highly probable-a choice they are unlikely to make in the face of our destructive power.

The basis for that particular assurance cannot be systems in development, or weapons in storage depots, or reserves that must be mobilized, trained, and equipped, or troops without transport. We need the right combination of forward deployment and highly mobile combatready ground, sea, and air units, capable of prompt and effective commitment to actual combat, in short, the sort of capability we are increasingly building in our forces.

This capability requires of us-as of our allies-a military establishment that is, in the President's words, lean and fit. We must stop and ask ourselves, before deciding whether to add a new and complex weapon system to our inventory, whether it is really the most effective way to do the job under the rigorous conditions of combat. We must examine constantly the possibilities for combining functions, particularly in weapons that could be used by two or more services. Given this tough-minded sense of reality about the requirements of combat readiness, it should be possible for the United States not only to main. tain but to expand this increased strength without overall increases in our defense budget. As our national productivity and our gross national product expand, the defense budget therefore need not keep pace. Indeed, it appears likely that measured in relative-and perhaps even absolute-terms, the defense budget will level off and perhaps decline a little. At the same time, we are continuing the essential effort to reduce the impact of defense spending on our balance of payments. We have already brought this figure down from $2.7 billion in fiscal year 1961 to $1.7 billion for fiscal year 1963, and we shall continue to reduce it, without reducing the combat ground forces deployed in Europe and while strengthening our overall combat effectiveness. And it must be our policy to continue to strengthen our combat effectiveness. I do not regard the present Communist leaders as wholly reckless in action. But recent experience, in Cuba 10 and, on a lesser scale, in Berlin,11 has not persuaded me that I can predict with confidence the sorts of challenges that Communist leaders will come. to think prudent and profitable. If they were again to miscalculate as dangerously as they did a year ago, it would be essential to confront them, wherever that might be, with the full consequences of their action: the certainty of meeting immediate, appropriate, and fully effective military action.

All of our strengths, including our strategic and tactical nuclear forces, contributed last year, and they would contribute in similar future situations, to the effectiveness of our response, by providing a basis for assurance that the Soviets would not dangerously escalate or shift the locale of the conflict. But above all, in order to fashion that response and to promise the Soviets local defeat in case of actual ground conflict, we had to use every element of the improvements in combat readiness and mobility that had been building over the preceding year

10 See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962, pp. 399 ff. 11 See ibid., 1961, pp. 584 ff.

and a half, including combat divisions, air transport, and tactical air. And the last ingredient was also there: the will to use those forces against Soviet troops and equipment.

Let us not delude ourselves with obsolete images into believing that our nuclear strength, great as it is, solves all of our problems of national security, or that we lack the strength to meet those problems that it does not solve. In the contingencies that really threaten-the sort that have occurred and will occur again-we and our allies need no longer choose to live with the sense or the reality of inferiority to the Soviet bloc in relevant, effective force. Let us be fully aware of the wide range of our military resources and the freedom they can give us to pursue the peaceful objectives of the free world without fear of military aggression.

IV-37

MINISTERIAL SESSION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE OECD, PARIS, NOVEMBER 19-20, 1963: Communiqué Issued November 20, 1963 12

1. The Ministerial Council of the OECD held its annual meeting in Paris on 19th and 20th November, 1963, under the chairmanship of the Honorable Halvard Lange, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Norway, and reviewed the economic prospects for its 20 member countries and their economic relations with the rest of the world.

2. The prospects for economic growth in member countries are on the whole better than last year. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are now progressing at a faster rate. In other member countries expansion continues. In the expectation that this growth will be supported by suitable measures in the United States and other countries, the increase of the gross national product of the OECD area as a whole for the years 1960-64 will probably correspond to the growth target of 50 percent set for the decade of the 1960's by the first Ministerial Council in 1961.13

The importance has been stressed of internal stability as a condition for balanced long-term economic growth. Costs and prices in a few European countries are rising rather rapidly. A stabilization plan is being put into effect in France. Measures have been taken in Italy; further steps must be envisaged.

3. As regards international payments, measures undertaken by member countries, and the recent trends of trade among them, have begun and should continue progressively to create better equilibrium between the deficit and surplus countries. It is important that measures adopted by all member countries to deal with their internal economic situations should continue to take into account their effects on the general equilibrium of international payments.

4. In member countries in the process of development, economic

12

Department of State Bulletin, Dec. 16, 1963, pp. 948-949.

15 See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1961, pp. 501-504.

growth in recent years has generally been somewhat faster than in the OECD area as a whole. However, it can hardly be said that the narrowing of the gap between these and other member countries which is desired has really begun; much remains to be done.

The Ministers considered it desirable, therefore, that the Organization and its more developed members should continue to devote their attention and cooperation to the development problems of the less developed member countries.

Ministers noted with satisfaction that a new Spanish development program will be inaugurated in 1964. The Ministers also reviewed the situation of the consortia for aid to Greece and Turkey and reaffirmed the importance which they attached to the efforts of member countries in support of the development of these two countries, particularly by the provision of long-term development capital on favorable terms.

5. Ministers reviewed the work of the Organization in the fields of agriculture, industry, and manpower, and agreed that this work should increasingly be directed to the problems of adaptation arising from changes in the economies of member countries. They considered in particular that the Organization should pursue its work on an active manpower policy, and on the retraining of manpower as well as on mobility of manpower and industry.

