Office of the Historian

481. Memorandum From the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Foster) to Secretary of State Rusk1

Washington, October 29, 1963.

SUBJECT

  • Appointment of U.S. Antarctic Observers

Notification of the President’s formal approval for an Antarctic inspection was transmitted to you in Mr. McGeorge Bundy’s memorandum [Page 1091] of September 3, 1963.2 The selection of nominees for appointment by you as U.S. Antarctic Observers has now been completed on the basis of agreed qualifications by a special inter-agency Personnel Advisory Group. Nine nominees have passed appropriate physical examinations and have Top Secret clearances.

It is contemplated that each of two 3-Man Observer Teams will consist of a Team Leader (a Foreign Service Officer), a civilian military scientist and a biologist. An interpreter in Russian will be included in the team visiting bases of the USSR, New Zealand and Australia. The other Team, whose leader is a Spanish linguist, will visit the Palmer Peninsula bases of the UK, Argentina and Chile. There will be a photo overflight of a French base. Three Observers will be held available in the U. S. for possible use as alternates in the event that any of the regular Observers becomes incapacitated or is unable to participate for any other reason. There will be a two-week briefing for all team observers and alternates prior to the departure of the Observer Teams.

The names of the nine nominees with a brief biographic sketch for each as well as an evaluation are enclosed.3 A Letter of Appointment and a Certificate of Appointment for each nominee are attached for your signature. The name of an additional nominee (a biologist) will be transmitted to you for appointment as a U.S. Antarctic Observer when his nomination procedure has been completed.

I recommend that you sign the attached Letters and Certificates of Appointment. After the Letters have been received by the appointed Observers, it is planned to send official notification to the diplomatic missions in Washington of the other 11 signatory Governments, at least one day before public announcement is made of the appointments.

William C. Foster
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1960–63, SCI 11–1 ANT. Confidential.↩
  2. See footnote 2, Document 480. The observers were: Dr. Charles C. Bates, Dr. John L. Buckley, John C. Guthrie, Richard H. Hawkins, Jr., Michel Ivy, Dr. George W. Rathjens, Dr. J. P. Ruina, Dr. Victor B. Scheffer, and Frank G. Siscoe. Their appointment was officially announced by the Department of State in Press Release No. 591 of November 18. For text (without the biographies of the observers), see Department of State Bulletin, December 16, 1963, pp. 932–933.↩
  3. The enclosures are not printed.↩