January 4, 1951
RESULTS OF THE NSC MEETING TODAY
The President opened the meeting by reading a memorandum which he requested should be made part of the minutes of the NSC. The memorandum referred to the increasing and flagrant disclosures of classified information which were occurring, many of which had to do with disclosures of information relating to NSC papers. Reference was made to the publication in the press of certain atomic energy information which appeared in NSC 68 series of papers and steps were being taken to ascertain the sources of these disclosures.
The President directed that each member of the NSC should again impress upon his staff the highly secret nature of the information and should be responsible for seeing that his Agency or Department was not guilty of any further disclosures.
I should like to speak to Mr. Hummelsine and Mr. Webb about this matter.
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The first paper, NSC 96, was approved and the President directed Mr. Symington to make a study of the matter and to recommend a plan.
The second paper, NSC 77/1 was approved without change.
In regard to the third paper, NSC 74, the President stated that he was not yet ready to hear argument and make a decision on this matter because he believed it required further study. He announced that he was appointing Admiral Souers to look into the matter with the assistance of the Bureau of the Budget.
The fourth paper, NSC 67/2, went over so that the NSC senior staff might consider the views of the JCS which had been made available too late for consideration prior to the meeting.
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