232. Memorandum of Conversation Between President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles.1
SUBJECT
- Nelson Rockefeller
I raised with the President the situation re Nelson Rockefeller, stating that I simply wanted the President to know at this stage that we were having a very difficult time working with him and that, although I was trying to work the situation out, I was not at all sure that I would be successful in doing so. I then described to the President briefly my own thinking as to the proper role that someone in Rockefeller’s position [Page 719] should play. I said that I felt that his primary function was to screen the many ideas, written and oral, that came into the White House in the field of foreign affairs and to see to it that the worthwhile ones were put into proper Government channels for further consideration and followed up. I said that I recognized that the regular departments were often so tied to daily routines that they did not have time or resourcefulness in dealing with new ideas. However, I said that if somebody like Nelson Rockefeller built up a staff of his own, as he appeared to have every intention of doing, he in turn became a bureaucrat and defeated the whole purpose of the exercise.
I then showed the President the copy of the memorandum Governor Adams had given me from Nelson Rockefeller to the President outlining his staff requirements.2 The President expressed some surprise at the size and complexity of the proposed staff and said that he had been unaware of all these arrangements.