[Handwritten: Jan. 26] January 27, 1951
MEMORANDUM FOR S/S
Mr. James Lay came in to see Mr. Acheson on Friday, January 26, at Mr. Lay's request. Mr. Lay had wanted to discuss with the Secretary the proposed reorganization of the NSC. I told Mr. Lay prior to the meeting, that the Secretary would be unable to discuss with him any definite conclusions the Department had reached, as we were still in the process of studying this problem. Mr. Lay wanted to talk to the Secretary briefly prior to Mr. Lay's departure from Washington for a few days.
The discussion with the Secretary was an extremely general one. Mr. Lay mentioned the several obvious difficulties which made reorganization seem advisable. He did not discuss in any detail the proposed remedy for these difficulties.
Mr. Lay said that he thought one of the primary purposes of the staff of the NSC was to reconcile differences on matters before they reached the Council. He said he thought this was one way in which the staff had fallen down. Mr. Lay said that the efforts toward getting the Military Establishment and the State Department working more closely together on the problems which went to the National Security Council would help a great deal in achieving the objective of settling differences below the NSC level.
Mr. Acheson said that one of the principal objectives of the NSC was to obtain new and original thinking and analyses on the problems which the Council would consider. He said that he felt the Senior Staff could not be the originating source for all of these ideas and that it was very important to get the Departments working closely together so that there was a cross-fertilization of ideas. He stressed the need for joint work.
The Secretary and Mr. Lay discussed briefly the difficulties inherent in the Senior Staff arrangement. The Secretary said it was
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hard to get the caliber of people which were needed for the work if the Senior Staff degenerated into a group which merely picked over papers which were drafted without any particular purpose in mind but just as "papers." Mr. Acheson pointed out that some of the work of the NSC had been uneven. He mentioned NSC 68 as an example of progressive forward-thinking and he said that this paper would have gotten us well along toward strengthening the United States even if the Korean crisis had not come up. He said there were other papers which were drafted without any particular purpose in mind and which were merely setting down established policy, etc.
Mr. Lay said he was leaving town for a few days unless Mr. Acheson thought there was some reason he should stay here. The Secretary said he saw no reason for Mr. Lay changing his plans since we were not in shape to propose anything definite. The Secretary said that he hoped we would make real progress next week and that we would probably have something worked out by the time Mr. Lay returned. Mr. Lay said this would be fine.
The meeting lasted only about ten minutes.
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