The Embassy had informed the Italian Foreign Office of the need to coordinate the dismantling with military officials, but, according to the U.S. military assistance mission, Ministry of Defense officials were without instructions. An “early exchange of notes would help button up matter promptly.” The Embassy made the point that the “action to be completed within 25 days includes removal from Italy of nose cones, warheads and guidance systems, and laying missiles in horizontal positions, but that salvage of missile hulls and disposal of assorted administrative equipment … might take as long as six-eight months.”

The Kennedy administration found it necessary to solve the problem raised by Ambassador Hare lest military assistance cuts delay or prevent action to dismantle the Turkish Jupiters. After the Wood mission left Washington, in accordance with NSC 1550 (setting requirements for foreign aid funding decisions), the State Department undid the cuts by authorizing Wood to discuss specific quantities of approved equipment that could be delivered during FY 1963 and quantities and types of equipment that could be provided during FY 1964. For the latter, equipment could be provided up to a level of $150 million (thus providing the modernization resources sought by the Turkish military), but Wood was not to mention any dollar values during the talks.   

Enver Shakul, a Xinjiang exile working at the US Embassy in Ankara, shares the latest gossip from China's northwest.

Statement by the Latvian Ambassador to the United States on the Soviet occupation of Latvia.

Director of the US Army’s Intelligence Division at the Pentagon, Lieutenant General Stephen J. Chamberlin, instructed American military attachés from eight European capitals to meet with one of his subordinates, Colonel Riley F. Ennis, for a conference in Frankfurt am Main in Germany on March 24 to discuss intelligence matters pertaining to Soviet activities in Germany.

Rhee thanks Eisenhower for US appropriations for South Korea and congratulates him on the Korean War armistice.

Report by the National Security Council to the President on US policy objectives regarding Korea.

This report by the National Security Council discusses Soviet control over Eastern Europe, barriers to Soviet control of the satellites, and the power threat that consolidation poses to the United States. As a result, the NSC recommends that United States pursue a policy of resistance towards Soviet domination of its Eastern European satellites, and should impose pressure and propaganda to weaken Soviet influence.