NSC Review of Military Assistance Policies

uring the long span of months in which the FY 1957 MDAP was being prepared, the administration had also been conducting an overall reappraisal of US military assistance policies. This review, ordered by President Eisenhower in October 1954 on the recommendation of the National Security Council, resulted more than a year later in a proposal by the Planning Board for a major revision in the manner of providing aid. Reporting on 29 November 1955, the Board recommended that more flexibility to meet unprogrammed emergency requirements be attained by placing a substantial portion of the annual military and economic aid funds in a presidential contingency fund, rather than allocating all funds to specific countries and programs as was the current practice. Although all members of the Board agreed in principle to the establishment of a contingency fund, the Treasury Department and Bureau of the Budget members believed that it should be incorporated in the FY 1957 program, whereas the majority proposed no specific date for establishing such a fund.

With the JCS adviser dissenting, the Planning Board also recommended a review of the aid programs for Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Korea on the ground that "in each of these countries the armed forces (1) do not represent total military requirements, (2) cannot be supported by the local economy now or in the foreseeable future, and (3) require US subsidies at an annual cost ranging from $100 million to $800 million each." 46

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, after reviewing the Planning Board report, recommended against both of its proposals. The contingency fund, they agreed, would permit reaction to international emergencies without raiding funds earmarked for specific country programs. But they feared that earmarking a portion of the limited FY 1957 funds for emergency use would jeopardize the funding of programs necessary for an orderly buildup toward approved worldwide force objectives. They, therefore, recommended that the contingency fund not be established unless the administration sought from Congress the full $2.7 billion for FY 1957 MDAP that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended on 9 November.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff also opposed a review of the aid programs for Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Korea. They held that individual country programs should be developed, not in isolation, but in the light of worldwide military requirements and the total resources available. This process, the Joint Chiefs of Staff pointed out, had just been completed in their own "Reappraisal of Worldwide MDAP" study, which had provided the basis for revised force objectives shortly to be submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for use in preparing the FY 1957 MDAP.47

The NSC took up the Planning Board proposals and the JCS views on 8 December. It took no action to introduce the contingency fund into the FY 1957 program but ordered further study of this and other means of attaining greater flexibility in the administration of foreign assistance. The NSC did direct a review for the six individual country programs listed by the Planning Board, to be conducted by a committee representing the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury and the International Cooperation Administration.48

In January 1956 the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA) asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to supply, for use in the interdepartmental committee's study, the JCS force objectives for each country and a statement of the current status of existing forces, including their general capabilities and annual maintenance costs. While the study was in progress, he requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to supply similar information on Thailand and Spain, which were not on the original list.49

In its report in August 1956 the interdepartmental committee discussed various courses of action and the factors to be considered in evaluating them, but it made no specific recommendations.50 On 26 October President Eisenhower discussed the report with the NSC and decided to order further studies. He asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare reports for the NSC stating the minimum level of forces that it would be in the interest of the United States to support in Pakistan, Taiwan, Turkey, and Iran over the next two years. The Planning Board was directed to review the scope and allocation of US aid to the same four countries, plus Korea, with a view to recommending revisions in the policy.51

In submissions made during November 1956, the Joint Chiefs of Staff affirmed that the existing force levels for Pakistan were the effective minimum. With a more extensive supporting discussion, they presented substantially the same conclusion with respect to the force levels for Taiwan, Turkey, and Iran, and also Iraq. These JCS memorandums were passed to the Planning Board for use in its directed study; the resulting report, submitted in 1957, had its impact on the preparation of aid programs in the years beyond the scope of this volume.52

The FY 1958 Program

B

ecause of the built-in overlap in the system for developing military assistance programs, preparation of the FY 1958 MDAP began at about the same time that President Eisenhower presented the program for FY 1957 to Congress. For the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this process began on 15 March 1956 when Assistant Secretary Gray asked them to provide programming guidance for use in the development of the FY 1958 MDA program. 53

On 13 April the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted the requested program guidance, consisting of the JCS force objectives accompanied by instructions and planning criteria for use by the MAAGS and the commanders of unified commands. In all but a few instances the newly recommended force objectives were the same as those the Joint Chiefs of Staff had listed the previous year. The changes in total numbers of aircraft squadrons, naval vessels, and ground units were as follows:54

In another move to gather information on which to base the FY 1958 MDAP, the Secretary of Defense late in March requested the commanders of the unified commands to prepare lists of "accomplishments expected of the MDA program based on operational missions and tasks assigned to those forces for which military assistance is to be programmed." Lists were to be arranged in order of priority.55 To facilitate their preparation, OSD officials convened a conference in Washington during April, attended by representatives of the unified commands, the military departments and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Following this conference, the unified commands completed and submitted the desired lists.

On 4 May, Assistant Secretary Gray requested the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the lists because a preliminary review indicated possible discrepancies between them and the programming guidance recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 13 April. Specifically, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were asked to determine if the forces recommended by the unified commands were consistent with the JCS force objectives, determine if the tasks and missions listed for MDA-supported forces were consistent with JCS plans for employing those forces in limited or general war, and recommend any changes in FY 1958 programming guidance resulting from the review. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were also asked to integrate the area lists into a world-wide order of importance to serve as a basis for MDA programming, recommending any changes necessary to assure that only the minimum essential forces and levels of support were placed in the higher priority categories.56

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, replying on 31 May 1956, pointed out that a response in the exact terms of the request was not feasible because the unified commands had listed so many country forces in the first priority that it alone would far exceed in cost any reasonable expectation for MDAP funds in a single fiscal year. An inflexible statement of worldwide MDAP priorities the Joint Chiefs of Staff found to be undesirable in any event. In establishing MDAP force objectives for friendly countries, the Joint Chiefs of Staff explained, they did not expect that all forces would be organized and totally equipped in a short period of time. Growth of these units depended upon many factors beyond the control of the United States, and the unified commands should be in a position to respond to those varying conditions in administering the MDAP.

