Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962

229. Memorandum for the Record⁰

Washington, June 13, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Meeting with the President and the Taylor Group at 1700, 13 June 1961

PRESENT

• The President
• General Taylor
• The Attorney General
• Admiral Burke
• Mr. Allen Dulles

1. General Taylor outlined what we had found in the Cuban matter. He went over the recommendations¹ at great length. The President was quite interested in the recommendations on the cold war organization. That is, the Strategic Resources Board, suggested in the first recommendation. General Taylor told him all the advantages of the thing. That they needed such a board, that this would coordinate the activities of State, Defense and Intelligence and other agencies. He gave all the benefits of it. The President was quite taken with it.

2. After General Taylor got through I said that this thing might not work as well as it would seem on the surface. There was great danger in this because if the Man became an assistant President, it would be very difficult to operate with State and Defense. In addition to that if the staff grew, and I thought that it would grow because of the habits of staffs in Washington, then the staff would surely impinge upon the duties of State and Defense and they would quite rightfully become concerned about this new agency taking over their duties. Furthermore, that there was such a thing as passive resistance and that if for any reason people in State or Defense thought that this new agency was taking over, there would be conflict and differences of opinion and the activities would not be well done. In addition to that, if this man started to give military advice there would be difficulties between him and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

3. This, the President listened to but I think he discounted the difficulties a great deal. In any case, he discussed the advantages at great length but did not discuss the disadvantages except to state that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State should both be briefed very carefully before the idea was suddenly sprung on them. This was to get them acclimated to the idea.

Comment: I still think that the idea has a slight chance of working. It was quite evident that Taylor is to be given the job because during the conversation, the President said that he wanted to speak with Taylor for about half an hour sometime tomorrow, Wednesday.

4. They went over the other recommendations, with which the President agreed.

5. It was decided that there would be two meetings, one on Thursday or Friday morning, which would brief the Cuban affair.² Present at this meeting would be the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Dulles, Mr. Bissell, other leading people from CIA, Mr. McGeorge Bundy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There would be a second meeting on Monday or Tuesday, which would go over the recommendations with approximately the same group.³ Before this meeting, however, General Taylor and the rest of us would have to get together with Mr. McNamara and Mr. Rusk.

6. I pointed out to General Taylor that I thought Mr. McNamara, and perhaps others, were going down to a tactical exercise in Camp LeJeune on Friday. This didnʼt seem to have much effect but Taylor said that he would look into it.

7. I also mentioned that I was to go to the hospital and they asked if that could be postponed and I said of course it could, so I may have to postpone my trip to the hospital.

8. It was decided that there would be no report and that the President would make some sort of release that he had received recommendations and was studying them and expected to put some of them into effect.

9. There was considerable discussion as to what might have happened had they had air superiority. It was pointed out that there was a difference of opinion between General Taylor and Bobby Kennedy and Mr. Dulles and myself on that. The President read that.

10. The President seemed to be in pain, but seemed to be satisfied with the report in general. This meeting lasted for about an hour so there was considerable discussion on some of the details, most of which were not too important. I did bring out that General Somoza⁴ had talked with me and that General Somoza wanted to conduct another revolution, which I thought was a good thing but the President said, “here we go again.”

Arleigh Burke⁵

0. Source: Naval Historical Center, Area Files, Bumpy Road Materials. Secret; Hold Closely. Prepared by Admiral Burke.
1. See Document 234.
2. No record of this meeting has been found.
3. A record of this meeting, which took place on June 19, is in the Naval Historical Center, Area Files, Bumpy Road Materials.
4. The reference is to the President of Nicaragua.
5. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.