69. Memorandum for the Record1
Washington, April 2, 1966.
SUBJECT
- Interdepartmental Planning Group Meeting
IN ATTENDANCE
- Ambassador Thomson (State)
- Henry Owen (State)
- Walt Rostow (WH)
- Francis Bator (WH)
- John McNaughton (DOD)
- Fred Weyl (DOD)
- General Goodpaster (JCS)
- Drexel Godfrey (CIA)
- 1.
- A meeting of what has for some years been an informal Thursday luncheon group, was called April 2 by the new chairman of State’s Policy Planning Council, Henry Owen. Its purpose was to determine the group’s future following Walt Rostow’s departure to the White House.
- 2.
- Messrs. Owen and Rostow presented a well orchestrated proposal to turn the group into an active producer of interdepartmental [Page 156] long-range planning papers. Rostow revealed that he had secured the President’s approval for such a metamorphosis.
- 3.
- There was considerable discussion about the risk of poaching on IRG territories. Bator stirred up a little silent outrage by remarking that some of the IRG’s (he mentioned specifically the European) were not doing their jobs, but only counter-punching in already well developed situations.
- 4.
- It was finally decided that the group would concentrate on those long-range problems that did not fall properly into any one of the existing IRG’s, those that overlapped IRG’s, and those with built-in military considerations. It was also decided to invite representatives of Treasury, USIA, and AID to attend when they had relevant interests in the subjects under consideration. Rostow said that the President was deeply concerned lest situations develop on which little or no planning had been done in any systematic fashion.
- 5.
- Rostow compared the purposes of the new group with those of the old NSC Planning Board, but he indicated that he hoped it would not develop into such a formal institution. He remarked that he would, when the paper merited it, put issuances of the group before the President. Alexis Johnson urged that the SIG be spared consideration of most of the papers, but it was not at all clear what would happen to those neither worthy of Presidential consideration nor of reference to an IRG. There was a general concensus that papers which detailed the differences of view between departments would be more valuable than those which fudged distinctions in basic premises and conclusions. Rostow suggested that each paper should contain an inherent draft of a NSAM.
- 6.
- All Agencies represented were asked to produce three or four
subjects for papers within two weeks when the next meeting will be
held. Several proposals were made for immediate attention and
accepted by the group for early attention:
- “Long Term Trade and Commodity Policy”
- “Nuclear Proliferation after India”
- “Long Term Policy toward White Africa”
- “Long Term AID Policy”
- “The ABM Problem”