Evolution of the Secretary of Defense in the Era of Massive Retaliation
Special Study 3
Historical Office
Office of the Secretary of Defense
SEPTEMBER 2012
Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, and Thomas Gates
1953-1961
Evolution of the Secretary OF Defense
IN THE ERA OF
Massive Retaliation
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 3 Evolution of the Secretary of Defense in the Era of Massive Retaliation
Cover Photos: Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, omas Gates, Jr.
Source: Ofcial DoD Photo Library, used with permission.
Cover Design: OSD Graphics, Pentagon.
Evolution of the Secretary of Defense
in the Era of
Massive Retaliation
Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy,
and omas Gates
1953-1961
iiiii
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 3 Evolution of the Secretary of Defense in the Era of Massive Retaliation
Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, and Thomas Gates
1953-1961
Historical Oce
Oce of the Secretary of Defense
September 2012
Series Editors
Erin R. Mahan, Ph.D.
Chief Historian, Oce of the Secretary of Defense
Jerey A. Larsen, Ph.D.
President, Larsen Consulting Group
Special Study 3
Evolution of the Secretary OF Defense
IN THE ERA OF
Massive Retaliation
Evolution of the Secretary of Defense in the Era of Massive Retaliation
viv
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 3
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied
within are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the
views of the Department of Defense, the Historical Oce of the Oce of
the Secretary of Defense, Larsen Consulting Group, or any other agency
of the Federal Government.
Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.
Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission,
provided that a standard source credit line is included. e Historical
Oce of the Oce of the Secretary of Defense would appreciate a
courtesy copy of reprints or reviews.
Contents
Foreword..........................................vii
Executive Summary ...................................ix
Eisenhower, Wilson, and the Policy Process .................1
McElroy: Caretaker Secretary...........................18
Gates: Reasserting the Secretary’s Inuence ................23
Conclusion ........................................29
Notes.............................................31
About the Editors ...................................41
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 3 Evolution of the Secretary of Defense in the Era of Massive Retaliation
viivi
Foreword
is is the third special study in a series by the Oce of the
Secretary of Defense (OSD) Historical Oce that emphasizes the
Secretary’s role in the U.S. foreign policy making process and how
the position evolved between 1947 and the end of the Cold War.
e study presented here concentrates on the three Secretaries who
served President Dwight D. Eisenhower: Charles Wilson, Neil
McElroy, and omas Gates. e rst two of these Secretaries were
primarily caretakers and administrators, leaving much of the lead
role in American foreign policy making to Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles in this era of increasing foreign policy and national
security challenges. But omas Gates reinvigorated the role of the
oce in the last year of the Eisenhower Presidency, providing a
springboard for Robert McNamara, his successor in the John F.
Kennedy administration, to increase the power of the position to
unprecedented levels.
is study is not meant to be a comprehensive look at the Secretary’s
involvement in foreign aairs. But as a member of the President’s
cabinet and the National Security Council and as the person
charged with managing the largest and most complex department
in the government, the Secretary of Defense routinely participated
in a variety of actions that aected the substance and conduct of
U.S. aairs abroad.
is series of special studies by the Historical Oce is part of an
ongoing eort to highlight various aspects of the Secretary’s mission
and achievements. e series on the role of the Secretary of Defense
in U.S. foreign policy making during the Cold War began as a book
manuscript by Dr. Steve Rearden, author of e Formative Years,
1947–1950, in our Secretaries of Defense Historical Series. I wish
to thank Dr. Alfred Goldberg, former OSD Chief Historian, and
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ixviii
Executive Summary
Despite the promising revival of the Secretary’s role in foreign
aairs during omas Gates’s tenure at the end of the Dwight
D. Eisenhower administration, the Eisenhower years were
predominantly a period in which administrative and managerial
matters took priority in Defense. is reected the personal
inclination of President Eisenhower, one of the nation’s best known
and most respected military leaders, who was superbly equipped
to give close attention to national security aairs. Concerning
themselves with the business side of the Defense Department—
the formulation and execution of budgets, the procurement of new
weapons and equipment, research and development—was perhaps
the soundest approach the rst two Secretaries of Defense under
Eisenhower, Charles Wilson and Neil McElroy, could have taken,
given their limited experience and the constraints under which
they operated. Yet in the long run, they did not serve as a model for
subsequent Secretaries.
e story of the three men—Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, and
omas Gates—who bridged the gap between the early Secretaries
and the innovative and highly inuential Robert McNamara
shows an evolution in the role of the Secretary of Defense from
being principally administrative to having more involvement in
the making of foreign policy. Even in an administration with the
diplomatic prowess of President Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary
of State John Foster Dulles, two seasoned foreign aairs experts
and statesmen, the Defense Secretaries were able to make their
mark on policy as the Cold War continued to unfurl, tackling
the administrative hurdles of reorganization, austerity, and
Mr. Robert Shelala II of Larsen Consulting Group for their critique,
additional research, and helpful suggestions. anks also to Lisa M.
Yambrick, senior editor in the OSD Historical Oce, and to OSD
Graphics in the Pentagon for their eorts and continued support.
We anticipate that future study series will cover a variety of defense
topics. We invite you to peruse our other publications at <http://
history.defense.gov/>.
Erin R. Mahan
Chief Historian
Oce of the Secretary of Defense
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 3 Evolution of the Secretary of Defense in the Era of Massive Retaliation
xix
Secretary in December 1959. But his brief tenure (barely more
than 13 months) and his preoccupation with interservice matters
(particularly the strategic targeting dispute) did not permit him to
devote as much close thought and attention to foreign aairs as he
felt they deserved. Coming as it did at the end of the Eisenhower
administration, moreover, his period in oce saw a winding down,
not a launching, of new foreign policy initiatives.
What made the Secretary’s role in foreign aairs during this period
signicant, then, was less the direct inuence the Secretary himself
exercised and more the continuing growth of military power as a
key instrument of U.S. Cold War policy. Although Eisenhower’s
Defense Secretaries may not have been as signicantly involved in
decisions as Harry Truman’s had been, they and their subordinates
constituted an important part of a policy process that depended
heavily on the military’s contributions and assets. is became
evident in framing an overarching strategic policy under the
rubric “massive retaliation.” It was also clear in the management
of policy at the senior sta level, which Eisenhower entrusted to
an NSC refashioned to reect lines of command and authority
familiar to him from his military days. While Wilson, McElroy,
and Gates may not have enjoyed the prestige and inuence of
their immediate predecessors, their department had to respond to
increasing responsibilities for sustaining American foreign policy.
In the course of doing so, they set the stage for Robert McNamara’s
advent in 1961.
centralization while oering a more salient voice in discussions
of foreign aairs. As military matters became more important
throughout the 1950s, the views of the Secretary of Defense naturally
became more integrated into policymaking, especially through the
reworked policymaking structure of the National Security Council
(NSC). While Eisenhower’s rst two Defense Secretaries were
former businessmen without a background in foreign policy or
international relations, the defense background possessed by his
nal Secretary, coupled with Secretary of State Dulles’s departure,
allowed the Secretary of Defense to become more entrenched in
the making of foreign policy. In many respects acting as his own
Secretary of Defense, President Eisenhower reserved for himself
some of the key policy functions previously exercised by the
Secretary. Having served as Supreme Allied Commander in World
War II, Army Chief of Sta, and commander of North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, he felt thoroughly qualied
to personally oversee national security aairs. As President, in
reaching decisions on strategy, force levels, weapons, and the like,
he either trusted his own instincts or consulted the Joint Chiefs of
Sta (JCS). For advice and guidance on foreign aairs, he generally
turned to his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles.
Eisenhower’s executive style had the net eect of emphasizing
the role of Secretary of Defense as the manager of the Pentagon,
a role the President stressed upon entering the White House and
throughout his Presidency. ree Secretaries of Defense served
under Eisenhower: Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, and omas
Gates, Jr. e rst two were highly successful former business
executives—Wilson as president of the automobile giant General
Motors, and McElroy as head of Procter and Gamble, a major
soap and household goods company. Both were able industrial
managers who knew a lot about running large organizations with
large budgets but comparatively little about foreign aairs or
national security. Gates, to be sure, fell into a somewhat dierent
category, having served as Under Secretary of the Navy, Secretary
of the Navy, and Deputy Secretary of Defense before being named
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he 1952 Presidential election brought to the White House
Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the nation’s best known and
most respected military leaders. His choice for Secretary of Defense,
Charles E. Wilson, had achieved notable success as a business
executive. Because Eisenhower was superbly equipped and inclined
to give close personal attention to national security aairs, the new
Secretary was expected to concentrate on defense management
rather than formulation of basic national security policy.
1
Wilson was still head of General Motors when Eisenhower
selected him to be Secretary of Defense in January 1953. Wilson’s
nomination sparked a major controversy during his conrmation
hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, specically
over his large stockholdings in General Motors. Although reluctant
to sell the stock, valued at more than $2.5 million, Wilson agreed to
do so under committee pressure. When asked during the hearings
whether, as Secretary of Defense, he could make a decision adverse
to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered armatively
but added that he could not conceive of such a situation “because
for years I thought what was good for the country was good for
General Motors and vice versa.” Later, this statement was often
garbled when quoted, suggesting that Wilson had said simply,
“What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”
Although nally approved by a Senate vote of 77–6, Wilson began
his duties in the Pentagon with his standing somewhat diminished
by the conrmation debate.
2
Eisenhower, Wilson, and the Policy Process
Wilson’s tenure proved crucial in setting precedents and establishing
procedures for those to follow. Aware from the outset that he would
have limited duties in making foreign policy, Wilson seemed
T
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John Foster Dulles’s) major foreign policy positions, though he
was not so reticent as to avoid asking questions that would, as one
observer recalled, “sort of blow a proposition out of the water.”
