Details
Tape 96, excerpt 1, 1:04 running time: From the July 9, 1963, meeting in the Oval Office between President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor. General Taylor expressed to the President the opinion of several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who were privately critiquing the idea of a test ban and about the possibility that they may state these opinions publicly to Congress. The President, although open to debate on the subject, is concerned about the timing of any formal, public evaluation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the test ban issue.
Transcript
"I don't care who comes up and testifies - it ought to be wide open. That's the time you gotta say it and we haven't presented our case - then I can say this is why I am for it and that's the way - then the Chiefs can speak about the military disadvantages and advantages. Proliferation is certainly a danger to us…"
"I am afraid that if the Chiefs ever met that there are (risks) having position against even an atmospheric test ban, at a very time, which would will leak out, at a very time when Harriman (is in Moscow) …So even though they've all taken a separate position, which seems to me somewhat better off than we are that 'the Joint Chiefs of Staff have met and said this is a threat' - God we would be in a terrible shape."