104. Editorial Note
At the daily White House staff meeting on January 18, 1963, there was some discussion pertaining to Latin America. The relevant portion of a January 18 memorandum of the meeting by Colonel Lawrence J. Legere of the NSC Staff reads:
“Chuck Johnson had recently sent Bundy a paper recommending that consideration be given to the creation of some kind of multilateral military force for the Latin America nations, or perhaps only for those Latin America nations in the Caribbean area. Of course, by this he did not mean a multilateral MRBM force or even necessarily a multilateral seaborne force, but was merely trying to underline the advantages of getting the Latin Americans to associate themselves in some kind of common military enterprise. The discussion on the Johnson memorandum per se got no place, but it did prompt a side discussion of the military forces of the Latin America nations, with emphasis on the military assistance which the US furnishes them. Komer delivered himself of a few brief but sarcastic outbursts alleging that the US military was all too prone to listen sympathetically to Latin American requests for ‘submarines, aircraft carriers, jet fighters, etc.,’ (a bit of Komer hyperbole). At this point, Ralph Dungan, a Latin America expert and, because of his closeness to the President, a big gun at these staff meetings, cut Komer off very sharply. Dungan said that he had found the US military very much aware of the nonsense involved in over-sophisticated weaponry for these countries, and that they had ‘really put the clobber’ on such requests for FY 63. In short, as Dungan put it, the whole direction of MAP for Latin America has ‘turned around very well.’ In another context later in the meeting, Bundy indicated that he had been absolutely unaware of how military assistance programs to Latin America had ‘turned around’; it was apparent, however, that he approved of what Dungan had said.” (National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Box 25, Daily Staff Meetings)