The essential programming problem, the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed, was "how best to spend the limited MDAP funds in view of great world-wide requirements." From this problem derived the question of how best to instruct unified commands so that the military aid programs they submitted were prop

erly related to the strategic concept, were designed to achieve the most judicious allocation of resources within a reasonable fund limitation, and were open to direct comparison with those of other areas by virtue of being based on specific criteria.

As an answer to this question, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended the forwarding to the unified commands of a list of accomplishments desired of the MDA Program that included such items as maintenance of equipment, training of forces, provision of new weapons to selected allies, supply of equipment to remedy deficiencies in selected units, and improvement of base facilities. The commanders of unified commands would be asked to prepare country sheets showing high, medium, and low priority forces, the primary mission envisioned for them, and the maintenance and training to be furnished. The commanders should also be advised that in preparing FY 1958 MDAP requests they should observe a monetary ceiling of one and one-half times the amount requested of the Congress for their areas in the FY 1957 program.5

The purpose of this last recommendation, according to one of the officers responsible for drafting it, was to avoid repetition of the situation that had arisen during preparation of the FY 1957 program, when computation of requirements in the field without a stated fund limitation had yielded figures so large as to be of little use in preparing a program within the limits of reasonable fund expectations. To avoid a "useless spinning of wheels through billions of dollars of meaningless requisitions," it was proposed that a fund limitation be “clamped on right from the start." 58

The recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were favorably received in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA). On 11 June, Assistant Secretary Gray proposed to Admiral Radford certain changes in the guidance recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Chairman upheld the JCS position but offered no objection to the matter being referred to Secretary Wilson for resolution. Mr. Gray then prepared a memorandum to Admiral Radford for Secretary Wilson's signature. It rejected the imposition of a budget ceiling on the unified commands and military departments because such action would tend to freeze the present ratio of distribution of funds among Services and unified command area. The proposed memo would also prevent determination of valid military requirements and would provide no guidance as to future aid levels needed to complete buildups then in process or to maintain existing forces.

The memorandum also stated an objection to the top priority assigned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to maintenance of existing equipment and forces. This could be interpreted as "authorizing high priority accomplishments such as the provision of new weapons, modernization, attrition replacement, etc., only after maintenance of equipment and training for existing MDAP-supported forces had been provided." Secretary Wilson signed the memorandum on 13 June, apparently on the understanding that it had Admiral Radford's concurrence. Copies were handed to representatives of the unified commands by OSD officials at a Washington conference the next day.59 No change was made thereafter, although Admiral Radford again presented the Joint Chiefs of Staff position during a meeting with Secretary Wilson, and he later forwarded a detailed written defense of their stand to the Secretary.60

On 20 August the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA) requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare a budget estimate for the FY 1958 Military Assistance Program under a ceiling of $2.9 billion. The ceiling figure would cover new obligational authority to be requested of Congress for equipment and supplies, training, Mutual Weapons Development Programs, and Facilities Assistance Programs, but would not include costs of fixed charges and special programs. In programming this $2.9 billion, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were instructed to include a number of specific allocations: $183 million for Turkey; $120 million for Pakistan to complete the US commitments made as a result of decisions reached in Washington in March 1956; $1 million for Libya; $25 million for Iran to ensure fulfillment of the US commitment made on 19 July 1955. These programs, designed to meet US political commitments, would be continuations of the ones included in the refined FY 1957 MDAP.61

The Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted their budget estimate for FY 1958 MDAP to the Secretary of Defense on 9 October 1956. They recommended that the Congress be asked to appropriate $2.998 billion for materiel programs for FY 1958. In contrast to the proportions in the JCS refined MDAP for FY 1957, the budget estimate for FY 1958 once again gave first place to Europe, with 54 percent of the total, whereas the Far East would receive 34 percent. (See Table 12.) The provision of new weapons again received attention, with $738 million recommended for the purpose. Nearly all of this sum was earmarked for NATO, to provide members of the alliance with 14 Nike battalions, 14 Honest John battalions, 13 F-100D squadrons, and 26 naval aircraft. The remaining funds were intended to provide Japan with a Matador squadron and Cuba with four naval aircraft.62

Since the time available for completing the FY 1958 MDAP was now growing short, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA) Perkins McGuire, the official directly responsible for the preparation of the program, convened a series of meetings of representatives from all interested Department of Defense agencies. Attending were representatives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military departments, and the Assistant Secretaries of Defense (Comptroller) and (Supply and Logistics). The purpose was to achieve simultaneous consideration by all these agencies, rather than soliciting their views individually. The paper prepared by the OASD(ISA) staff following these consultations amounted to a drastic downward revision of the JCS recommendations. The new figure, circulated to the interested parties on 22 October, represented a cut of about 40 percent-from $2.998 to $1.773 billion.63

The following day, Admiral Radford informed Secretary Wilson that he considered that "reductions in the magnitude proposed by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA)... are militarily unsound and cannot be supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff." If cuts of this size were necessary, the Chairman continued, "a new ceiling should be given to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in order to permit the development of alternate programs.' "64

Further meetings then took place among the agency representatives under the leadership of Secretary McGuire, at which it was explained that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA) had concluded that Congress could not be expected to appropriate more than $2.5 billion for the entire FY 1958 military assistance pro