absence of more formal arrangements, assumed a primary if somewhat
ambiguous responsibility for its management.

### c. The NSC Staff Members

(1) Personnel and Relations with Other Agencies. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, crisis permitting, the Special Assistant meets with his staff. The total varies from 15 to 20. About one-third of these are foreign service officers detailed from the State Department. The others are on the NSC payroll or belong to other organizations. Some of these officers have fairly specific jurisdictions, although responsibilities overlap. The clearest distinctions are among those with geographic assignments, one each for: East Asia, Latin America, the Near East, Africa-South Asia, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe-Soviet Union. These assignments roughly correspond to the geographic bureaus of the State Department. All but one of these officers have an assistant or two under at least nominal supervision. Some of the principal six carry additional functional portfolios: the Africa-South Asia officer also has primary responsibility for all economic and military assistance matters

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and the Western European specialist also deals with international trade
and monetary questions.

Other officers have responsibilities primarily oriented toward
other agencies or Executive Office entities, e. g., an officer who follows
NASA and AEC matters. Finally, there are officers who function as
integral parts of the staff but who belong to other entities and perform
liaison and "cross-fertilization" functions. Among these are representatives
of the Office of the Science Advisor, CIA, and the Office of the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (OCJCS).

Also present at these staff meetings are the Director of the
Situation Room, a representative of the Bureau of the Budget, (usually
the Deputy Director for International Operations), and an NSC staff
officer who maintains liaison on national security matters with the White
House Press Office and the public affairs offices at State and Defense.

There is no specific representative or liaison officer for the
Department of Defense (as opposed to the OCJCS). This reflects a general
characteristic of the staff operation: that it deals very little in the business

of the Secretary of Defense. Except for the frequent dealings of the
<u>Special Assistant</u> with the Secretary or Deputy Secretary and staff
<u>participation in the "big" defense questions like the defense budget,</u>
<u>defense matters do not normally get into the hands of this group.</u>

The presence of a representative of the Office of the Chairman,
JCS, among the staff dates back to General Maxwell Taylor's tour of duty
as President Kennedy's military representative. This position has now
become institutionalized. During the past two years of the Vietnam war,
the current OCJCS representative (an Air Force officer) has been a key
link in White House monitoring of military operations and an important
source of analysis on military intelligence related to Vietnam.

The role of the CIA representative should be briefly noted. His
primary function is to assist the Special Assistant in matters having to do
with the "303 Committee." This group, composed of the Special
Assistant, the Deputy Under Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of
Defense and the Deputy Director of the CIA reviews all clandestine
intelligence operations for the President. In normal practice the

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President personally approves only overall programs of operations and
the 303 Committee reviews specific missions within these blanket
authorizations. Proposed operations of unusual sensitivity or
significance are reviewed by the Committee and referred to the President
with recommendations.

(2) <u>Activities on the NSC Staff.</u> Although the staff is involved
in all the activities of the Special Assistant, there are two broad types
of activity which encompass most of the others and occupy most of its
energy. These are the preparation and/or review of information and action
memoranda for the President, and the monitoring of current operations
of the Departments and agencies.

(a) <u>Presidential memoranda.</u>

Practically nothing goes to the President without at least
a note indicating review of the paper by the Special Assistant. Even
memoranda from cabinet officers are dealt with in this way. The notable
exception to this in recent years has been memoranda from the Secretary
of Defense -- there were few such memoranda and if they were important,

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Secretary McNamara carried them himself.

State Department memoranda -- even those personally signed by Secretary Rusk-- undergo careful review by staff officers. This sometimes involves a complete recasting of the presentation in order to summarize the issue -- lay-out, supplement or elaborate alternatives, analyze alternatives in terms of consequences, effectiveness and costs -- diplomatic military, political and public affairs -- and introduce political or tactical considerations of a nature which the bureaucracy cannot or does not deal in.

This process is at the heart of State Department anxiety concerning the NSC staff operation. State loses control of the paper when it leaves the Department -- even if signed by the Secretary -- and has no sure way of knowing the precise terms in which the final recommendation was presented to the President.

On the other hand, few of State's top officers have the time or the training to review staff work -- even for the President. There is widespread agreement that this is a fundamental deficiency of the State Department.