Office of the Historian

362. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, November 1, 1963.

SUBJECT

  • Presidential Meeting on Honduras and DR—November 1—5:00 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • The President
  • AID—Mr. David Bell, Mr. Reuben Sternfeld
  • Defense—Dr. Mountain
  • CIA—Mr. Richard Helms, Col. J.C. King
  • State—Mr. Edwin M. Martin
  • White House—Mr. McGeorge Bundy, Mr. Ralph Dungan

The current situation in the Dominican Republic and Honduras was discussed.

With respect to Honduras, it was observed that the conversations with regard to the return to constitutionality are still going on in the country, that an orderly withdrawal of U.S. personnel is underway, that [Page 747] there is no imminent threat of counter-coup or insurgent activity, and therefore our posture for the moment should be to stand pat.

With regard to the DR, it was decided (1) to dispatch Colonel Simmons and the President approved a general instruction for his mission, (2) the President requested a memorandum to be drafted for use in our Latin American embassies in the event that we recognize the new regime in Saigon, and (3) the President directed that the Charge in Santo Domingo be brought back to the U.S. for consultation early next week.2

RAD
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Dominican Republic, October 31-November 22, 1963. Confidential. Drafted by Dungan.↩
  2. Lieutenant Colonel Ed Simmons, former U.S. military attache in the Dominican Republic, was dispatched from Washington to New York to talk to General Rodriguez Echavarr#a and to the Dominican Republic to talk with representatives of the Dominican military. (Martin, Overtaken by Events, pp. 612-613)↩