MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
11 October 1955
SUBJECT: Memorandum for the Record — Meeting Conducted October 1955
TO: The File
The undersigned prepares the present memorandum for the record in respect of a meeting conducted upon the date above set forth, and in respect of the dispositions arising therefrom. The memorandum is prepared by the undersigned upon his own initiative and is to be filed under the control arrangements presently applicable to the above-captioned program, pending the entry into force of such revised arrangements as the dispositions described below may occasion.
The undersigned, on Tuesday, October 1955, was received in the West Wing of the Executive Mansion by the President of the United States, the meeting having commenced at hours and concluded at hours. The meeting was arranged through the offices of , with whom the undersigned has had occasion to be acquainted in connection with matters not bearing upon the present record. The meeting was conducted without the prior knowledge of the Chief of Operations, of the Director of Central Intelligence, or of any other officer of this Agency, and was attended, besides the President and the undersigned, by and by of the staff of the National Security Council. No record of the meeting was kept by the parties present. The undersigned is conscious that the arrangement of the meeting in this manner was a departure from the channels ordinarily applicable to communications between an officer of this Agency and the Executive, and the undersigned is prepared to account for the departure at such time and to such authority as may require it. The undersigned undertook the departure upon his own responsibility, in the considered view that the matter laid before the President was of a character not capable of being communicated through the ordinary channels without prejudice to its proper consideration, and that the suspension and review directed by the Chief of Operations on 26 September 1955 would have had the effect, whether intended or unintended, of precluding such consideration.
The substance of the matter laid before the President is reserved from the present memorandum, save in such particulars as bear upon the dispositions arising. The undersigned exhibited to the President the inclosures forwarded under references INC-BC-4848459 and INC-BC-4848571 and the photographic plate of Trial Seven referred to in the memorandum of 19 September 1955. The undersigned addressed the President for approximately minutes upon the operational history of the program and upon the findings set forth in the said memorandum.
The undersigned laid the matter before the President upon the following grounds, which are here set forth in the form in which they were presented. First, that the program had established, to the satisfaction of the technical group and of this Division, that the historical record is susceptible of operational alteration by means of the apparatus, and that the alteration is not detectable by inspection of the altered record. Second, that the operation of the apparatus is not confined to those who hold it, in the sense that the inhabitants of the manifold have demonstrated capacity to redirect payloads to coordinates not selected by the operator, and that the said inhabitants may be presumed to be in communication or in contention with whatever further parties may operate in the manifold. Third, that there is no presumption that the United States is the first or the only power to have acquired the apparatus or its equivalent, and that the ancient record contains a substantial body of anomalous material, surveyed in preliminary form by the historical consultant attached to this Division, which is consistent with the prior operation of similar capability by parties unknown. Fourth, that the principal adversary of the United States in the present international situation, in possession of the scientific establishment that produced the Sputnik program now in evident preparation, must be presumed to be capable of the parallel development of such an apparatus upon such access to the relevant materials as fortune or industry may afford it, and that the consequences of Soviet priority in this matter are not such as the United States can afford to contemplate. The undersigned put it to the President that the apparatus, properly developed, afforded the United States a capability of a character that no adversary could detect, contest, or retaliate against, and that the question before the Executive was not whether to develop the capability but whether to develop it before or after the adversary, with the caveat that development after the adversary might prove indistinguishable from no development at all, for reason that the adversary’s prior operations might have removed from the historical record any trace of the United States’ opportunity to develop it.
The undersigned acknowledges, in committing the foregoing to the record, that the fourth ground is of a character that exceeds the evidentiary basis the program has thus far accumulated, and that it was presented to the President as a consideration of prudence rather than as a conclusion of the technical group. The undersigned was of the view, and remains of the view, that the consideration was the one upon which the matter properly turned. The President put certain questions to the undersigned, which were answered to the best of the undersigned’s ability. The President consulted with upon certain of the matters raised, the said consultation being conducted in the presence of the undersigned but not addressed to him. The President then communicated to the undersigned his disposition, which is set forth below.
The President directed that the program be continued. He directed further that the program be removed from the cognizance of the Office of Scientific Intelligence and from the cognizance of the Western Europe Division, and that it be constituted as a separate authority reporting through channels to be specified by the National Security Council. He directed that the undersigned be appointed to the direction of the new authority, subject to such instrument of appointment as the National Security Council should in due course prepare. He directed that the new authority should have such funds, personnel, and materiel as it should require for the conduct of its work, and that requisitions in respect of the same should be honored without reference to the ordinary procedures of appropriation, upon presentation of the appropriate control markings to be specified. He directed that the suspension imposed by the Chief of Operations on 26 September 1955 was at an end and that the file was to be returned to the new authority upon its constitution. He directed that the existence of the new authority, and the nature of its work, was to be confined to such persons as the undersigned should specifically read in, and that no officer of this Agency below the level of the Director of Central Intelligence was to be informed of the constitution of the new authority save as the undersigned might direct. He directed, finally, that the question whether the matter was to be reported beyond the Executive was reserved to himself, and that the undersigned was not to address that question save upon further direction.
The undersigned acknowledged the direction and undertook to give effect to it.
The President closed the meeting with a remark which the undersigned sets down here as he recollects it, the remark not being in the nature of direction but bearing upon the temper of the meeting and being therefore of value to the record. The President said: “Mr. Seaton, you have laid before me a thing I did not wish to learn, and you have laid it before me in such a manner that I cannot decline to act upon it. I am obliged to you, though I should be obliged to you for less. See to it that we are first.” The undersigned took his leave.
The undersigned has, in the period since the meeting, communicated with of the National Security Council upon the preparation of the instrument of constitution, and is informed that the instrument will issue in due course. The undersigned has not, in that period, communicated with the Chief of Operations, with the Director of Central Intelligence, or with any other officer of this Agency, in respect of the meeting or of the dispositions arising therefrom, and proposes to refrain from such communication pending the issuance of the instrument.
The undersigned observes, for the record, that he is conscious of the gravity of the course he has undertaken and of the consequences that may attend it should the disposition of the President be at any time reversed or the meeting itself be at any time impugned. The undersigned has weighed the matter and is content to abide the consequences.
W. SEATON
Division Chief, Western Europe