6
Wilson’s views on foreign aairs, such as they were, understandably
lacked the mastery of detail and air of authority that characterized
Dulles’s thinking and certainly could not match the worldly
common sense that Eisenhower possessed. On those occasions
when Wilson ventured to oer an opinion in public, he sometimes
wound up causing Eisenhower considerable embarrassment—as
occurred in 1955, when Wilson suggested that the United States
had a weapon more horrible than the hydrogen bomb and that the
loss of the Chinese Nationalist–held islands of Quemoy and Matsu
to communist control would make little dierence to American
security.
7
e danger with Wilson, as one source close to the
President reportedly said, was twofold: whenever he “put his foot
in the mouth” and “what he did when he took it out again.”
8
ough often mocked and criticized, Wilson remained a steadfast
and reliable member of what amounted to Eisenhower’s board
of directors: the National Security Council. Given greater
prominence by Eisenhower, the NSC remained the heart of the
policy process throughout his Presidency. Outwardly, the changes
Eisenhower ordered—the redesignation of the Senior NSC Sta as
the NSC Planning Board, the appointment of a full-time Special
Assistant for National Security Aairs to oversee the NSC sta,
and the creation of an Operations Coordinating Board (OCB)
to assign responsibility for the execution of policy and to oversee
psychological warfare strategy—seemed relatively minor, aimed
ostensibly at improving the eciency and eectiveness of the
system.
9
But they also signaled Eisenhower’s clear intention to
infuse the policy process with a greater sense of order and purpose.
Consistent with a campaign pledge he had made, he resolved to
upgrade the NSC and make broader use of the body’s resources and
potential than Truman ever had.
10
genuinely glad to be spared the responsibility. He never pretended
to be knowledgeable about foreign aairs, nor did Eisenhower
expect him to be. e President wanted him instead to concentrate
on the managerial side of national security—in short, to be an
administrator. “Charlie,” he reportedly told Wilson at one point,
“You run defense. We both can’t do it, and I won’t do it. I was
elected to worry about a lot of other things than the day-to-day
operations of a department.”
3
Wilson proved ideal for what Eisenhower had in mind. According
to Emmet John Hughes, a speechwriter in the Eisenhower White
House, Wilson was the quintessential corporate executive—
“basically apolitical and certainly unphilosophic, aggressive in
action and direct in speech.” His appointment, Hughes maintained,
reected Eisenhower’s long-standing admiration of the business
community and his belief that success in business could be translated
into a capacity for government administration.
4
As his experience
as Secretary would show, however, the results were mixed. Although
loyal, hard-working, and generally capable as an administrator, he
may have proved too businesslike for Eisenhower’s taste. Moreover,
he was prone to rambling, exploratory discourses that left
Eisenhower feeling “discombobulated.” e more uncomfortable
Eisenhower felt, the less tolerant he became, even to the point of
practically denying Wilson access to the Oval Oce during the
waning days of his tenure.
5
Under Wilson there occurred little of the overt rivalry and
competition that had marred State-Defense relations o and on
during Harry Truman’s Presidency, especially during the brief Dean
Acheson–Louis Johnson period. ese tensions were also largely
absent during the interlude between Johnson and Wilson, while the
Pentagon was under the leadership of George Marshall and Robert
Lovett, two men with experience as leaders in both departments.
State-Defense dierences during Wilson’s tenure were more likely
to occur over policy choices than personalities. Even then, Wilson
was generally reluctant to challenge State Department’s (that is,
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e appointment of a full-time Special Assistant for National
Security Aairs (or National Security Advisor, as the post became
more generally known) would prove to be one of Eisenhower’s most
signicant, enduring, and controversial legacies. In sharp contrast
to later years, when incumbents (especially Henry Kissinger in the
1970s) amassed and exercised extraordinary power and inuence,
the rst Special Assistant, Robert Cutler, and his immediate
successors, Dillon Anderson, William H. Jackson, and Gordon
Gray, operated under a restricted mandate that consigned them to
a low-key role. With the exception of Gray, none had expertise in
foreign aairs or defense policy. As conceived by Eisenhower, the
Special Assistant’s job was to expedite the ow of business, supply
the council with its agenda, preside over the Planning Board,
represent the President on the OCB, and monitor the work of the
NSC sta. ough the Special Assistant could from time to time
bring substantive matters to the President’s attention, he rarely
acted as a policy advocate.
11
ere can be no doubt that Eisenhower made extensive use of the
NSC. During his eight years in oce, the NSC held 346 regular
meetings, as opposed to 128 meetings during the NSC’s ve
years under Truman, and processed 187 serially numbered policy
papers, 67 of which were still current when Eisenhower stepped
down. e President typically presided and took an active part in
discussions at NSC meetings that lasted two-and-a-half hours or
more.
12
While President Truman had attended only 12 meetings
of the NSC, Eisenhower presided over 339 and missed only 29,
reecting the high priority he put on the council’s work.
13
Besides
the ve statutory members (the President, the Vice President, the
Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Director of Civil and
Defense Mobilization), Eisenhower insisted that the Secretary of
the Treasury and the Budget Director attend meetings as well,
functioning as “regular participant” members.
14
All involved could
bring aides and advisors, so that anywhere from a dozen to a score
or more people might be present.
15
Discussions, which centered on
policy papers worked up under the direction of the Planning Board,
often fell into a line-by-line examination of the contents. Yet for
all their faults and drawbacks, Eisenhower believed these meetings
to be eminently useful, both for hashing out problems and for
providing a mechanism through which “the members of the NSC
became familiar, not only with each other, but with the basic factors
of problems that might on some future date, face the president.”
Eisenhower felt that this experience helped him and his advisors to
get to know one another better and promoted closer consultation
and coordination, and that he was more likely to receive honest,
objective advice rather than self-serving recommendations.
16
e President wanted NSC members to participate in deliberations
as individual advisors rather than as representatives of their
respective departments or agencies.
17
But Wilson’s most active
involvement and greatest contributions, as might be expected, came
in connection with defense matters entailed in the annual reviews
of basic national security policy. Instead of targeting U.S. security
programs on a “year of maximum danger” as Truman had done,
Eisenhower wanted to minimize the country’s defense burdens
by sizing programs to meet the Soviet threat over the long term.
Accordingly, in the autumn of 1953, this approach was embodied
in a paper, NSC 162/2, that essentially guided the course of defense
policy through the rest of the decade. Known as the “New Look,”
the policy gave priority to strategic airpower and tactical nuclear
weapons, with diminished emphasis on maintaining large and
ready conventional capabilities.
18
Eisenhower did not doubt the
continuing importance of land and naval forces in the nuclear age,
but he felt that the need to conserve resources took precedence and
that, in any case, the atomic bomb was “simply another weapon in
our arsenal.”
19
It fell to Secretary of State Dulles, not the Secretary of Defense, to
provide the most memorable public rationale for the administration’s
national security thinking. Addressing the Council on Foreign
Relations in January 1954, Dulles sketched a blueprint for security
with “more reliance on deterrent power and less dependence on
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local defensive power,” a concept that came to be known as the
massive retaliation doctrine.
20
is encouraged some military
planners to assume that fewer constraints might be placed on use
of the nuclear option. However, as early tests of this assumption
revealed during the Indochina (1954) and Quemoy-Matsu (1955)
crises, Eisenhower backed away when confronted with crossing the
nuclear threshold.
21
Nonetheless, the New Look and its corollary,
massive retaliation, remained the basic guides used by Wilson
and his successors for resource planning and allocation until the
Eisenhower administration left oce in 1961.
22
Although the NSC functioned well in hammering out long-range
plans and basic policy, its rather cumbersome and slow machinery
proved less suited for coping with unexpected day-to-day problems
of crisis management or sensitive diplomatic and intelligence
matters. Accordingly, when such occasions arose, Eisenhower
tended to respond by convening small informal meetings with senior
advisors in the Oval Oce. In such crises as Indochina, the Taiwan
Straits, and the Suez Canal, Eisenhower routinely met privately
with selected advisors, often after lengthy deliberations in the NSC,
to nalize decisions. ough Wilson normally participated in these
private sessions, his role was more to apprise the President as to
the availability and use of military assets than to comment on the
pros and cons of foreign policy. Eisenhower perceived a distinction
between diplomacy and national security policy. With Wilson’s
responsibilities concentrated on the Department of Defense
(DoD), his role as a manager outweighed his contributions as a
policy advisor.
23
Advice and Sta Support
Although probably not at the top of Wilson’s day-to-day agenda,
foreign aairs remained a necessary part of the Pentagon’s ongoing
business.
24
Containing communism, the number-one priority, was
a multifaceted task that involved DoD in a variety of functions in
support of American foreign policy. ese functions generally fell
into two categories. e rst included the responsibilities arising
from the increased U.S. presence abroad. e threat of communist
aggression required prior defense arrangements with U.S. allies,
including formal alliances such as NATO and the Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization (SEATO), access to overseas bases, and the
buildup, equipping, and training of allied forces under U.S. aid
programs. Accordingly, provisions had to be made with the host
countries for what Philip E. Barringer, a longtime OSD ocial in
the Oce of International Security Aairs (ISA), aptly described as
“keeping the machinery oiled properly,” to handle the inux of U.S.
military personnel, the administration and allocation of assistance,
the duties of U.S. advisors, and the negotiation of agreements
governing the status of forces, usually with ISA providing the initial
liaison and coordination.
25
e second category embraced a wholly new set of defense
problems arising from advances in military technology and
corresponding decisions by the President and the NSC on how to
exploit these advances. e advent of thermonuclear and tactical
nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology raised problems
of unprecedented political complexity and diplomatic sensitivity.
Never before had any country possessed such enormous power
with so few guiding precedents on how to manage it. Some of
these new weapons would be deployed abroad and shared with
America’s allies. How much control, if any, the host country would
have in the storage, movement, and use of these weapons invariably
invited prolonged discussion, both within the U.S. Government
and between Washington and foreign capitals.
