Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, National Security Policy; Arms Control and Disarmament, Volume III

65. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower⁰

Washington, July 14, 1959.

OTHERS PRESENT

• Admiral Radford
• General Goodpaster

Admiral Radford said he would report to the President some impressions he had gained from his period of temporary duty. He expects General Twining to return to duty next week, probably Monday.

Two principal things bothered him during his period in the Pentagon just ended. The first is continental defense. This is taking a large amount of money and is scheduled to take more. He feels that a sizable reduction should be made in the amount of money being given to this. If the present programs are continued, then we should add a fall-out shelter program to them, and this would be very expensive. He really thought we should re-allocate funds from this purpose to other purposes.

He said he had asked both General Lemnitzer and General White to consider trading some responsibilities—for example, giving the whole air defense mission to Air Force units, and tactical air operations to Army units. Air defense is now split, and the Army is in fact initiating many activities with missiles to do a job formerly done only by tactical air. He said both had expressed interest in this, and would talk to each other. He said they are West Point classmates who get along well with each other.

The Nike–Zeus is another element of air defense which causes him concern. The missile will be extremely advanced, complicated and expensive and will require wide dispersion. He thought that the money should be used in other places, for example in modernizing certain equipment of the Army and the Navy. The President said that Dr. Killian had suggested putting some of the air defense money into hardening and fall-out shelters. On this point Admiral Radford recalled that he had in times past questioned putting so many of our big missile bases in the United States, thus making the United States too attractive a target. He thought they might be put on islands in the Pacific, the Atlantic and in the Aleutians area as well as in Alaska. The President said we are getting into insoluble problems in connection with our bases abroad. They are terribly expensive, and are so valuable that, once installed, give foreign countries leverage for blackmail on us. Admiral Radford said his notion was to put them on U.S. soil. He said that the Air Force had stressed the problems of manning and morale. Many of them could be handled just as we handle the DEW line. He spoke of the great advantage of the Polaris, in giving dispersion, mobility and concealment to our missile forces.

Admiral Radford then went on to say that the second problem, and by far the greater one, is the idea generated in the State Department that it is possible to have a conventional force of large size, and to fight a sizable war with it without using atomic weapons. He recalled that the reason we can intervene in many areas quickly with force is that we do this with small forces which, armed with atomic weapons, are not in danger of being wiped out. Assistant Secretary of State Gerard Smith, he said, is attempting to get a change of policy, even though Mr. Herter says that he is seeking nothing so sweeping. The President asked me to put this down for him to talk to Mr. Herter about. He recalled his own view that any formed unit will have to have the capacity to use these weapons; whether they are in fact used or not is a command decision to be made in light of the circumstances.

Admiral Radford said that he believes all this whipped-up concern over use of atomic weapons is unfounded; there is more real concern lest we fail to use them when their use is really needed. He thought that State Department people below top level are generating opposition to the redraft of the national security policy paragraph discussed by the President at the last NSC meeting.¹ The President asked me to call Douglas Dillon and tell him that there had been long talks on this paragraph, that its meaning is now very close to what he intends, that he understood it to be generally in line with Mr. Herter’s thinking, and he does not want a great campaign started to generate opposition to it.

Admiral Radford said he is going to see Admiral Burke and General Lemnitzer further on this matter. He said that he is counting greatly on General Lemnitzer to pull things together in the Army in a better way than we have seen in many years. He said the real question at the moment is that the Army and the Navy want some of the money that is going to the Air Force. He personally felt that some redistribution would make sense, although he pointed out that many of the expensive projects in the Air Force budget such as the DEW line are simply there for convenience and could have been carried under the Department of Defense. Admiral Radford said that in his opinion the Army and the Navy, if they take a long range view, have less grounds for concern over their combat roles than does the Air Force. This is why the Air Force in his opinion is making such efforts to get into missiles, outer space, etc. The President stressed strongly that he agreed with a point made by Dr. Killian that there must be improved coordination between NASA and ARPA and that ARPA should take control of space research throughout the Department of Defense. There was then discussion of the problems of top level direction in the Department of Defense. The President said he cannot figure out what is causing the trouble in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The organization seems to be failing to do its job. Admiral Radford suggested, and the President agreed, that it would be most helpful for the President to meet with the Chiefs shortly.

G.
Brigadier General, General, USA

0. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. Secret. Drafted by Goodpaster on July 15.
1. Reference is to paragraph 12–a. of NSC 5906.