Office of the Historian

339. Telegram From the Department of State to Secretary of State Rusk, at Paris0

Washington, December 12, 1962, 7:58 p.m.

Tosec 11. Eyes only for Secretaries Rusk and McNamara from the President. In our NATO review we did not touch upon the Greek problem, which I gather may come up again at Paris. I am concerned lest, wearing our NATO hats, we press for too high a Greek defense budget and NATO contributions thereto at the expense of the equally important Greek development effort.

Labouisse in Athens suggests that the Greeks will end up increasing their 1963 defense budget to $185 million but cutting back their development plan by an even larger amount. Since I gather that we would find acceptable a defense level of $175 million, wouldn’t it be better (from our standpoint and that of the Greeks themselves) to tell the Greeks so, and to tell our NATO allies to go higher on the economic consortium rather than the defense side, if we can’t get them to do both.

I don’t want to tie your hands on this complex matter, but I suggest we tread softly on these “mix” issues, which involve quite substantial cumulative US and NATO outlays, until we can sort them out here.

Ball
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 781.5/12–1262. Secret. Drafted in the White House and cleared by Bundy.↩