HARVARD UNIVERSITY

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT

LITTAUER CENTER

MEMORANDUM

DATE: Dec. 13, 1968

FROM: Dick Neustadt

To: Henry Kissinger

Copy of this memo sent to
you at 6 Divinity Avenue.

NOTES OF DINNER MEETING, DEC. 9, 1968

(10 Trail Street, Cambridge)

I. Reorganizing and Revitalizing the National Security Council.

1. National Security Council meetings.

a. The full Council to meet monthly, or on special call.

b. Functions of meetings: socialization, information, formal approvals.

c. Secretariat services performed under HK's direction by designated member or members of National Security Staff (see below).

2. The Executive Group of the NSC.

a. Formally established with regular members: President, Sec.State, Sec.Def., and HK. Others on invitation, but no regular entitlement.

YES b. Regular weekly meeting with President, not at lunch.

c. Confidential notes to be taken as basis MEMCON's for President's files (and HK's). These are not formal minutes. Note-taker should be "non person" from HK's staff. Individual can vary with subject matter. This to spare HK for participation.

NO d. Executive group meetings to be publicized in ordinary circumstances so press knows "NSC" continuously at work.

YES e. At this level, no distinction between plans and operations. This is the all-but-ultimate decision body (full NSC is a ratification body).

3. The Review Committee of the NSC.

a. Regular membership: HK as Chairman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for ISA (if in same relation to Secretary as formerly) and whichever officer on the 7th Floor of the State Department bears the same relation to Sec.State as if he is born to ISA has borne to Sec.Def.

b. Each regular member should have a deputy who can act in his absence. HK's should be a senior confidential member of his staff (and the man might vary with the subject matter). ISA's should be the principal Deputy Assistant Secretary if he bears the same relation to the Assistant Secretary as HK.

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that Halperin has borne to Warnke. The State Deputy might be the Director
of Policy Planning if he has an equivalent relation to the officer who acts
as member. It is vital that each of the three men who meet in the absence
of their principal be the man to whom that principal normally turns for
advice on forward problems. It is equally vital that the principals in
their own departments be implementing officers. In short, the analogy of
Warnke with Halperin or Nitze with Rowen apply in each case.

c. If the Secretary of the Treasury or the Attorney General is to have in practice
a major voice and role, then his office might well be represented in precisely
equivalent fashion on the Review Committee.

d. This Committee's tasks include the following:

(1) Discussion of agenda for Executive Group and oversight of preparatory staff work.

(2) Review of issues and proposals lobbed toward the Executive Committee from below.

(3) Determination and parcelling out of action assignments downward, insuring that those who need to know do know who has the duty. This includes commissioning ad hoc "action teams." It also includes recommendation to HK of the need for ahd form of NASAM's.

(4) Determination and parcelling out of study assignments both inside the government and to outside consultants, with regard to forward-problems, problems not yet ripe for action. This includes commissioning ad hoc study groups of inside character, outside character, or mixed.

N.B. Both action and study assignments should be reviewed from time to time to insure against sterility, paper-mill-ery, or over-institutionalization.

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4. Area Committees of the NSC.

a. These should be reconstituted IRG's:

(1) Representation from all relevant agencies at Assistant Secretary level.

YES (2) Chartered by Executive Order for Presidential signature.

(3) Designation and redesignation of chairmen through NASAM over HK's signature "by direction of the President", chairman ordinarily but not necessarily to be relevant Assistant Secretary of State.

YES (4) In short: Area Committees to be agencies of NSC, not State, and chairmen are Presidential appointees, not departmental ones.

b. Area Committee functions to include:

(1) Review of pending departmental actions which warrant inter-departmental consideration.

YES

(2) Review of pending departmental actions which in opinion of the Chair (or by direction of Review Committee) should be subjected to inter-departmental consideration.

(3) Execution of action assignments from the Review Committee.

(4) Preparation of recommendations to Review Committee for Executive Committee consideration and/or NSC ratification.

c. The secretariat for each Area Committee can be drawn from participating departments, but should be seconded to HK's staff while serving in the capacity.

