374. Summary Notes of the 592d Meeting of the National Security Council1
Stockpile Criteria
The President: Read the order of business. (Copy at Tab A).2 He asked Governor Daniel to summarize the report of the committee3 which had reviewed the criteria upon which stockpile objectives are determined.
Governor Daniel: Presented several charts to illustrate his summary of the report.4 (At Tab B is Governor Daniel’s presentation, including his account of the meeting, and copies of the charts he used.)2
The President: Expressed interest in the copper stockpile. Several persons, including Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Tony Solomon, responded. The copper stockpile is or soon will be in balance. The shortage will be met by production from a new Arizona mine which will be available shortly.
Governor Daniel: The only strategic material which causes us trouble on the Hill is copper. We can not take our copper stockpile to zero because Congress will not approve. We can sell the Congress if we have a conservative approach. We will be able to convince those interested Congressmen that we are not cutting our stockpile objectives down merely in order to obtain funds from sales to help balance the budget. We will not ask for any money to purchase materials for the stockpile. It is possible for us to sell some of the materials we don’t want in order to buy what we need.
Under Secretary Katzenbach: No comment on the report. It gives us no problems in the foreign policy area which we don’t already have.
Assistant Secretary Solomon: Approved the report. It gives us more rational criteria.
General Wheeler: The Joint Chiefs reviewed the committee’s recommendations and found them sound and prudent.
[Page 872]Deputy Secretary of Defense Nitze: Suggested a modified approach. There could be criteria to use in determining what critical materials should be retained in the stockpile. Other criteria would be used in deciding what materials should be purchased to add to the stockpile.
Governor Daniel: The only purchase problem is copper. He argued strongly for one set of criteria and feared that if we singled out, in effect only one product, namely, copper, we would confuse the Congressional committees which traditionally follow the stockpile situation closely.
Secretary Clifford: Read paragraphs written by the Defense stockpile expert who made the same point mentioned by Mr. Nitze, i.e., acquisition for the stockpile would be made only on the basis of criteria for acquisition, but disposal would be based on separate retention criteria.
Governor Daniel: The Defense expert sounds more like a budget officer than an Assistant Secretary of Defense. Restated his opposition to two sets of objectives. There would be no meaningful difference if we give more consideration to retention objectives than we do to acquisition objectives. He said the letter he would send to the President for signature would represent the understanding reached at the meeting. (Copy of draft letter is at Tab C)5
The President: Welcomed Ambassador Wiggins to the meeting and said that he hoped he would be present when the Council had a more dangerous subject under discussion.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, NSC Meetings, Volume 5 Tab 74, Stockpile Criteria, Box 2. Secret/Sensitive; For the President Only. Drafted by Bromley Smith. An attached list of attendees includes: Under Secretary of State Nicholas DeB. Katzenbach, Assistant Secretary of State Anthony M. Solomon, Secretary of Defense Clark M. Clifford, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze, Treasury Secretary Henry H. Fowler, JCS Chairman General Earle G. Wheeler, OEP Director Price Daniel, USIA Director Leonard H. Marks, Walt Rostow, and Bromley Smith.↩
- Not printed.↩
- See footnote 5, Document 371.↩
- Presumably Document 371.↩
- Not printed.↩
- The attached undated and unsigned memorandum (not letter) is not printed here, but for the signed text, dated October 31 and identical to the draft, see Document 375.↩