6. Ministers noted with satisfaction the results of the Ministerial Meeting on policies for science and technology on 3rd and 4th October 1963.14

7. The Ministers noted that development aid has been maintained at a high level and on improved terms, although the earlier rate of increase has not continued. The needs of the developing countries are, however, increasing, and great problems lie ahead. Past results have depended largely on public support in member countries. The provision of aid to meet the expanding needs of the less developed countries will depend even more on such support in the future and will be related increasingly to measures of self-help in the recipient countries.

The Ministers emphasized the value of the confrontations of national aid programs through the Organization, and asked members further to coordinate their efforts with a view to making aid more effective in response to priority needs in the less developed countries. They also welcomed the intention expressed by the members of the Development Assistance Committee of relating more nearly the terms of aid to debt-servicing capacities of recipients." s.15 Important steps had been taken by some members in this connection during the past year. They noted the decline in private capital movements from the indus

14 The communiqué of Oct. 4, 1963, stated that the ministers decided to meet again, within 2 years, to constitute an interim committee of officials concerned with science, and to request the OECD Secretary General to provide secretariat support for this committee; text in Ministers Talk About Science: A Summary and Review of the First Meeting on Science, October 1963, edited by Emmanuel G. Mesthene (Paris, OECD, 1965), pp. 131–133.

15 See ante, doc. IV-13.

trialized countries to the less developed countries and asked the Organization to consider further what steps might be taken by industrialized and less developed countries to increase the flow.

The Ministers welcomed the establishment of the OECD Development Center.16

8. Since last year's Ministerial Meeting," the Organization has devoted a great deal of attention to the ways and means to increase the export earnings of less developed countries, member and non-member.

The bulk of the exports of the less developed countries still consists of primary products of which OECD countries are the main importers. Various methods for stabilizing and increasing the export earnings of these commodities are now being studied. Ministers stressed the importance of this work. Member countries should join in efforts to improve the market conditions for primary products.

Increasingly, however, the less developed member and non-member countries need to diversify their economies and encourage the production of manufactured articles for their own markets and for exports. The industrialized countries of the OECD should facilitate this development by providing enlarged access to their markets for these products. The Ministers noted with approval that full reciprocity from less developed countries was not being demanded for the tariff reductions expected from the forthcoming round of GATT tariff negotiations.18

Ministers instructed the Organization to continue work and consultations concerning the trade problems of the less developed countries.

They voiced the determination of their governments to prepare for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 19 in a constructive spirit.

IV-38

THE STATUS OF DISCUSSIONS ON THE UNITED STATES OFFER OF A WARSHIP FOR A MIXED MANNING DEMONSTRATION PROJECT: Statement Read to Correspondents by a Press Officer (McCloskey), Department of State, November 22, 1963 20

We have had some queries throughout the morning on some press reports, stating that agreement has been reached among the governments participating in the Multilateral Force Talks 21 to proceed with a mixed manning demonstration using U. S. warships. These reports

16 See footnote 87 to doc. IV-28, ante.

SeeAmerican Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962, pp. 567–570. 15 See post, docs. XI-9-10.

19 See ante, doc. II-45.

20 Files of the Office of News, Department of State.

21

I.e., Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Netherlands announced its decision to join the MLF talks in Paris, Dec. 12, 1963.

incorrectly characterize the present status of this matter. The mixed manning demonstration project has been under discussion in the Multilateral Force Military Subgroup currently meeting in Washington, and in the Paris Working Group on the Multilateral Force. Plans for such a project have been worked out for consideration by governments.22 This consideration is presently continuing, and, so far as the United States is aware, none of the governments involved have, as yet, reached a firm decision about participating in the project.

Since this is a matter which involves only those governments currently discussing the Multilateral Force, it will not be on the agenda of the December Ministerial Meeting of NATO,23 and no decision regarding this project would be called for at that meeting.

IV-39

UNITED STATES SUPPORT OF THE PURPOSES AND PROGRAMS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION: Message From the President (Johnson), Read to the North Atlantic Council by the Secretary of State (Rusk), Paris, December 16, 1963 24

Less than a month after John Fitzgerald Kennedy took office, he sent to the North Atlantic Council a message which pledged his continuing support for the purposes and programs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.25

He fulfilled this pledge in the 3 years of gallant service which he gave us. That fulfillment is a lasting memorial to the stature of the man we mourn today.

We can best honor him by continuing our pursuit of the goal of Atlantic partnership by seeking an ever-closer collaboration between a united Europe and the United States in dealing with all the great and burdensome tasks of building and defending a community of free nations.

It is evidence of my country's continuing dedication to these purposes that I, too, upon taking office, now send a pledge of America's steadfast resolve to the North Atlantic Council.

For that dedication and this resolve do not belong to one man, or one party, or one administration. They are shared by the vast majority of my countrymen; they have been held by each of the American administrations since World War II.

And this constancy, in turn, reflects not merely the community of ideals and culture which binds us to Europe. It reflects also my country's awareness that its security can be assured, its interests and

22 In reply to a question asked at this news briefing, Mr. McCloskey said that "We did [offer a warship for the mixed manning demonstration project] a couple of months ago.

23

See post, doc. IV-40.

24

Department of State Bulletin, Jan. 6, 1964, pp. 29-30.

25 Text in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1961, pp. 470-472.