Asked to comment by General Cutler, Director Erundage pointed
out that he and his associates had been working very hard on the
However, acts of Congress made
civilian side of the FY 1959 Budget.
it practically impossible to reduce civilian expenditures without
new legislation. This meant serious political problems were going
to face us in the future.
The President said that he wanted to repeat what he had said
many times before. He was not so concerned about achieving a balanced
budget in any one year but he did believe that you could not have 4
repeated unbslanced budget year after year and at the same time maintain the nation's security.
We mist keep a very dose watch on the relationship between ex-
penditures end our Gross National Product.
We must somehow try to
achieve the right balance between a desirable defense program and
our available resources.
We could not take any risks to our national
security but we would certainly have to make some very hard decisions.
(A copy of the Defense Department presentation given at this
meeting is filed in the official Minutes of the meeting).
The National Security Council:
Noted and discussed an oral presentation of the current status
of the U.S. Military Programs for FY 1959 as developed to date within
the Department of Defense and presented at the meeting by the Secretary
of Defense, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Assistant Secretary
of Defense McNeil, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the respective
Service Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff of the three Militery Departments.
Roted that the Secretary of Defense, after further review in the
light of the discussion, would present at the next Council meeting his
recommendations as to the U.S. Military Progrems for FY 1959.
NOTE: The action in b above, as approved by the President,
a
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subsequently transmitted to the Secretary of Defense.
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