Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XII, American Republics

108. Memorandum From the Executive Secretary of the Department of State (Read) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)¹

Washington, August 17, 1963.

SUBJECT

• Review of U.S. Military Policy Toward Latin America

In response to Mr. Dungan’s memorandum of May 1 (Tab A),² we have reviewed our policy covering our military relations with Latin American countries. The most recent statement of this policy is contained in the Military Assistance Manual of May 5, 1963 (Tab B).³ Considering that this policy has been developed for regional application, as well as for countries with military establishments of varying degrees of sophistication, we consider the policy to be essentially sound and realistic—sound because it contains reasonable flexibility, and realistic because the goals established therein appear to be achievable.

During this Administration we have devoted our efforts in the military field primarily to the task of leading Latin American countries away from the concept of hemispheric defense and to developing an effective stance of deterrence and capability against internal threats of communist subversion and insurgency. Our grant military assistance program (Tab C) provides us our principal and perhaps most effective leverage in promoting this objective. Due to the modifications of supportable missions, present policy guidance now limits our grant assistance to internal defense, including Civic Action (65% of the program), naval defense (20%), miscellaneous training (10%), and packaging, crating, and handling costs (5%). Our efforts to provide guidance to the Ambassador and Country Team on the formulation of grant programs have included our Circular Telegram of February 27 (Tab D),⁴ letters to each of our Ambassadors (Tab E) and a proposed follow-on instruction which it is planned to discuss in the LAPC in the light of comments by AID and Defense.

It is not clear how successful we shall be, especially as present equipment becomes more and more obsolete from the standpoint of professional combat standards, in selling this program to the Latin American military. A discussion in the LAPC of the longer-term prospects would seem to be in order.

While our efforts to encourage Latin American countries to concentrate their military programs on internal defense also extend to our military sales program, our influence in the latter sector for obvious reasons is somewhat less controlling. We are convinced, however, that our present sales policy strikes a reasonable balance between our interest of promoting a reduction of unnecessary Latin American arms acquisitions on the one hand and on the other of realizing the dollar benefits of U.S. sales when we are unable to discourage unnecessary purchases from non-U.S. sources. A letter to this effect has been sent to Defense (Tab F).

In addition to those aspects of our policy discussed above, we have in preparation a policy guidance instruction to all of our Ambassadors on the problem presented by the increasing interest of Third Countries (both European and Latin American) in expanding their military relations with particular Latin American countries. While this matter has received considerable study and attention both Departmentally and inter-Departmentally, interagency agreement on this matter has proved difficult.

Finally, we recently sent to our Ambassadors proposals for the reorganization of our MAAG-military missions structure in Latin America, which we believe will serve to improve the capabilities of the military components of our Country Teams to achieve U.S. policy objectives. Our Ambassadors’ reaction to these proposals when received will be reviewed by the LAPC as soon as all Ambassadors have submitted their comments.

In summary, while we believe our current U.S. arms policy toward Latin America is essentially sound, there are several pending issues on which there is not complete agreement within the government. In order that these may again be reviewed looking toward their resolution, they will shortly be presented in a memorandum to the Latin American Policy Committee.⁵

Robert Kent⁶

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 19 US-LAT AM. Secret. Drafted by Spencer; cleared by Martin and U. Alexis Johnson.
2. Not printed; it expressed concern that the United States did not have a consistent military assistance policy in Latin America and recommended discussion of the subject by the Latin American Policy Committee.
3. Tabs B through F were not attached to the source text.
4. Document 106.
5. Not found.
6. Kent signed for Read above Read’s typed signature