Project Four Leaves NSAM 261 Revisited
Some years ago, in 2008, I learned about a top secret government project code named Four Leaves, the subject of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM)261 signed by President Kennedy in late September 1963. The only published or posted reference I could find about it was where I learned about it - on the JFK Presidential Library web site where there is a mention of it in the digital on line vesion of JFK’s office Rolodex desk date book.
Later they posted the original NSAM 261 and basic information about it that we are allowed to know:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKNSF/342/JFKNSF-342-005
One guy who goes by the name of Izambeni, found my blog by doing an internet search for Project Four Leaves, came up with my 2008 post and on May 13, 2023 wrote to me:
“You have just about the only info on NSAM 261, Project Four Leaves on the internet. Thank you for the info you have pulled together about it. So, it's a DPA project and has something to do with communications. I was just looking at all 3 pages in that file at the JFK library. The first page gives the vague request for approval of Four Leaves, the third page has been removed from the file. (Hmmmm...) But the 2nd page outlines who is to get a copy and it: One copy goes to the VP/the Chairman of NASA, one copy to the to the Administrator of NASA, one copy to the Secys of State, Defense, & Commerce, one to the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, one to the Director Bureau of Budget and one to the Director Office of Emergency Planning. One has to ask why it's such a complete mystery 60 years later.”
Izambeni continues: “ Given it mentions NASA twice, and has something to do with communications - this never crossed my mind in the past when pondering it - but I wonder if it could be some top secret plan to communicate with UFOs/aliens? Just a thought given the Pentagon has finally admitted that they are real, well at least UFOs are...they're still in denial about ETs. Somehow they dance around that topic. If UFO's are indeed real, then WHO do they think made them?! Obviously a far advanced race of beings who make us look like Neanderthals.”
BK: Well, personally, I don’t think it was about UFOs or Aliens, but rather an arm bending attempt by the administration to get some major defense contractors to do something that’s really necessary for national security, and now, sixty years later, we should know what that is.
Then Ixambeni asked a key question - “Has anyone ever FOIA'd Four Leaves?”
BK: I must admit I was neglegant in not submitting an FOIA about Four Leaves in 2008, but it’s never too late.
Izambeni: “Addendum: Was just reading a bio of Roswell Gilpatric (who signed/sent the NSAM 261 memo to JFK) on the Historical Office Office of the Secretary of Defense site. This might mean something (or not), but I thought it could be significant, given my above theory. It says ‘McNamara also delegated to him certain areas of responsibility, including Pentagon relations with the Central Intelligence Agency and NASA’.”
Yes, Roswell Gilpatrick is a key player, who also worked closely with General Dynamics on the TFX jet fighter contract, but here he is put into a position of handling Pentagon relations with CIA and NASA, that makes me think this has something to do with satellites.
Here’s what I wrote in 2008:
After reading the September 25 Higgins memo re:
FitzGerald briefing of JCS, which mentioned a secret memo from Bundy orally
read to the JSC, I looked to the JFK Library at Bundy's papers and JFK's Diary
to see if anything relevant is published there.
SUBJECT: Assignment of Highest National Security Priority to Project FOUR
LEAVES
In response to a recommendation by the Secretary of Defense, the president,
under the authority granted by the Defense Production Act of 1950, today
established the program listed below as being in the highest national security
priority category for development and production.
FOUR LEAVES
McGeorge Bundy
THE WHITE HOUSE DIARY
SEPTEMBER 23 1963
http://www.jfklibrary.org/White%2BHouse%2B...eptember/23.htm
“President Kennedy assigns the highest national priority to Project FOUR LEAVES
to develop and produce a military communications system.
[A tip of the hat to Robert Howard for the White House date book and diary reference.]
I also came across
the fact that Gen. Taylor wasn't at the JCS briefing because he was on his way
to Vietnam with McNamara.
I considered that Four Leaves may have to do with that trip when I read: There
is the note that on September 25, 1963 "Secretary of Defense Robert S.
McNamara and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
arrived in Saigon to investigate what effect the political problems in South
Vietnam have had on the military situation. They are expected to visit
the-country's four military regions. (3:1)"
Four Leaves, four military regions?
