Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

Washington, August 20, 1963.

The President has approved the proposed FY 64 AID Program for Laos presented in Aidto X–200,1 subject to the following additional action:

(1): Sale of dollars for kip on the open market is to be supervised by an American expert in Vientiane.
(2): An agreement with the Lao Government is to be made to hold the budget, and particularly defense expenditures, at current levels.
(3): An experienced non-American, non-Lao should be placed in the Laos finance ministry, who is to see that the Lao budget is kept under control and deficit financing is prevented which would neutralize the proposed open-market dollar transactions.
(4): The President desires to be informed of actions taken to implement the above.

McGeorge Bundy

Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda, NSAM 259. Secret. Information copies were sent to the Secretaries of Defense and the Treasury and the Director, Bureau of the Budget.↩
See footnote 2, Document 485.↩

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXIV, Laos Crisis