Memorandum of the National Security Council Meeting

the 39 E ARCHIVES RERVICE'A RECORDS AND SECREI 305 November 2, 1950 The National Security Council Meeting When the Council convened Mr. Lay informed us that Secretary Sawyer had gone to Chio to make a speech, with the President's knowledge and approval. He also reported that it was Secretary Sawyer's understanding that the action which he had agreed with Mr. Foster and me to take dealt with the immediate and pressing problem and that our NSC paper was going to be considered by the senior staff so that it was not necessary for Mr. Sawyer to participate in the meeting. There was no point in arguing about this situation, both because Secretary Sawyer was in Ohio and because we would have gotten into highly technical difference between what Mr. Foster and I have requested and what has actually been done. I therefore reviewed the situation briefly for the President and the members of the Council who were not familiar with it, pointing out that if Mr. Sawyer met our requests, the situation would be much alleviated, but not sufficiently so and also pointed out that the machine tool makers were about to issue a blast about the inaction of the Depart- ment of Commerce the result which we were attempting to prevent. Therefore, some further relief from the present situation was necessary. I said that one difficulty in getting this temporary relief was that Mr. Sawyer was under the compalsion of the NSC Directive, paragraph C, which he interpreted as not permitting him to do what we thought was immediately necessary. 1 therefore requested and the President agreed to two steps: The first was that the paper should be referred to the senior staff on an urgent basis for a report back as soon as possible. Secondly, that Mr. Sawyer, Mr. Foster and I were to confer on Monday in order to lay before the President a temporary directive and that in doing so, we could say to him that this directive was to be drawn without regard to Section C as a limitation upon the tem- porary directive. DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 83-16-76 5(D) or (E) Dept. of State letter, 808-2013 By NLT- 44 NARS Date 6.15.76 SECRET