Memorandum of Conference with the President Authored by John S. D. Eisenhower
This memorandum authored by John S. D. Eisenhower records discussion of the military and diplomatic risks of all forms of overhead and peripheral aerial reconnaissance. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized continued operations.
Images (6)
Document
| id |
id
12008941
|
|---|---|
| contentType |
contentType
document
|
| source |
source
import
|
Source image fields (6)
Extracted text
OCR Page 1 of 6iff
TOD more
August 10, 1960
MEMORANDUM OF CONFERENCE WITH THE PRESIDENT
August 9, 1960, 11 AM
Others present: Mr. Allen Dulles, Secretary Merchant,
General Twining, General Persons, General
Breitweiser, General Goodpaster, Colonel
Eisenhower
General Twining mentioned that he had studied in detail the matter
of resumption of
General
Breitweiser has been in the middle of the whole thing and the JCS
would like to continue some of these flights. If permission is
granted he would like to bring the JCS into more direct super-
vision and probably cut down the frequency of these flights.
=
The President expressed agreement with the objective of the
flights and said he would like to do it as much as they would. He
asked, however, what we would do if the Soviets were to shoot
down
He does not want to get into the position
that President Wilson did in 1916 in which he responded to every
incident by writing a new note. Also, he dislikes the idea of
sending air crews out to take risks of magnitudes such as this.
Should
be shot down, he feels we will be close to
war. He mentioned the confidence formerly shared by the State
Department and the late Secretary Dulles that a U-2 incident could
have very little repercussion. Secretary Dulles had felt that the
Soviets would probably never mention shooting down one of these
aircraft. As a matter of fact, the U-2 incident has become such
a major issue that we are not over it yet. We will be hearing about
it throughout this political campaign. The President reiterated his
question as to what the group would like him to do in the event of
a disaster. Should we break diplomatic relations or declare war?
General Twining mentioned the principle of freedom of the seas,
and the President mentioned that a situation could develop where
we could get into an undeclared war with the Soviets similar to
that between the Soviets and the Japanese in Mukden in the 1930's.
DECLASSIFIED WITH DELETIONS
E.Q. 12958, SEC. 3.6(b)
CIA E 25-0340 NSA MOR-95-11
Agency Case orn 95-M-6233/L
NLE Case 95-117-01
By His
NLE Date 8/1/96
BAC SAME PDR, EX. 7/10/08 Cc