In trying to arrive at a Defense position on the many security
problems that arose, it soon became clear that Wilson depended
on his sta for advice and help more than any previous Secretary
of Defense. is dependence created numerous opportunities
for subordinates to make larger and more decisive inputs than
they had in the past. Accepting management and administration
as his primary tasks, Wilson heavily staed his oce with aides
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and deputies from the business community, among them his rst
Deputy Secretary, Roger Kyes, like Wilson a former General Motors
executive and not inclined to show any great initiative in foreign
aairs. e burden of dealing with such matters fell, for the most
part, on ocials at the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) level.
ough ISA ocials predominated, others participated as well,
including the OSD Comptroller’s organization, which became
routinely involved in NSC aairs because of a requirement that
each major policy paper include a nancial appendix.
26
Understanding the urgent importance of being able to deal with
problems abroad, in February 1953, Wilson encouraged President
Eisenhower to use the forthcoming Reorganization Plan No. 6 of
30 June 1953 to elevate the position of Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense (ISA) to the rank of Assistant Secretary (ISA). Later that
same year, also under Reorganization Plan No. 6, the Eisenhower
administration also abolished the Munitions Board and transferred
its international programs division to ISA, further consolidating
politico-military and economic aairs under one roof.
27
e
decision to elevate the ISA position to the Assistant Secretary level
(a move Lovett was on the verge of making when he left oce in
1952) was, to be sure, long overdue, but as a practical matter its real
signicance was to rearm the oce’s already well established place
among the Pentagon’s elite.
28
In 1956, Wilson went a step further
and tried to upgrade the oce to the rank of Under Secretary, but
legislation to eect the change died in the House Armed Services
Committee.
29
Besides requiring someone with a background and expertise in
foreign aairs, the ASD(ISA) position was also one of the most
politically sensitive in the Pentagon. e incumbent when Wilson
arrived, Frank Nash, wanted to step down for health reasons.
Wilson initially oered the job to Paul Nitze, director of the State
Department’s Policy Planning Sta since 1950 and a key gure in
the drafting of NSC 68. But because of his close association with
Acheson during the Truman years, he was persona non grata to
conservative Republicans in Congress.
30
Wilson hastily withdrew
Nitze’s name and persuaded Nash to stay on until February 1954
when he was replaced by Struve Hensel, a Forrestal protégé and
former Navy ocial. ree more Assistant Secretaries followed:
Gordon Gray (July 1955–February 1957), who left to become
President Eisenhower’s National Security Advisor, Manseld
Sprague (February 1957–September 1958), and John Irwin II
(September 1958–January 1961).
e high rate of turnover at ISA may be explained in part by the
demanding nature of the job. Although much of the ASD(ISA)’s
work still consisted of administrative matters arising from ongoing
programs (military assistance being by far the biggest and most
complex to administer), the ASD found himself increasingly
involved in substantive problems as well, particularly in connection
with NSC aairs. e key gure who oversaw most of the
necessary organizational adjustments, Gordon Gray, reorganized
ISA in 1956 on the basis of planning initiated by Struve Hensel.
He eectively divided the oce into two functional branches. In
one part Gray concentrated ISA’s military assistance and budget
responsibilities, organized around the Oce of Programming and
Control (which monitored the dispersal of grant assistance and
other aid) and the Oce of the ISA Comptroller (which reviewed
and prepared budget requests). Gray made policy matters the focus
of the other part of the organization. is contained the Oce
of Planning (including the ISA Policy Planning Sta), which
worked in conjunction with the military services, the Joint Sta,
and other agencies to anticipate their long-term security needs;
four regional directorates (for Europe, the Middle East and Africa,
the Far East, and the Western Hemisphere), which operated in
comparable fashion to the State Department’s country desks; and
the Oces of NSC Aairs and the OCB, which handled high-
level policy coordination. Problems that fell into neither of these
two general categories—such as economic matters, arms control
and disarmament, and international conference planning—were
assigned to the Oce of Special International Aairs, which
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was also charged with responsibility for security aairs relating
to the United Nations, NATO, SEATO, and other international
organizations.
31
Wilson made two major changes in ISA’s mission. One delegated
to the ASD(ISA) full authority and responsibility, as prescribed
under the Mutual Security Act of 1954, for the “development,
coordination, and establishment” of all policies, plans, and
procedures in the area of foreign military assistance, the aim
being to bring operational and administrative responsibility closer
together.
32
When the Military Assistance Program (MAP) started
in the late 1940s, the Secretary of Defense, through what was then
ISA, exercised little more than general policy supervision, leaving
operational control to the military services acting as “executive
agents.” e Secretary gave broad guidance to the services and
relied on spot checks by OISA to ensure compliance with overall
policy. With Wilson’s transfer of responsibility and authority to ISA
came greater involvement in the operational side of MAP, which in
turn increased ISA’s administrative duties and created new needs
for personnel with know-how in every phase of the operation.
33
e other important mission change related to the ASD(ISA)’s
involvement in high-level policy coordination and NSC aairs.
Although ISA had performed similar tasks in the preceding
administration, its coordinating function had been a relatively minor
part of its duties in view of Truman’s guarded use of the NSC and
regular direct contacts between Acheson and the Joint Chiefs after
the autumn of 1950. But with Eisenhower stressing primary reliance
on the NSC, with carefully laid-out procedures and channels,
more work needed to be done to coordinate Defense responses.
Accordingly, in April 1954, Wilson gave ISA “general supervision”
of all DoD activities relating to NSC aairs. At the same time he
appointed a Special Assistant for National Security Aairs who also
served as the Defense member of the NSC Planning Board. Initially,
the Special Assistant operated under the authority and supervision of
the ASD(ISA). But from Gray’s time on, the two jobs became one.
34
Increased authority for ISA was not without resistance. Its overall
control of politico-military aairs in relation to the military
services remained uid throughout the 1950s. Wilson never
imposed the strict discipline on outside contacts—particularly
with the State Department—that Secretary of Defense Louis
Johnson had demanded. In this eort Wilson received substantially
less cooperation from the military services than he expected.
Each service continued to maintain its own politico-military and
international aairs section that could be used for back-channel
contacts to circumvent the Secretary of Defense and his deputies.
e best organized for this purpose was within the Navy, which
regularly communicated directly with State through its Politico-
Military Policy Division. While ISA was responsible for policies
governing the programming of foreign military aid, it often
encountered resistance from the JCS and the military departments
when it attempted to probe the details of their recommendations
concerning program development and implementation practices.
35
Had Wilson taken a greater personal interest in foreign aairs,
some of these problems might have been avoided. But uncertain of
the Secretary of Defense’s involvement, the ASD(ISA) generally felt
constrained from pressing his authority too far.
36
JCS–OSD Relations
Even with the growing resources available to him through ISA,
the Secretary of Defense remained reliant on the Joint Chiefs
of Sta for all manner of help in dealing with politico-military
matters, especially the planning and analysis provided through
the Joint Sta (the JCS bureaucracy). Following the custom of
previous Secretaries of Defense, Wilson solicited advice from the
Joint Chiefs as a corporate body, but it also became increasingly
common for him to deal directly, if not exclusively, with the JCS
Chairman, Admiral Arthur Radford. As early as their rst meeting,
Radford impressed Wilson with his professional expertise and won
him over. From then on, Wilson looked to Radford not merely
for guidance in military matters but also for advice across a wide
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spectrum of policy problems having domestic and international
economic and political impact.
37
Radford recalled that when he accepted the invitation to
become Chairman, Eisenhower assured him that he would have
clearer responsibilities and greater authority than his immediate
predecessor, General Omar Bradley.
38
e National Security Act
of 1947 had made no provision for a Chairman, bestowing any and
all advisory duties as the President or the Secretary might direct
on the Joint Chiefs of Sta as a corporate body. When Congress
authorized the appointment of a Chairman in 1949, it included
him as a member of the JCS but failed to stipulate whether the
advisory responsibilities conferred upon his colleagues extended
to him as well. Although someone else might have treated this
as a minor oversight, the rst Chairman, General Bradley, felt
suciently inhibited to adopt an exceedingly narrow interpretation
of his advisory powers, especially where non-military matters were
concerned. Whenever he met with Secretary of State Acheson to
discuss an issue with foreign policy implications, Bradley invariably
prefaced his remarks with the caveat that he was speaking “from
a military point of view,” the implication being that it was up to
Acheson or the President to supply “the political point of view.”
39
A naval aviator with a distinguished record as a commander
in the Pacic in World War II, Radford was rarely so reticent
or circumspect. He had been a leader of the 1949 “revolt of the
admirals” against Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson’s cancellation
of the ush-deck supercarrier, the United States. Afterward, he
found himself, in eect, exiled to a succession of commands in
the Far East and Pacic. In 1953, Eisenhower brought him
back to Washington to preside over the JCS, a shrewd ploy on
Eisenhower’s part that helped to counter Navy criticism of the Air
Force–oriented New Look defense posture. In addition, Radford
had long advocated a more active policy in the Far East, a position
that appealed to both Dulles and those Republicans who felt that
the previous administration had concentrated too much on Europe
and not enough on Asia.
40
Personable, articulate, and adaptable,
Radford was one of the most politically astute senior ocers in the
armed forces at the time. ough not overly enthusiastic about the
New Look at rst, he was a longtime advocate of defense through
the exploitation of science and technology, the same approach
Eisenhower preferred. Soon, Radford metamorphosed into one of
the New Look’s most ardent supporters.
41
During his two terms as Chairman, from August 1953 to August 1957,
which overlapped closely with Wilson’s tenure as Secretary, Radford
enjoyed direct access to Wilson, Secretary of State Dulles, and President
Eisenhower.
