251. Editorial Note
On January 18, 1962, the National Security Council, with President Kennedy presiding, discussed the report of the Military Assistance Steering Group. The Steering Group was established on July 8, 1961, by Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary of Defense McNamara to reshape the U.S. military aid program. It its report, the Steering Group focused on six key U.S. allies: Korea, the Republic of China, Pakistan, Iran, Greece, and Turkey, which absorbed about 50 percent of the U.S. Military Assistance Program. According to the report, the bulk of this aid went to equip and maintain large armed forces well beyond the abilities of these developing countries to maintain. At his 496th meeting the National Security Council noted the President’s request for further prompt reviews of military and economic aspects of long-range U.S. military aid planning with the assumptions that resources would be limited and that military assistance programs and economic aid programs were competitive as well as complementary. The President specifically asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to look again at the issue, bearing in mind that decreases in military aid would be compensated by increases in economic aid.
The National Security Council agreed that for Korea—as for Iran, Greece, and Turkey—proposed Military Assistance Plans for fiscal years 1964-1968, as well as a final proposed plan for fiscal year 1963, should be submitted by July 15. It required similar plans for the Agency for International Development’s programs for the comparable periods. For Korea the Council required military and political studies in order to recommend a desirable Korean force level and structure, including a desirable level of U.S. forces in Korea, by June 15.
The Administrator of the Agency for International Development was responsible for these studies and for determining by May 15 how to improve planning and programming techniques so that military and economic aid could be effectively coordinated to ensure that the total aid given to a recipient country was used to best overall advantage. (NSC Action No. 2447, January 18; Department of State, S/S-NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95,NSC Actions) Documentation on the work of the Steering Group and the Kennedy administration’s reappraisal of military and economic aid is in Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, volume IX, pages 648 ff.