NO

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5. The National Security Staff in the Executive Office of the President.

a. By reorganization plan or under the authority Mr. Nixon has been urged to request from Congress as soon as he takes office (permanent reorganization power with respect to the Executive Office) the functions of the Executive Secretary of the NSC should be transferred to a Presidentially appointed Director of the National Security Staff. At the same time that Staff should be formally created as a component of the Executive Office of the President.

b. At the same time the President should be authorized to appoint, without Senate confirmation, the Director of the Staff and such Deputy or Associate Directors as he deems appropriate. In turn the Director should be authorized to appoint to the Staff such senior Associates as he deems appropriate by seconding or on his own budget.

c. HK should be appointed by the President Director of the NSC in addition to his appointment as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. For the moment, he probably should ask the President to appoint no Deputy or Associate Directors, but rather have all members of his office appointed to accepted Civil Service positions as senior Associates. Later when individuals have been tested one or more Deputies and two or three Associates may be desirable. These would have the status of the Deputy and Assistant Directors of the Budget Bureau who hold Presidential commissions without Senate confirmation, the same status of course as Assistants and Special Assistants in the White House.

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d. The Deputy Director or Directors eventually appointed could in some or all cases have additional appointments as Special Assistants to the President. Conversely, if desired, HK could have associated with him a Special Assistant or two who would not simultaneously hold a National Security Staff appointment. But under the proposed arrangement he would not face the same compulsion as at present to give some of his Associates a general White House title.

## II. Operational cautions.

1. For the first several months of operation HK must do double-duty, personally coping with operational staff work on key action issues while simultaneously sitting at and presiding over regularized meetings. Deputizing should not come too fast.

2. The foregoing organization is designed to appear like major change without in fact freezing patterns prematurely. It is vital not to get stuck with fixed organizations and procedures which in light of personal relationships six months from now will be awkward, inhibiting, or wrong.

3. A lot of thought is needed on press guidance in two aspects:

a. HK's personal relations with press: confined to "off the record" and "deep background" briefings of key correspondents.

b. Be chary of giving this personal briefing task to Staff Associates. Insist on precise understanding with them of their role (if any).

c. Klein and Ziegler must be fed appropriate amounts of information and body-English. Someone from HK's staff must work with them as Moose once worked with Christian.

d. HK or trusted Associate should review the transcript of Ziegler's daily briefing.

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4. The new Armed Forces aide will need useful things to do other than mucking into HK's information channels. Finding useful work for this colonel should be a charge on HK's own colonel (providing HK owns him).

5. HK must chair the 303 Committee and will need a CIA man on his own staff, but check carefully with others (like Hughes) before accepting bodies from CIA. As in the case of the Armed Forces aide, CIA may hanker to play its own information games.

6. Find out which other White House Assistants are likely, in their dealings with Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture, Labor, Tariff Commission, CAB, to become points of access for commercial policy actions originating in those other agencies. Make a treaty with whomever is necessary that those actions flow to and through HK. Watch especially international air agreements, tariff appeals.

7. Regarding Viet Nam, treat everything about the negotiations and the conduct of the war as exceptional. Don't try to shove these items into regularized NSC channels, not at least below the level of the Executive Group.

8. HK's staff must know what goes on in intelligence-gathering CIA activities and other related activities also.

### III. People.

1. Present NSC Staff easily dispensed with: Sam Lewis, Latin America; Mitchell Wright, FE; Bill Jordan now in Paris; Al Jenkins as China watcher; Charles Johnson as cats and dogs type.

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2. Should hold on to: Art McCaffrey (seconded from CIA) as Technical Supervisor of Situation Room; Robert Sansom (Air Force Captain, Oxford D.Phil. in Econ.) White House Fellow. Maybe: Roger Morris, second level (seconded from State); Ed Fried if Dick Cooper not available; Al Saunders, Mid-East area (ex CIA).

3. Spurg Keeney is on standing arrangement seconded half-time from the Chinese Advisor's Office dealing with arms control, strategic missiles, and Kaysen's old area: allocation of resources in Defense budget.

Continue this for a time. Keeney is probably tiring. Ultimately you will need a Deputy or Associate of your own, but take time to find him. Kaysen's are not easily uncovered.

Don't confuse this work with the work a military officer can do for you. The Defense budget, and the manipulating of Budget Bureau information to your advantage, is not a task for a uniformed officer.

4. In HK's immediate office there will be need for a personal assistant as a "private secretary." Suggestion: Eagleberger. There will also be need for an administrative assistant for "office management," including Situation Room. Suggestion: Richard Moose.

Further suggestion: Both these men might sit in the office now occupied by Bromley Smith.

5. Bromley Smith himself: if his title is abolished he still could be retained for an interim period as a special consultant until HK has drained him dry of useful lore.