42
Accordingly, it was not uncommon to nd him operating
in the forefront for DoD in foreign aairs matters, representing and
speaking for the Department in a manner that one might expect the
Secretary to do. For someone like Forrestal or Lovett, who preferred
to handle important foreign aairs issues themselves, Radford would
have been redundant, his presence probably an unwelcome nuisance.
But for Wilson he was a useful adjunct of the Secretary’s oce. at
the two got along exceptionally well made the job of collaboration that
much easier. Radford’s importance and inuence received a further
boost when the 1953 defense reorganization gave the JCS Chairman
management of the Joint Sta.
Defense-State Relations
e growing reliance on ready strategic forces and threats of massive
retaliation during the Eisenhower years brought about changes in
the traditionally accepted notions about spheres of responsibility in
foreign aairs. e more the administration’s foreign policy came
to rely on the threat of military sanctions, the more interested and
involved Defense became in formulating policy. e NSC became
a chief forum where Defense voiced its position on various foreign
policy matters. ough Wilson was essentially deferential to
Dulles, Defense-State relations remained, for all practical purposes,
institution-minded and fraught with recurring conicts below the
Secretary level.
43
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Some of the most highly documented State-Defense disagreements
occurred in connection with the annual NSC reviews of basic
national security policy. During the rst such exercise, held in the
autumn of 1953 to fashion what became the New Look, Dulles
stayed in the background, apparently not yet fully condent
of where he stood in relation to the President and his military
advisors. ough he exercised a strong conceptual inuence on the
resulting policy paper (NSC 162/2), he limited his involvement in
the particulars, especially military matters, to a handful of inputs
from State’s Policy Planning Sta.
44
A year later, however, Dulles was most vocal in the debate over a
follow-on paper (NSC 5501). e central issue concerned whether
the new paper should reect a more hard-line attitude toward
the Soviets, as urged by the Joint Chiefs and ISA, or the soft
line advocated by Dulles, who wanted more stress on diplomacy
and negotiations. Within ISA, dissatisfaction with U.S. policy
coalesced around Brig. Gen. Charles Bonesteel III, director of ISA’s
policy planning sta and the ranking Defense representative on the
NSC Planning Board, who was the most outspoken, articulate, and
inuential spokesman for the tougher line. Like the JCS, Bonesteel
and his ISA colleagues believed that time was running out for the
United States to reap substantial political and diplomatic benets
from its strategic superiority. ey argued that the United States
should adopt more risk-prone policies to leverage concessions from
Moscow.
45
Wilson initially endorsed the JCS–ISA position, but
Dulles’s opposition prevailed, and President Eisenhower endorsed
Dulles’s position.
46
Dulles took advantage of divisions within the Pentagon to
strengthen his own position, often siding with the uniformed
services. He assiduously courted the Joint Chiefs, particularly
Chairman Radford, with whom he shared an interest in paying
more attention to the Far East.
47
During the Taiwan Straits crisis
in the spring of 1955, Dulles talked tough about applying military
sanctions, including use of tactical nuclear weapons, unless the
Communist Chinese lifted their bombardment of Quemoy and
Matsu, even though he had campaigned vigorously against a JCS–
ISA hard line only a few months earlier.
48
is astonishing shift
in Dulles’s thinking prompted fears from Wilson that U.S. policy
was “underwriting a war in that area” and doing more “to heat up
the situation rather than cool it o.” To mitigate further tension,
Wilson urged the Secretary of State to wait 60 days “in order to
see what might develop.” Dulles, however, concurred with Radford
that diplomatic eorts “to cool o the situation” had failed and
that it was imperative to proceed on the assumption that military
sanctions might have to be applied sooner rather than later, lest
the Communist Chinese complete their buildup of invasion forces.
Although Dulles declined to endorse a specic military course of
action, he mentioned several times the importance of bringing “our
actions in line with our words” and of getting away from the habit
of “talking one way and acting another.”
49
Whether actually prepared to go as far as his rhetoric suggested,
Dulles cultivated the image of a no-nonsense diplomat who
understood the military viewpoint and stood ready to use military
force. is came out most clearly in a 1956 interview published in
Life magazine in which he claimed that U.S. threats to use nuclear
weapons had brought an end to the Korean War in 1953 and had
repeatedly deterred Soviet and Chinese Communist aggression
since then. Basking in the presumed success of his “brinkmanship”
diplomacy, Dulles hinted broadly that he would not hesitate to
threaten the use of nuclear weapons again should the need and
occasion arise.
50
In reality, Dulles remained extremely cautious about the use of
military power. But it was the impression he gave that mattered,
both in his public pronouncements and in his private dealings with
Radford and other military ocers. DoD leaders found common
ground with Dulles, perhaps given the Secretary’s reputation as one
of the administration’s “strong men” and his expertise in security.
51
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NATO Aairs
NATO provided the Defense Department a potential primary
focus for much of its strategic planning and military assistance
obligations. Wilson, however, had diculties coming to grips with
NATO from the beginning of his tenure. A quasi-isolationist at
heart (like many Republicans of his generation), he was aware of the
dangers that a Soviet-dominated Europe could pose to American
security but was still uncomfortable with the sizable numbers of U.S.
troops stationed there to honor U.S. commitments. He deplored
“the great cost of keeping these American divisions in Europe
indenitely.”
52
Yet each time he saw what might be an opportunity
to cut U.S. strength he encountered objections—typically from the
State Department, which claimed either that the moment was not
propitious or that the eects on European opinion would involve
“unacceptable political risks.”
53
Matters came to a head over the so-
called Radford Plan, leaked to the press in 1956, which projected
large-scale troop withdrawals from NATO Europe in conjunction
with an 800,000-man reduction in U.S. forces. When queried by
the press, State summarily denied that the United States had any
such intention, whereupon Wilson beat a hasty retreat, rst refusing
to conrm that the Radford plan existed, and then characterizing
the whole controversy as a misunderstanding growing out of a
hypothetical budget exercise.
54
As the level of U.S. troop strength in Europe typied, Dulles left
no doubt that the path of foreign policy power and inuence in
Washington ran through his oce in the State Department. ose
who thought to do business otherwise were invariably reminded
in no uncertain terms, as happened during negotiations with the
British in 1956–1957 to deploy U.S. intermediate-range ballistic
missiles (IRBMs) in the United Kingdom. Finding their own Blue
Streak IRBM encountering unexpected delays, the British Air
Ministry entered into preliminary talks in the summer of 1956
with U.S. Air Force representatives, who had previously asked to
base the new American or IRBM in the United Kingdom. e
United Kingdom was viewed by the Air Force and the JCS as an
ideal location to base the missiles, prompting the 1956 oer.
55
In October of that year, however, as the negotiations seemed
about to bear fruit, the Suez Canal crisis erupted, followed by the
Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt. e British and French
governments largely blamed lack of U.S. support for their eventual
withdrawal. Dulles chose to halt the IRBM issue pending a more
complete examination of other basing options and the restoration
of more harmonious Anglo-American relations.
56
A delay may have made sense to Dulles for diplomatic reasons, but
to Wilson it meant setting back the timetable for the entire IRBM
program at the risk of cost overruns and other complications.
57
Intent
on keeping the IRBM program on track, he used the opportunity
of a visit to Washington in late January 1957 by British Defence
Minister Duncan Sandys to try to patch up dierences between
Dulles and the British and to expedite the missile deployment.
Sandys and Wilson had worked together earlier on a 1954 scientic
exchange agreement that had been successful in establishing a U.S.-
U.K. joint scientic committee on ballistic missiles.
58
is time,
however, they faced a tougher set of problems. Resorting to an “end
run,” the British had Deputy Secretary Reuben Robertson put a
draft agreement before Eisenhower for his signature, but he found
the President averse to any immediate action.
59
By making the
British and the U.S. Air Force bide their time, Dulles eectively
demonstrated both his strong inuence in high-level defense
matters and his power to discipline wayward allies. is episode, a
setback for the IRBM program, was also a personal embarrassment
for Wilson. Ironically, when a deal nally was struck in March
1957 at the Bermuda summit between Eisenhower and Prime
Minister Harold Macmillan, it was Dulles rather than Wilson who
accompanied the President and was involved with the negotiating,
even though the agreement, subject to the resolution of numerous
details, encompassed the basic terms that Wilson and Sandys had
earlier discussed.
60
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Wilson did make one nal, important contribution to the IRBM
negotiations. is took the form of participating in an exchange
of letters with Sandys conrming the Bermuda agreement and
establishing broad terms for cooperative custody and control of
the missiles, the model for the dual-key approach that became the
standard throughout NATO in the 1960s.
61
Rarely was Wilson
enthusiastic about sharing U.S. nuclear technology with other
countries, even NATO allies. Nor, for that matter, was he a great
admirer of the British, whom he regarded along with the French as
great powers in eclipse.
62
As Secretary of Defense, however, he had
no choice on occasion but to put his prejudices aside. In one such
instance, the negotiations over the or missiles, Dulles rather than
the British gave him the most trouble.
McElroy: Caretaker Secretary
Wilson never intended to stay in oce more than four years. In
March 1957, he informed President Eisenhower that he would
resign as soon as the President could nd a successor. Finding a
replacement took longer than expected, causing Wilson to postpone
his departure until early autumn. On 4 October 1957, ve days
before Wilson’s successor, Neil McElroy, took oce, the Soviets
used rocket technology from their intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) program to launch the rst Earth orbiting satellite, Sputnik
I. at stunning and ominous achievement overshadowed everything
else the Eisenhower administration did in foreign and defense policy
until its last day in oce.
63
Like Wilson, McElroy was a former business executive, highly
capable of managing a large, modern corporation but with no
prior experience in national security aairs. He informed President
Eisenhower from the outset that he did not intend to serve longer
than two years.
