Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Matthew Connelly

237 DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and S(D) or (E) SECRET 8. Dept. of State letter, Aug 7,1973 13.33.33 By NLT- He 9 NARS Date 42221223 AND 5: SERVICATA RECORDS conf ROVERN August 3, 1949 Mr. Matt Connelly telephoned today and said that the President wanted to check with me the list of people he was planning to ask to meet with him tomorrow in an effort to get some degree of bi-partisan agreement on the Military Assis- tance Bill. The following were the ones he mentioned: Connally, Vandenberg, Eaton, Kee, McKellar, Bridges, Cannon and Taber. I told Mr. Connelly that I had had a talk with Judge Kee yesterday afternoon, at which time we had agreed that it would be wiser for the President not to have such a meeting. Matt Connelly thought I should speak with the President and give him my views. The President came on the phone. I told him that after the talk that Secre- tary Johnson had had with him yesterday in which he authorized us to go ahead with the drafting of amendments to the MAP, I went up in the afternoon and talked with Judge Kee, Judge Kee was very enthusiastic about our going ahead in an effort to modify Section 3. Judge Kee and I thought that it would be better to try to work out the amendments on the question of the Presidential power in the bill without any modification of the amount, and then to meet with a bi-partisan group of people on the Hill in an effort to see whether we could get agreement on these amendments. Judge Kee was of the opinion that after we had proposed amendments on this part of the bill, Vandenberg would probably come up with objection to the amount. If that happened, that would be the time at which the President could be most effective in a meeting with the leaders. The President agreed that this would be the right course. He asked if I would talk with Senator Connally and the Vice President to see whether they agreed and whether there would be any feeling that the President was not carry. - ing out his commitment to have a meeting. The President said he would talk with Speaker Rayburn. In accordance with my talk with the President, I telephoned Senator Connally to get his views on the timing of a meeting of certain Congressional leaders on MAP. I said that the President had had a meeting of the Big Four on Monday, at which they had told the President of some of the difficulties they were having with MAP, and they thought it would be desirable to have a meeting with Connally, Kee, Vorys, Vandenberg, the Speaker and one or two others to discuss these difficulties. I told Connally I thought it would be a mistake to call everyone in until the members had shower their hands. STRDET