Official JFK Papers Released, Cite Need to Prevent Violence

Newly released documents of President John F. Kennedy's administration reveal that he expressed great concern over the proper training of U.S.-aided foreign police forces.

In a 1962 memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Kennedy stressed the "training of police forces of new emerging countries to assure that they can maintain order without the necessity of firing upon civilian demonstrators who are often composed of students."

Kennedy wrote that he questioned "whether such training of foreign police forces should remain under AID (Agency for International Development) or be assigned to another agency or a special Pentagon group."

Chiang's Request

The papers were released this week from Kennedy's presidential office files which are temporarily stored in Waltham. They include a September 1963 memorandum to Kennedy from Chiang Kai-shek which details the Nationalist Chinese intention to invade the mainland and launch a counter-revolution.

The memo states that because of the People's Republic's split with the Soviets as well as internal dissention resulting from the Cultural Revolution, "the time has come for us to resort to such tactics as would entail the minimum sacrifices, take the least time and insure the greatest effect."

Chiang wrote that small groups of airdropped guerillas and commando raids could "surely touch off an anti-tyranny revolutionary movement on the mainland." He said that at the proper time "military actions could be launched from Taiwan supporting the anti-Communist movement."

Kennedy's response to the memo has not been located.

Other portions of the 110,000 documents have revealed that President Eisenhower advised Kennedy before his inauguration that "Laos is the key to the entire area of Southeast Asia."

In an account by adviser Clark Clifford of the meeting between Kennedy and Eisenhower, Clifford quotes Eisenhower as saying that he considered Laos of such crucial importance that "as a last desperate hope" he would intervene unilaterally to prevent its fall to the Communists. No mention of Vietnam was made at the meeting.

The files, which are being opened to scholars and newsmen, include vast amounts of data concerning the Cuban missile crisis.