64
Considering McElroy’s unfamiliarity with the
problems of his new job and his lack of experience, it was hardly
surprising that he stuck closely to the policies, practices, and
personnel of his predecessor. He launched few initiatives, instead
describing himself as “captain of President Eisenhower’s defense
team,”
65
eagerly welcoming White House guidance and direction.
66
e launching of Sputnik I and a second Soviet satellite a month
later prevented McElroy from easing into his new duties as Secretary
of Defense. A favorite quip at the Pentagon, widely attributed to
General Nathan Twining, Radford’s successor as JCS chairman,
held that McElroy soared into oce with Sputnik and remained
in orbit thereafter.
67
To meet the concern generated by the satellite
launches, McElroy attempted both to clarify the relative positions
of the United States and the Soviet Union in missile development
and to speed up the U.S. eort. Placing considerable emphasis
on the IRBMs the United States then had under development,
McElroy argued that with proper deployment in overseas locations
they would serve as eectively as Soviet ICBMs. Without waiting
for completion of nal tests and evaluations, McElroy ordered
the Air Force or and Army Jupiter IRBMs into production and
planned to begin their deployment in the United Kingdom before
the end of 1958 and in Western Europe shortly thereafter. McElroy
also ordered accelerated development of the Navy solid-fuel Polaris
IRBM and the Air Force liquid-fuel Atlas and Titan ICBMs. In
February 1958, he authorized the Air Force to begin development
of the Minuteman, a solid-fuel ICBM to be deployed in hardened
underground silos, with operational status expected in the early
1960s.
68
e Soviet Sputnik launch in October 1957 also ignited a restorm
of criticism and argument about U.S. technology, budgets, and
DoD, thrusting the question of Defense reorganization into public
scrutiny. Sputnik developments oered President Eisenhower an
opportunity to make changes to the Department of Defense, and
he asked his new Secretary on 11 October 1957 to examine the
Defense structure with a view toward reorganization. e Defense
Reorganization Act of 1958 that emerged from a long process of
executive and legislative deliberation gave President Eisenhower
most of what he proposed. e act moved DoD further in the
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direction of centralization and unication through the following
provisions: strengthening the authority of the Secretary of Defense,
including greater control over the military departments; elevating
the status of JCS Chairman and eliminating the prohibition on
his having a vote in JCS decisions; almost doubling the size of the
Joint Sta; prescribing the establishment of unied and specied
commands by the President; stipulating the number of Assistant
Secretaries; and creating the position of Director of Research and
Engineering.
69
Although the 1958 Defense Reorganization Act did not address
the role of the Secretary of Defense in foreign aairs per se,
the legislation and DoD directives that owed from it greatly
increased Secretarial authorities that McElroy’s successors would
use creatively to expand their reach in national security aairs
writ large. e new legislation increased the responsibilities of the
Secretary of Defense, particularly in the operational direction of the
armed forces and in research and development. During McElroy’s
tenure, one immediate change was in the authority of the Assistant
Secretaries, including the ASD(ISA), to issue orders to the military
departments if authorized in writing by the Secretary of Defense.
is provision drew criticism from the service Secretaries who, seeing
their authority steadily erode, preferred a more limited assignment
of functions. Further bargaining produced a compromise under
which ISA would “establish” positions, plans, and procedures for
military assistance but merely “monitor” Defense participation in
NSC business and “develop and coordinate” all other aspects of
DoD involvement in politico-military aairs.
70
More signicant were changes that McElroy directed in ISA
administration of the military assistance program. e impetus
came from the ndings of the Draper Committee, a blue-ribbon
panel named by President Eisenhower in 1958 in response to
congressional complaints about the handling and policy objectives
of foreign military aid.
71
In its second interim report the following
year, the committee concurred with critics that there should be
closer collaboration between State and Defense and tighter
administrative control of MAP within the Pentagon. e committee
further recommended the appointment of a full-time director of
military assistance (DMA), who would be fully responsible for
the operation of the program under the ISA, and creation of an
independent evaluation sta.
72
Although the ASD(ISA) already
had a deputy for military assistance, the new position would
have broader authority and responsibilities, extending to policy
and operational aspects of the program and not merely nancial
recordkeeping. e Assistant Secretary for ISA, John Irwin II,
saw no immediate need for a change, but McElroy, deeming the
matter “urgent,” moved ahead with implementation of practically
the entire package of the Draper Committee’s recommendations,
though it was not until after he left oce that most of the reforms,
including the appointment of a DMA, took eect.
73
Although often preoccupied with administrative and budgetary
matters, McElroy was far from oblivious to the importance of foreign
aairs. A quick learner with a facile mind, he seemed genuinely
eager to overcome his limitations by nding out more about foreign
problems and foreign leaders. Yet he managed only four trips
abroad during his two years as Secretary and never acquired superb
diplomatic skills. When faced with dicult situations, he tended
to rely on the prestige of his position. us, while meeting in Paris
in December 1957 with French Defense Minister Jacques Chaban-
Delmas to discuss the possible deployment of U.S. IRBMs in France,
McElroy brushed aside French reservations and all but demanded
an early favorable French decision.
74
Assuming that eventually the
French would acquiesce, McElroy found his condence misplaced
as the French government rejected the presence of any U.S. missiles
on its territory.
75
As with his predecessor, McElroy found that the foreign aairs
problems most often engaging his attention were the annual NSC
policy reviews. Here, for McElroy, the problems of foreign policy
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and resource management came together in a way that he could
readily grasp. Interservice rivalry continued to bedevil the budget
process, as did dierences of concepts between State and Defense
over how and where to mete out resources to cope with emerging
threats. Although hardly new, the problem took on a somewhat
dierent appearance in the aftermath of Sputnik and what Dulles
saw as an approaching East-West stalemate in strategic nuclear
power. Henceforth, Dulles believed that eective foreign policy—
meaning the ability of the United States to retain its allies’ loyalty
and prevent defections to the Soviet bloc—would depend on the
capacity to wage “defensive wars” that would neither trigger an
all-out nuclear war nor “involve the total defeat of the enemy.”
is, he thought, pointed to the need for larger and more mobile
conventional forces, the kind of support provided by aircraft
carriers. Although JCS Chairman General Twining disagreed that
U.S. conventional capabilities for limited war were as decient as
the Secretary of State implied, he and McElroy both feared the
practical consequences of what Dulles was suggesting: namely, that
any expansion of conventional forces earmarked for limited war
would require either increased expenditures or a reallocation of
resources that would inevitably weaken the strategic deterrent.
76
Defense-State relations on the whole, however, remained
remarkably free from serious rifts during McElroy’s tenure. Because
of Dulles’s deteriorating health, his Deputy and eventual successor,
Under Secretary Christian Herter, with whom McElroy developed
a positive and productive working relationship, was playing an
increasingly key role at State. Open-minded about sta-level
contacts, McElroy raised no objection when Herter asked in May
1959 that State be kept “closely informed” on the status of military
planning during the Berlin crisis.
77
He later approved a State
Department request to participate in direct consultations with the
JCS on overseas base planning.
78
Keeping true to his intent for a two-year term, McElroy focused
almost exclusively on budgetary matters during his nal months in
oce and increasingly relied on aides and assistants for other issues.
He turned over to his Deputy, omas Gates, Jr., many of the
routine daily matters of running the Department, as well as heavy
foreign aairs responsibilities, including State-JCS discussions of
overseas base requirements, IRBM deployment, the simmering
Berlin crisis, readiness measures in relation to Communist China,
and contingency planning for limited war situations. Gates’s
intimate and visible involvement in foreign aairs marked a
signicant departure from the customary role of the Deputy.
79
Gates: Reasserting the Secretary’s Inuence
It was a foregone conclusion when Gates became McElroy’s Deputy
in June 1959 that he would succeed him. Gates’s credentials as one
of the emerging new generation of “defense professionals” were
unimpeachable—a background of active military experience and
more than six years in the Department of Defense. A Philadelphia
investment banker in private life, Gates had come to Washington
at the outset of the Eisenhower administration to serve as Under
Secretary of the Navy and since then had risen steadily in the
Pentagon hierarchy. Gates had interests and ambitions that went
beyond those of Wilson and McElroy, who typically concentrated
on management and administration. An increase in the Secretary’s
participation in foreign aairs matters would occur under Gates.
80
For President Eisenhower, as much as anything, choosing Gates
may have been a tacit admission that the job of Secretary of Defense
had become too big and complex for foreign policy amateurs.
Whatever Wilson and McElroy may have achieved, their lack of
background in foreign and defense aairs circumscribed their role.
After Dulles stepped down in April 1959 (he died the following
month), Eisenhower had to make new arrangements for help and
advice. Gates’s appointment thus served a dual purpose: it helped
to ll the void left by Dulles’s death, and it restored the Pentagon
to the care and supervision of a professional familiar with the inner
workings of defense and foreign policy.
81
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For Gates, as for his immediate predecessors, NSC aairs were a
top priority, but he believed that the council existed to serve the
President, not the Secretary of Defense. erefore, in his view, the
Secretary of Defense had an obligation to establish and sustain his
own network of interdepartmental contacts, most notably with
State.
82
Looking back, Gates estimated that he spent as much as
75 percent of his time on State Department–related business, and
he made a point of meeting privately every Sunday with Secretary
of State Herter.
83
“We have long realized,” he told the Jackson
Committee in 1960, “that the defense program cannot be prepared
in isolation.”
84
Although Wilson and McElroy would have had no
quarrel with this statement, their habit of deferring to State’s lead
while Dulles was alive had limited DoD inuence in the national
security policy process. Gates was more assertive. He insisted on
the following conception:
e relationship of State and Defense must be a partnership.
