87. Editorial Note
In a memorandum of the White House staff meeting held on October 30, 1961, Thomas A. Parrott of the NSC Staff included the following item:
“4. Forthcoming NSC discussion on testing. Mr. Bundy said that the NSC meeting this coming Thursday will feature a briefing by CIA on the implications of the Soviet test series, which would then undoubtedly lead to a discussion of our own testing. He felt that it would be highly desirable to get the President’s views on testing out in the open before this meeting since otherwise the military and others would probably come in with carefully reasoned arguments in favor of resumption; the discussion would then take the form of trying to beat these arguments down.
“Mr. Bundy said the President’s view is that no tests should be undertaken by the US for political or psychological reasons, or in order to take advantage of any kind of ‘open season’ deriving from the fact that the Soviets have done it on such a massive scale. He referred to the President’s refusal to go along with Macmillan’s suggestion that a finite moratorium be placed on testing, in a joint statement. Bundy emphasized the [Page 210] President’s feeling that we should not be bound by the judgment of the British or the Canadians. (These last points are sensitive.)” (National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Daily White House Staff Meetings, September-December 1961)