September 4, 1952
Mr. James Lay telephoned the Secretary this morning that he wanted to double check on the reexamination directive relating to NSC 135/1 before seeing the President today. Mr. Lay said he had taken the exact wording in the draft directive which the Secretary gave him, leaving out only the reference to the working group, on the theory the President would direct the formation of the group from State, Defense and DMS in consultation with other departments and agencies, and that the President would be happy to leave the organization of it to the Secretary. Mr. Lay said he was omitting this reference on the theory this method would be more straightforward. The Secretary thought that was all right, and mentioned that we had put the list of agencies in to make clear to them that they would be consulted.
Mr. Lay said his suggestion was a steering group of three - one to be named by each department - who would get together and decide what working groups need to be set up and what terms of reference were necessary.
Mr. Acheson indicated he was agreeable to having Mr. Lay take the responsibility of getting the work under way, and urged him to push ahead with it. Mr. Lay said he would be happy to turn the chairmanship over to the Secretary. The Secretary said he would designate Paul Nitze as our representative and that others would sit in as required. Mr. Lay said he would arrange to get the agency representatives together.
The Secretary said that he understood Mr. Lovett would study the directive through Mr. Noyes and that Mr. Harriman had already agreed to the wording.
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