Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 1

S/S–NSC files, lot 66 D 148, “NSC Memos”

No. 288
Memorandum by the Secretary of State¹

confidential

Washington, January 8, 1954.

At the NSC meeting today, Mr. Stassen stated that they were planning to go to Congress with a “four line” request, the appropriation to be to the President with flexibility provisions but with provisions for merging the military funds into Defense funds, the overseas military funds to be spent under State Department foreign policy guidance. This would be along the lines stated in the President’s State of the Union Message.²

Mr. Stassen also stated that while the suggestion would be made to Congress of continuing the FOA, they were not going to press for this but would accept any set-up that Congress desired and if they wanted to transfer the funds to the State Department for economic aid, that would be OK provided the transfer had proper provisions for coordination. It was suggested that it might require the President to submit a new State Department reorganization plan.

It was agreed that the fund would be called “Freedom Fund”.

JFD

1. Copies to Walter Bedell Smith, Murphy, Byroade, Robertson, Cabot, Bowie, Waugh, Nolting, Morton, Merchant, MacArthur, and Wilbur.
2. President Eisenhower’s Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, Jan. 7, 1954, is printed in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954, pp. 6–23.