Office of the Historian

272. Memorandum From the Secretary of the 303 Committee (Jessup) to the Executive Secretary of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (Coyne)1

Washington, February 8, 1968.

SUBJECT

  • Minutes of 303 Action in 1967 Dealing with Projects Coming under the Scope of the Katzenbach Committee

During 1967, the 303 Committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. Rostow, charged the CIA with the task of submitting to the 303 Committee every project which might, under the widest interpretation, come under the Katzenbach Statement of Policy: [Page 597]

“No federal agency shall provide any covert financial assistance or support, direct or indirect, to any of the nation’s educational or private voluntary organizations. This policy specifically applies to all foreign activities of such organizations and it reaffirms present policy with respect to their domestic activities.

“Where such support has been given, it will be terminated as quickly as possible without destroying valuable private organizations before they can seek new means of support.”2

Approximately 34 major projects (some of which served as umbrellas for additional subsidiary activities) were examined. The committee approved, in most cases, so-called “surge funding” solutions by which terminal monies were allocated to these organizations for a fiscal year or so until they could establish themselves independently or find their own sustenance in the private sector. In a few select instances, projects were reestablished abroad in order to continue without violating the Katzenbach guidance in fact or in spirit. Needless to say, each determination had close coordination with the Bureau of the Budget. In a few complex instances, the committee determined that a project did not by definition come under the Katzenbach committee injunction.

The greatest amount of time was spent on the decision, approved later by higher authority, to continue Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.3

Peter Jessup 4
  1. Source: National Security Council, Special Group/303 Committee Files, Subject Files, The 40 Committee. Eyes Only.↩
  2. Report of the Committee on Government Assistance to Educational and Private Voluntary Organizations. [Footnote in the source text. For full text of the statement, December 29, 1967, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1967, p. 1235.]↩
  3. For minutes of the 303 Committee meeting on December 15, 1967, at which agreement was reached on how to proceed with respect to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, see Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. X, Document 197.↩
  4. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