Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
"SENATOR MANSFIELD. Assuming no drastic change in the general situation in Indochina, what do you see in the next 4 years as to the requirements of military aid in Vietnam? Are they likely to be substantially higher, are they likely to continue to be reduced in size or do you think they will remain just about the same? This calls for an estimate and an informed guess.
"GENERAL WILLIAMS. I would like to caution that what I say now will be a guess, based, however, on past experience and considered judgment.
"I would say that for 1960 the military budget should be practically the same as 1959. I should think beginning in 1961, I hope not later than 1961, it should start to decrease again."
4. Program Data.
U.S. aid programs in Vietnam through the Eisenhower Administration are summarized below:
U.S. AID FOR SOUTH VIETNAM
(Millions of Dollars by Fiscal Year)[1]
| FY Obligations | 1946- 1954[2] |
1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1955- 1961 |
| Economic Grants | 825.6 | 322.4 | 185.0 | 257.2 | 187.6 | 187.9 | 170.6 | 137.3 | |
| Loans | --- | --- | 25.0 | 25.0 | 1.5 | 19.5 | 11.4 | 13.2 | |
| Sub-total | 825.6 | 322.4 | 210.0 | 282.2 | 189.1 | 207.4 | 182.0 | 150.5 | 1543.6 |
| Military Grants | 709.6 | --- | 167.3 | 110.5 | 53.2 | 41.9 | 70.9 | 65.0 | 508.8 |
| Total[3] | 1535.2 | 322.4 | 377.3 | 392.7 | 242.3 | 249.3 | 252.9 | 215.5 | 2052.4 |
| FY Economic Aid Expenditures |
825.6 | 129.1 | 192.8 | 251.3 | 212.3 | 179.2 | 181.2 | 146.4 | 1292·3 |
This program was among the largest in the world, reflecting a U.S. commitment sufficiently deep to assert a high priority for Vietnam among the numerous claimants for U.S. aid. From FY 1946 through FY 1961, Vietnam was the third ranking non-NATO recipient of aid, and the seventh worldwide; in FY 1961, the last Eisenhower program, South Vietnam was the fifth ranking recipient overall (behind India, Korea) Brazil, and Turkey):