In years past, apparently, we had a system in the Defense
Department of reaction to State Department papers. State
Department wrote the policy; then we scurried around with
some very energetic, hard-working people and found a way
to react—usually 10 minutes before a meeting of the NSC. I
feel the Defense Department must also take the initiative in
providing counsel in politico-military matters. e Defense
Department must be a full partner of the State Department
in developing policy. e military point of view must be
expressed—and it can be expressed well by the dedicated
people who work at these things. We must participate in
creating policy rather than just reacting to papers written by
the State Department.
85
While Gates disavowed any desire to supplant the Secretary of
State as the President’s senior foreign policy advisor, his assertion
of coequal status struck some members of a Senate committee
as an unsettling departure from tradition and established
protocol.
86
In fact, Gates hoped to achieve not an assumption of
additional functions but rather a closer collaboration at all levels
of State-Defense relations that would yield more truly integrated
policies with less interdepartmental friction and parochialism.
Citing what he estimated to be several hundred separate daily
contacts—telephone calls, meetings, correspondence, and other
communications between State and Defense ocials—he saw a
growing trend toward “a common recognition on both sides of
the Potomac that most foreign policy issues have major defense
connotations, and conversely that even routine military activity
may have major foreign policy implications.”
87
Besides broadening State-Defense contacts, Gates tried to make
foreign aairs a more integral part of policy planning within the
Pentagon—for one, by including ISA in the budget process at a
point where ISA’s contributions would “put the foreign policy
implications into the budget earlier in the Pentagon planning than
it has been heretofore.”
88
is proved easier said than done. ISA’s
initial input, tendered in May 1960—a summary of politico-military
considerations bearing on the scal year 1962 Defense budget—
did little more than restate the obvious about American obligations
to NATO, the importance of a strong strategic retaliatory force,
and the value of eective capabilities for limited war. It did not,
as one might have thought, make any eort to correlate American
commitments abroad with the dollar costs of American defense;
nor did it venture to speculate on what new burdens to expect or
how existing obligations might be rendered more manageable. But
it provided a start for others to build on later, and that in itself was
an accomplishment.
89
As a pragmatist, Secretary Gates knew not to expect too much
too soon. Despite his advocacy of coequal status in foreign aairs,
there is little to suggest any substantial change in State-Defense
relations during his tenure. Whatever added inuence DoD may
have exercised, apart from its involvement in NSC aairs, tended
to be the result of the close personal and working relationship
Gates established with Herter, who was likewise eager to improve
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2726
State-Defense contacts. Yet even with Dulles no longer around, the
initiative in foreign aairs remained as a rule with the NSC for
broad, long-range policy or with State in day-to-day operational
matters.
90
Although Herter saw the two departments making
progress on closer collaboration in planning, he also felt that much
remained to be done on State’s part to keep Defense better apprised
with political guidance, and for Defense to provide State with more
timely military advice.
91
Gates was fated to serve during the most troubled year of
Eisenhower’s presidency. e Cold War grew increasingly hot.
e bitter end of the Geneva test ban conference in December
1959 was followed by the disastrous breakup of the Paris summit
in May 1960 caused by the Soviet downing over its territory of
a U.S. U–2 reconnaissance aircraft. en came the unrest in the
Congo, signifying obvious Soviet readiness to sh in troubled
African waters; the rise of a pro-communist regime in Cuba in
the Caribbean backyard of the United States; and the steadily
worsening situation in Laos that raised the specter of U.S. military
intervention. With foreign policy problems emerging daily, Gates
selected carefully those to which he gave his personal attention, ever
mindful of the competing demands on his time.
92
His brief tenure
was absorbed by unusually dicult strategic policy problems,
including allegations that the Eisenhower administration was not
doing enough to close a purported “missile gap” with the Soviets,
and a strategic targeting controversy between the Air Force and the
Navy that led Gates in August 1960 to establish a Joint Strategic
Target Planning Sta (JSTPS).
93
e impetus in Gates’s mind for the creation of the JSTPS was the
inadequate coordination of targeting plans between the Strategic
Air Command (SAC) and the Navy, which he believed led to
redundancy and disputed priorities. ose dierences became
especially signicant with the advent of the Navy’s sea-based Polaris
ballistic missiles. Acting on a proposal by SAC Commander-in-
Chief General omas Power that SAC control strategic weapons
targeting, Gates set up JSTPS. e SAC commander, supported
by an integrated joint sta, assumed separate duties as director
of strategic target planning. When Chief of Naval Operations
Admiral Arleigh Burke objected to the new arrangement, Gates
encouraged him to argue his case before President Eisenhower, who
ultimately upheld Gates’s decision. By December 1960, the JSTPS
had prepared the rst Single Integrated Operational Plan, which
specied for various attack options the timing, weapons, delivery
systems, and targets to be used by U.S. strategic forces.
94
In foreign aairs, Gates proved especially adept in managing the
ow of business and in keeping small problems from getting bigger.
Having previously served in a variety of high-level positions, he was
generally acquainted with foreign leaders and their key advisors.
In particular, Gates enjoyed close relations with British Defence
Minister Harold Watkinson, with whom he directly negotiated
many of the details of the proposed Skybolt missile transfer and
access to base facilities for U.S. missile submarines at Holy Loch,
Scotland. Although the Skybolt missile system sharing issue, which
is beyond the scope of this study, would cause considerable trouble
for his successor, Robert McNamara, Gates was adept at keeping it
from becoming a source of Anglo-American contention during his
short tenure.
95
Gates had a strong hand in shaping Defense responses in
another crucial area of foreign policy area—arms control and
disarmament—where previously the Pentagon’s support and
endorsement had been barely lukewarm. Although Wilson and
McElroy had spent considerable time and energy studying arms
control proposals passing across their desks, they were forever
confronted by the unremitting skepticism and apprehension of the
Joint Chiefs, whose opinions on such matters carried considerable
weight both inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. Since the
Chiefs knew that it was impossible for political reasons to keep
arms control o the national agenda, they focused their objections
instead on technical matters—the lack of adequate and eective
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verication measures, for example, or the harmful consequences
for current research and development. As delaying actions, these
arguments worked well against such popular proposals as a ban on
atmospheric testing and a cuto of nuclear production. But such
arguments wore thin after a while, giving DoD a reputation for
contentiousness.
96
Decidedly more inclined than his two immediate predecessors to
bring arms control and disarmament into the mainstream of American
defense policy, Gates readily acknowledged the “negative attitude” in
the Pentagon toward arms control. Prepared to entertain any and all
suggestions, he told Eisenhower that he had in mind appointing a
special assistant on disarmament matters.
97
Personally, Gates favored
a cuto of nuclear weapons production, preferably sooner rather than
later, not so much for disarmament purposes but to preserve what
he estimated as a two-to-one American advantage over the Soviets in
nuclear bombs and warheads. Moreover, he fully agreed with the Joint
Chiefs that arms control for its own sake was inherently dangerous
and that the administration should not allow itself to be stampeded
into reaching agreements merely because of public opinion.
98
Whether Gates could—and should—have been tougher with
the military on accepting the need for arms control is a matter of
conjecture. Gates himself, although more open-minded toward such
matters than Wilson and McElroy had been, remained very much
committed to the concept of foreign and defense policies resting in the
rst instance on ready military power rather than the negotiation of
agreements with one’s potential adversaries. Like Forrestal and Lovett,
he came from a generation whose view of international politics derived
from memories and experiences of the 1930s, when military weakness
and appeasement had seemed to invite aggression and oppression.
International communism, to Gates’s way of thinking, did not dier
from the Axis alliance of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial
Japan in World War II. Despite rumors and diplomatic reports of
a growing Sino-Soviet rift, Gates remained convinced that there
existed no fundamental ideological dierences between Beijing and
Moscow and that U.S. foreign policy should treat such commentaries
with utmost caution. Such a hard-line Cold War viewpoint was not
uncommon or out of place for the time.
99
Conclusion
Despite the promising revival of the Secretary’s role in foreign aairs
during Gates’s tenure, the Eisenhower years were predominantly
a period in which administrative and managerial matters took
priority in Defense. is reected the personal inclination of
President Eisenhower, one of the nation’s best known and most
respected military leaders, who was superbly equipped to give close
attention to national security aairs. Concerning themselves with
the business side of the Defense Department—the formulation
and execution of budgets, the procurement of new weapons and
equipment, research and development—was perhaps the soundest
approach Wilson and McElroy could have taken, given their
limited experience and the constraints under which they operated.
Yet in the long run, they did not serve as a model for subsequent
Secretaries.
e growing U.S. military presence abroad carried with it compelling
and unavoidable responsibilities that drove Defense ocials in
Washington to wrestle with the questions of how, where, and when
to use these forces—necessitating that foreign aairs become a vital
and important part of every Secretary’s agenda. In handling these
problems, Eisenhower’s three Secretaries of Defense relied heavily on
the expertise from the newly created Assistant Secretary of Defense
(International Security Assistance). Eisenhower’s use of the NSC
as his principal forum for basic policymaking added further to the
opportunities for ISA to have an impact. e carefully structured
system through which policy papers and decisions evolved made
ISA, the designated DoD coordinator, virtually indispensable to
the smooth ow of business and forced it to branch out into more
policy-related and analytical elds. ough not yet the major source
of policy initiatives that it would later become, ISA moved steadily
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in that direction, helped along by Secretaries of Defense who found
it necessary and desirable to delegate authority and responsibility.
Increased DoD involvement in foreign aairs did not, however,
invariably translate into increased inuence. Dulles, while Secretary
of State, remained the principal spokesman for and sometimes
symbol of U.S. foreign policy during Eisenhower’s Presidency.
Moreover, even though he preferred diplomatic solutions, he also
readily acknowledged the military aspects of national security. His
appreciation of the role of military power in foreign policy—and
his avowed willingness to apply it—earned him enormous respect
among senior uniformed ocers and helped him to establish a
rapport with them.
