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10/10/53 - Reel 2, track 2 - Page 1 MR. ACHESON:Mell, I'll continue vi th what I was saying, then turn it over to Paul Nitze, who struggled with this for a long time. This problem resulted in all sorts of undigested issues coming up to the National Securi ty Council, being presented in a way which vas wholly improper to the President. in the form of the Secretary of Defense presenting views which had not been considered by anybody because they - we never heard about them until the afternoon two or three hours before this meeting occurred, then a discussion, and then - in my experience, always - the President deciding in favor of what I thought was the sound view, which was the one I FRUNDAY "NATIONAL presented to him. So that the issue was really not this issue ARCHIVES & ADMÍN. RECORDS E between the Defense Department and the State Department. The GOVERNMERT important thing vas that the thing hadn't been thrashed out. Where all the facets of the problem should have been developed at an early stage, so that the decision could have been viser than it was; ifit was an issue between the Defense Department and the State Department, the Prosident was almost always inclined to decide in favor of the view which I presented, not because I presented it, but because the other view was so silly. There vasn't any sense to it. It hadn't been thought out; there was no sense to that at all. The gratte problem of this whole thing is that in the developmental stages of a policy you do not get that cross-fertilization which comes from a discussion at the top levels. Now, in a moment I would like to talk about an oppositie side of this where the wholly different thing occurs, and at this point I would like to have Paul talk for a moment about