43. Editorial Note
On December 18, 1958, the National Security Council discussed as Agenda Item 1 the status of the military mobilization base program. At the close of the discussion, the Council decided to keep under study whether mobilization base planning should continue to assume a mobilization period of 6 months prior to D-day, and continue efforts to find means of taking bomb damage into account in mobilization base planning “while keeping the assumptions as to the extent of damage within limits which provide a basis for feasible planning.” As Agenda Item 2, the Council considered fallout shelters in existing federal buildings. (Memorandum of discussion by Boggs, December 18; Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records) During the discussion of mobilization, the Council heard an oral presentation by Perkins McGuire, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Supply and Logistics), of his report of the same date on the subject. (Ibid.) Both documents are in the Supplement. Agenda Item 1 and Agenda Item 2 were both approved as NSC Action No. 2019 and 2020, respectively. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, Records of Action)
In a memorandum of a conversation held with the President on December 24, Gray wrote in part: “I reminded the President that he had [Page 172] indicated that he wished the Department of Defense to keep under study the question of whether its mobilization base planning should continue to assume a mobilization period of six months prior to D-day. The President said that he felt that it should be studied but that his guess was that planning had to assume both such a period and no period whatsoever.” (Memorandum of conversation by Gray, December 30; Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up) See the Supplement.