Office of the Historian

126. Letter From the Director of the White House Office of Emergency Planning (Bryant) to Secretary of State Rusk1

Washington, May 10, 1966.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

On June 17, 1964 the then Director of the Office of Emergency Planning in a letter to you furnished information on the Supply-Requirements Study for Nuclear War and Reconstruction2 being carried out by various departments and agencies under guidance from this Office.

The initial aspect of this work dealt primarily with the development and testing methods and techniques. We subsequently undertook a more definitive study which could serve as the basis for reaching decisions about nuclear war stockpile objectives.

This study has now been completed, and I am enclosing a set of documents which describe it.3 The economic guidelines contained in the tables of the enclosed material should now be used by your Department and other participating departments and agencies carrying out the analyses of individual materials needed to reach decisions about nuclear war stockpile objectives.

A set of the documents is also being sent to Mr. Edmund Getzin, Chief of Industrial and Strategic Materials Division, with a request that he review them prior to a meeting that we will have with department and agency representatives later this month. Mr. Getzin is your representative [Page 394] on the Interagency Working Group on National Supply-Requirements Studies. Members of the Working Group are responsible for coordinating the preparation of analyses of individual resources and materials within their respective agencies.

The work on the analyses should advance as rapidly as possible. The schedule for carrying it forward will be established at the meeting of the Working Group on National Supply-Requirements Studies. The continued cooperation of your Department in this endeavor will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Farris Bryant
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, DEF 1–2 US. Secret.↩
  2. Document 33.↩
  3. Attached are a 15-page OEP study, “Supply-Requirements Study for Nuclear War & Reconstruction,” and a 4-page Appendix; not printed.↩