In contrast to Wilson and McElroy, Gates took a more balanced
view of his role as Secretary, treating defense and foreign aairs
as part of the same large problem. Although his tenure was short,
he reestablished the Secretary of Defense as a key gure in foreign
policy decisionmaking. His personal role notwithstanding, by the
time Gates left oce, much remained to be done to make foreign
aairs a more integral and accepted part of policy planning within
the Pentagon. Gates’s post-tenure claim in 1960 that State-Defense
relations had never been better reected a limited perspective with
which Secretary of State Herter only partially concurred.
100
Herter
still saw room for improvement, but he agreed with Gates that they
were moving in the direction of closer collaboration. To this extent
State welcomed greater interest and involvement by the Secretary
of Defense in foreign aairs, for it gave State a greater insight on
what to expect in terms of military support for policy initiatives
abroad. at Gates’s tenure marked some change in direction from
the previous seven years there could be no doubt. What could not
have been predicted was how much further his successor, Robert S.
McNamara, would carry this process.
Notes
1
For an overview of policymaking in the Eisenhower administration,
see John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of
Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1982), 127–197, and Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. II, e
President (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984). Two recent popular
biographies of Eisenhower that oer overviews of the administration’s
foreign policy are Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace (New
York: Random House, 2012), and Jim Newton, Eisenhower: e White
House Years (New York: Doubleday, 2011).
2
Charles A. Stevenson, SECDEF: e Nearly Impossible Job of
Secretary of Defense (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc., 2006), 14–
15.
3
Quoted in E. Bruce Geelhoed, Charles E. Wilson and Controversy
at the Pentagon, 1953 to 1957 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1979), 19.
4
Emmet John Hughes, e Ordeal of Power: A Political Memoir of
the Eisenhower Years (New York: Atheneum, 1963), 75.
5
Townsend Hoopes, e Devil and John Foster Dulles (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1973), 140.
6
Dillon Anderson interview, quoted in Phillip G. Henderson,
Managing the Presidency: e Eisenhower Legacy—From Kennedy to Reagan
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), 96. Also see Herbert S. Parmet,
Eisenhower and the American Crusades (New York: Macmillan, 1972),
189.
7
Robert H. Ferrell, ed., e Eisenhower Diaries (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1981), 296.
8
Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades, 170.
9
“Report of Recommendations Relative to the National Security
Council,” 16 Mar 53, encl to memo, Cutler for Eisenhower, 16 Mar
53, sub: Recommendations Regarding NSC, OASD(ISA) records, 330–
68A4024, Organization–NSC folder, box 7; James S. Lay, Jr., and Robert
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H. Johnson, Organizational History of the National Security Council during
the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations (Washington, DC: National
Security Council, nd, released Aug 1960), 23–25, 35–46.
10
On the reform and evolution of the Eisenhower NSC, see John
Prados, Keepers of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council (New
York: William Morrow, 1991), 61–65; Anna Kasten Nelson, “e ‘Top
of Policy Hill’: President Eisenhower and the National Security Council,”
Diplomatic History 7 (Fall 1983): 307–326; Phillip G. Henderson, “Advice
and Decision: e Eisenhower National Security Council Reappraised,”
in e President and National Security Policy, ed. R. Gordon Hoxie (New
York: Center for the Study of the Presidency, 1984), 153–184; and Stanley
L. Falk, “e NSC Under Truman and Eisenhower,” in Fateful Decisions:
Inside the National Security Council, ed. Karl Indefurth and Loch Johnson
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 40–43.
11
“Report of Recommendations Relative to the National Security
Council,” 16 Mar 53, 8–9, and ltr, Eisenhower to Cutler, 7 Jan 57, both
in OASD(ISA) records, 330–68A4024, Organization–NSC folder, box 7;
also see Joseph G. Bock, e White House Sta and the National Security
Assistant (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 31–42; Robert H. Johnson,
“e National Security Council: e Relevance of Its Past to Its Future,”
Orbis 13 (Fall 1969): 716; Lay and Johnson, Organizational History, 26;
and Henderson, “Advice and Decision,” 156.
12
Dillon Anderson, “e President and National Security,” reprinted
in U.S. Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Organizing for
National Security: Selected Materials (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Oce, 1960), 41–48; I.M. Destler, “e Presidency and National
Security Organization,” in e National Security: Its eory and Practice,
1945–1960, ed. Norman A. Graebner (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986), 229.
13
Saki Dockrill, Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy,
1953–1961 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 23.
14
Lay and Johnson, Organizational History, 28–29.
15
Henderson, Managing the Presidency, 82.
16
Eisenhower quoted in Nelson, “President Eisenhower and the
NSC,” 310.
17
Memo, Lay for NSC, 15 Oct 53, sub: Concept of the NSC and
its Advisory and Support Groups, OASD(ISA) records, 330–68A4024,
Organization–NSC folder, box 7.
18
NSC 162/2, “Basic National Security Policy” (30 Oct 53), Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1952–1954, vol. II (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Oce, 1984), 577–597.
19
Eisenhower paraphrased in memo of discussion, 143rd mtg NSC,
6 May 53, FRUS 1952–1954, vol. XV (1984), 977.
20
Address by Dulles, “e Evolution of Foreign Policy,” 12 Jan 54,
Department of State Bulletin 30 (25 Jan 54): 107–110.
21
See John Lewis Gaddis, e Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of
the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 123–141.
22
On the origins and development of the Eisenhower administration’s
defense policies, see Glenn H. Snyder, “e ‘New Look’ of 1953,”
in Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets, ed. Warner R. Schilling, Paul
Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1962), 492–504; Samuel F. Wells, Jr., “e Origins of Massive
Retaliation,” in National Security and Nuclear Strategy, ed. Robert H.
Connery and Demetrios Caraley (New York: Academy of Political Science,
1983), 52–73; and H.W. Brands, “e Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower
and the National Security State,” American Historical Review 94 (October
1989): 963–989.
23
Nelson, “President Eisenhower and the NSC,” 315.
24
Richard M. Leighton, History of the Oce of the Secretary of Defense,
vol. III, Strategy, Money, and the New Look, 1953–1956 (Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Oce, 1984), 13, 16–20. Leighton highlights
Wilson’s administrative rather than policymaking focus as Secretary.
25
Philip E. Barringer, interview with Alfred Goldberg and Roger
Trask, 20 Jun 95, 8, OSD Historical Oce.
26
Lay and Johnson, Organizational History, 32–33.
27
Timothy W. Stanley, American Defense and National Security
(Washington, DC: Public Aairs Press, 1956), 48.
28
Doris Condit, History of the Oce of the Secretary of Defense, vol.
II, e Test of War (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Oce,
1988), 525–531.
29
Ltr, Robert Tripp Ross to Eisenhower, 18 May 56; unsigned
memrec, ca. 14 Jun 56, both in OSD Historian’s les, ISA 1953–56 folder.
30
Paul H. Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision
(New York: Grove Books, 1989), 146–148.
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31
OASD(ISA), Organization, Responsibilities, and Functions (29 Dec
55). Also see Stanley, American Defense, 49–50, 52–53, and omas J.
Bigley, “e Oce of International Security Aairs,” United States Naval
Institute Proceedings 92 (April 1966): 64–65.
32
DoD Directive 5132.3 (14 Jul 55), “Policy, Organization and
Responsibilities in the Dept. of Defense Relating to the Conduct of
International Security Aairs,” par. II.B.2. Also see Stanley, American
Defense, 52–53.
33
Memo, Gray for Wilson, 11 May 56, sub: Reorganization of
OASD(ISA), ISA 1953–56 folder, OSD Historian’s les.
34
Stanley, American Defense, 48–49; DoD Directive 5132.2 (26 Apr
54), “Responsibilities of the ASD(ISA)”; DoD Directive 5132.4 (26 Apr
54), “Designation of Special Assistant for National Security Aairs”; ltr,
Eisenhower to Gray, 10 Feb 56, ISA Notebook, OSD Historical Oce.
35
Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 70, 152; Cresap,
McCormick, and Paget Management Consultants, “Survey of Major
Department of Defense Organizational Relationships in International
Security Aairs” (Oct 1956), 7f.
36
See Georey Piller, “DOD’s Oce of International Security
Aairs: e Brief Ascendancy of an Advisory System,” Political Science
Quarterly 98 (Spring 1983): 60–62.
37
Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises, 66.
38
Arthur W. Radford, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: e Memoirs of
Admiral Arthur W. Radford, ed. Stephen Jurika, Jr. (Stanford, CA: Hoover
Institution Press, 1980), 318.
39
Acheson, Present at the Creation, 441.
40
Snyder, “New Look,” 412.
41
Radford, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, 316–327. Also see Mark
Perry, Four Stars (Boston: Houghton Miin, 1989), 51–59.
42
Radford, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, 323.
43
Falk in Inderfurth and Johnson, 43–44. e diculties involved
in reaching agreement between the dierent constituent departments of
the NSC in planning and executing foreign policy are highlighted.
44
Snyder, “New Look,” 435; John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of
Containment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 127–163.
45
Bonesteel’s views are set forth in a two-part paper, “e Emerging
Danger,” 5 Nov 54 and 10 Nov 54, led in Record Group (RG) 330,
NSC 5440 BNSP(1), OASD(ISA) les, acc. no. 65A–3500, box 9, cited
in Leighton, Strategy, Money, and the New Look, 1953–1956, 335–336.
For JCS views, see memo, Wilson for Ex. Sec. NSC, 22 Nov 54, sub:
Review of BNSP (NSC 162/2 and NSC 5422/2), FRUS 1952–1954, vol.
II, 785–787.
46
See memcon, 229th mtg NSC, 21 Dec 54, FRUS 1952–1954,
vol. II, pt. 1, 839–841. See also Leighton, 449.
47
Richard D. Challener, “John Foster Dulles: e Moralist Armed,”
in Soldiers and Statesmen: e Proceedings of the 4th Military History
Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, 22–23 October 1970, eds.
