usually provided in conjunction with collective security agreements, was a primary measure in support of the US policy of containing communist aggression.

The Program at the Beginning of 1955

t the beginning of 1955 the United States was furnishing military assistance to 37 countries, of which 30 were linked to the United States by mutual defense treaties. Western Europe was still the primary recipient, accounting for more than 70 percent of the total expended during FY 1954. The recipient countries were the following: 1

At 30 were to by

Although the tendency had been toward extension of military assistance programs to additional countries, prospects for the future of the programs were not entirely bright at the beginning of 1955. There had been a downward trend in appropriations since a high point in FY 1952, when Congress had responded to a request for $6.303 billion by appropriating $5.744 billion. By FY 1954, administration requests and congressional responses had declined from this high by approximately 30 percent, and a much more drastic cut in military assistance funds had occurred in the program for FY 1955. For that year the administration requested only $1.778 billion and Congress appropriated $1.193 billion. This was a reduction of nearly 60 percent from the $4.275 billion requested for FY 1954, and a still greater decline from the $3.230 billion appropriated for that year. (See Table 9.) The Joint Chiefs of Staff had protested the reduction, pointing out to the Secretary of Defense at the time the administration program was being drawn up that the amount proposed for FY 1955 was inadequate to military needs.2