Monte D. Wright and Lawrence J. Paszek (Washington, DC: Oce of Air
Force History, 1973), 151–153.
48
See memcon, 243rd mtg NSC, 31 Mar 55, FRUS 1955–1957,
vol. II (1986), 431–433.
49
Memrec by Col. C.A. Randall, 26 Mar 55, sub: Conversation held
in Oce of the Secretary of Defense, 26 Mar 55, Wilson Papers, 1953–
57, 330–63A1768. Also see FRUS 1955–1957, vol. II, 400–404.
50
James Shepley, “How Dulles Averted War,” Life (16 Jan 56): 78.
51
Robert J. Watson, History of the Oce of the Secretary of Defense, vol.
IV, Into the Missile Age, 1956–1960 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Oce, 1997), 26, 326 (quote from 26).
52
Memcon, 187th mtg NSC, 4 Mar 54, FRUS 1952–1954, vol. V
(1983), 889.
53
See for example ltr, Dulles to Wilson, 13 Sep 56, encl draft memo
for the President, nd, sub: U.S. Position on Review of NATO Strategy and
Force Levels, NATO (Sensitive) 1950–60 folder, 330–71A6489, box 3;
also see Challener, “John Foster Dulles: e Moralist Armed,” 153–155,
and Ronald Landa, draft manuscript, History of Western European Defense,
ch. 1, OSD Historical Oce.
54
Wilson press conf., 7 Aug 56, Public Statements of Secretary of
Defense Wilson, 1956, vol. III (Washington, DC: OSD Historical Oce,
1956), 972–979.
55
Ian Clark and David Angell, “Britain, the United States and the
Control of Nuclear Weapons: e Diplomacy of the or Deployment,
1956–58,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 2 (Nov 1991): 153–177; see also
Watson, Into the Missile Age, 512.
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56
For Dulles’s reaction to the Suez crisis see Herman Finer, Dulles
over Suez: e eory and Practice of His Diplomacy (Chicago: Quadrangle
Books, 1964); and Hoopes, e Devil and John Foster Dulles, chs. 23–24.
For Dulles’s policy decision, see memcon, 24 Dec 56, FRUS 1955–1957,
vol. XXVII (1992), 678–679.
57
Wilson to Eisenhower, 28 Jan 57, Eisenhower Papers (Whitman
le), Administration File, Dwight David Eisenhower Library.
58
See Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1956–1959 (New York:
Harper and Row, 1971), 200–201, and Alistair Horne, Harold Macmillan,
1957–1986 (New York: Viking, 1989), 21.
59
FRUS 1955–1957, vol. XXVII, 685–693, commentary on 693
most relevant. For the Defense records of these discussions, see RG 330,
Sandys-Wilson Talks Jan-Feb 1957 folder, 330–67A4739, box 1.
60
E. Bruce Geelhoed and Anthony O. Edmonds, Eisenhower,
Macmillan and Allied Unity, 1957–1961 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2003), 17; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (New York:
Doubleday and Co., 1965), 121–125.
61
See Wilson to Sandys, 18 Apr 57, and Sandys to Wilson, 11 Jun
57, both in RG 330, UK 471.94 (4 Jan 57), and FRUS 1955–1957, vol.
XXVII, 777–778.
62
See, for example, Wilson’s comments in FRUS 1952–1954, vol. V
(1983), 889, 1266; FRUS 1955–1957, vol. XVI (1981), 171, 1128. e
comments from the latter source show Wilson’s criticism of British and
French policies toward the Suez Canal and the broader implications of
those policies on their international standing.
63
Watson, 127–129.
64
Ibid., 128.
65
Stevenson, SECDEF, 15.
66
See generally, Watson, Into the Missile Age, 129–132, and
Stevenson, SECDEF, 15–16.
67
Charles J.V. Murphy, “e Embattled Mr. McElroy,” Fortune (Apr
1959).
68
e most detailed account of McElroy’s involvement in missile
development remains Watson, Into the Missile Age, 157–202.
69
See Carter, “Eisenhower Versus the Generals,” 1170–1171, 1193–
1194, 1197–1198. e 1958 Defense Reorganization Act and its eects on
the national security decisionmaking structure are discussed in great depth.
70
Watson, Into the Missile Age, 274–275, 283–286; DoD Directive
No. 5132.2, 27 Feb 59, sub: Assistant Secretary of Defense (International
Security Aairs), ISA Notebook, OSD Historical Oce.
71
Arnold Kotz, “Planning for International Security,” Public
Administration Review 22 (1962): 214–215.
72
President’s Committee to Study the U.S. Military Assistance
Program, Second Interim Report: e Organization and Administration of
the Military Assistance Program (3 Jun 1959): 25–26.
73
Watson, Into the Missile Age, 672–673, n 71; Annual Report of the
Secretary of Defense: July 1, 1959, to June 30, 1960, 86.
74
Cable 3056, Yost to State Dept, 20 Dec 57, File 751.13/12–2057,
Dept of State Records.
75
See Frank Costigliola, France and the United States: e Cold War
Alliance Since World War II (New York: Twayne, 1992), 118–159, and
Michael M. Harrison, e Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).
76
Memcon, 364th mtg NSC, 1 May 58, FRUS 1958–1960, vol. III
(1996), 79–97.
77
FRUS 1958–1960, vol. VIII (1993), 764.
78
Memo by Gates, 17 Jun 59, sub: Planning in Connection with
Overseas Bases, Gates’s Reading File, 330–65A3078, box 32.
79
Watson, Into the Missile Age, 346–348; memo by Gates, 17 Jun
59, sub: JUPITER in Italy; memo, Gates for SecState and DCI, 1 Jul
59, sub: Capabilities of Forces for Limited Military Operations; ltr, Gates
to Gordon Gray, 1 Jul 59, encl draft memo to CJCS, nd, sub: Study of
Capabilities of Forces for Limited Military Operations; memo, Gates for
JCS, 13 Aug 59, sub: Readiness Measures in the Pacic; and memo for
CJCS and ASD(ISA), 30 Oct 59, sub: Nash Rpt on Overseas Bases, all in
RG 330, Gates Reading File, acc. no. 65A3078, box 32.
80
Stevenson, SECDEF, 16. e author specically mentions Gates
encouraging liaison with the State Department, meeting weekly with the
Secretary of State, and creating an environment conducive to the Secretary
playing a role in foreign aairs.
81
Ibid., 16; Douglas Kinnard, e Secretary of Defense (Lexington,
KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1980), 69–71.
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82
Gates testimony, 13 Jun 60, in U.S. Congress, Senate, Cte on Govt
Operations, Subcte on National Policy Machinery, Hearings: Organizing
for National Security, 86:2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Oce, 1960), pt. V, 730.
83
Interview with Gates by Richard D. Challener, New York City, 13
July 65, John Foster Dulles Oral History Project, Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ.
84
Gates testimony, 13 Jun 60, Cte on Govt Operations, Hearings:
Organizing for National Security, pt. V, 731.
85
“Remarks at Conference on Management Problems of Military
Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation,” 6 Jul 60, Public Statements
of Secretary of Defense Gates, 1959–1960, vol. III (Washington, DC: OSD
Historical Oce, 1960), 738.
86
Cte on Govt Operations, Hearings: Organizing for National
Security, pt. V, 737–738, 742–743.
87
Ibid., 731.
88
Ibid., 755.
89
“Foreign Policy and Politico-Military Considerations Bearing
on the Development of the 1962 DoD Budget,” encl to memo, Haydn
Williams, DASD(ISA), to SecDef, 5 May 60, sub: FY 1962 Defense
Budget Preparation, OASD(C)(A) les, AFPC May-Jun 1960 folder,
330–77–0062, box 6.
90
Herter testimony, 10 Jun 60, Cte on Govt Operations, Hearings:
Organizing for National Security, pt. V, 709.
91
Ibid., 698.
92
See ltr, Gates to Jarvis Cromwell, 21 Sep 60, Gates’s Reading File,
330–65A3078, box 32.
93
Goodpaster memcon, 13 Aug 60, sub: Mtg with the President, 11
Aug 60, Whitman le, Dwight David Eisenhower Diary Series, box 51,
Aug 1960 Sta Notes (3) folder, Eisenhower Papers. On the missile gap
controversy, see Prados, Soviet Estimate, 67–95, and Lawrence Freedman,
U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic reat, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986), 62–80.
94
Watson, Into the Missile Age, 473–496.
95
Ibid., 564–570.
96
See JCS and National Policy, 1957–60, 105–106.
97
Goodpaster memo, 26 Mar 60, sub: Conversation with President,
18 Mar 60, Eisenhower Papers, Whitman le, Diary Series.
98
Memcon, NSC Special Mtg, 18 Feb 60, Eisenhower Papers,
Whitman le.
99
Memcon, 448th Mtg NSC, 27 Jun 60, Eisenhower Papers,
Whitman le.
100
Gates testimony, 13 Jun 60, in Cte on Govt Operations, Hearings:
Organizing for National Security, pt. V, 731.
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About the Editors
Erin R. Mahan has been Chief Historian for the Secretary of Defense since
2010. Previously, she worked in the Center for the Study of Weapons of
Mass Destruction at National Defense University and in the Historian’s
Oce at the U.S. Department of State, where she was an editor of the
Foreign Relations of the United States series. Dr. Mahan holds a Ph.D. in
history from the University of Virginia.
Jerey A. Larsen is president of Larsen Consulting Group and a senior
scientist with a major U.S. defense contractor. He also serves as an
adjunct professor at Denver, Northwestern, and Texas A&M universities.
Widely published, Dr. Larsen holds an MA in national security aairs
from the Naval Postgraduate School and an MA and Ph.D. in politics
from Princeton University.
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Historical Office
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Washington, DC