Mark Knight thought not, calling attention to the fact that the Defense
Production Act doesn't just pertain to Vietnam, and that the reference to the
DPA may be a key.
Then I came across this Yahoo! Group called coldwarrcomms@yahoogroups.com, who
shoot the bull about cold war military communications.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coldwarcomms/message/7124NSAM
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coldwarcomms/message/7124
In the only open source reference to Project Four Leaves I can find, a guy
named Sam asks, "Does anyone know what the DoD's Project FOUR LEAVES was?
NSAM 261 from 9/23/1963 assigns it to the "highest national priority
category for development and production" in response to a recommendation
from the Secretary of Defense. I can't find any reference to the project other
than the NSAM. Figured someone on this list may have heard of it."
In response, Albert writes, "I'd heard that name a few years ago, and
looked into it a little. I nevercould find anything about FOUR LEAVES, but I
came to the conclusion that the NSAM was actually referring to FALLING LEAVES.
FALLING LEAVES was the Cuban Missile Early Warning System. It consisted of
radar stations at Moorestown, NJ, Laredo, TX, and Thomasville, AL, with hotline
links to the Pentagon, NORAD, and SAC. I learned of FALLING LEAVES purely by
luck while reading a book titled "The Limits of Safety: Organizations,
Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons" by Scott D. Sagan (1993), which devotes
more than a dozen pages to the topic.
BK: I disagree with this assessment, that Project Four Leaves is actually
Project Falling Leaves, for a number of reasons. For one, I don't think Mrs. Lincoln,
who typed up the memo, would make such a mistake, or Bundy would make a mistake
in such an important document - a National Security Action Memorandum.
So it's not a mistake, a typo or Mrs. Lincoln mishearing Bundy or the President,
but it may be part or offshoot of the Falling Leaves program.
In addition, Falling Leaves was an October, 1962 circa project, a year earlier,
and concerned miliary communications and nuclear mishaps, not the establishment
of a military communications system. It concerned the estalishment of a number
of rardars that could detect the launch of a ballistic missile in Cuba, since
most of the miltiaray’s radars were directed north over the North Pole towards
the USSR.
The standard history of military communicaitons also fail to mention Project
Four Leaves, though it does account for the development of satelite
communcaitons around the same time period.
Blitz wrote, "That is interesting, because I dont find much on it either.
Prob still clasified. One can put a bit of light on it, as its immediately
prior to VietNam...when they were still fumbling for reasons to be there...also
it was just prior to the Kennedy assassination. Interestingly, shortly prior to
it, in NSAM 252, the establishing of a National Communications system."
http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/winter2002/01.html
So I went back to the Defense Production Act of 1950 to see more of what that
was all about.
As Mark suggested, the DPA is a key. John Dolva started a thread on the subject
at the Education Forum:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13902
Wikipedia: Defense Production Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act
BK: NOTE – I have also reposted the entire DPA at JFKCountercoup2.blogspot.
https://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2023/05/defense-production-act-dpa.html
The Defense Production Act (Pub.L. 81-774) is a United States law enacted on
September 8, 1950, in response to the start of the Korean War. It was part of a
broad civil defense and war mobilization effort in the context of the Cold War.
Its implementing regulations, the Defense Priorities and Allocation System
(DPAS), are located at 15 CFR §§700 to 700.93. The Act has been periodically
reauthorized and amended, and remains in force as of 2007.
The Act contains three major sections. The first authorizes the President to
require businesses to sign contracts or fulfill orders deemed necessary for
national defense. The second authorizes the President to establish mechanisms
(such as regulations, orders or agencies) to allocate materials, services and
facilities to promote national defense. The third section authorizes the
President to control the civilian economy so that scarce and/or critical
materials necessary to the national defense effort are available for defense
needs.[1]
The Act also authorizes the President to requisition property, force industry
to expand production and the supply of basic resources, impose wage and price
controls, settle labor disputes, control consumer and real estate credit,
establish contractual priorities, and allocate raw materials to aid the
national defense.[1]
The President's authority to place contracts under the DPA is the part of the
Act most often used by the Department of Defense (DOD) since the 1970s. Most of
the other functions of the Act are administered by the Office of Strategic
Industries and Economic Security (SIES) in the Bureau of Industry and Security
in the Department of Commerce.[2]
Korean War-era usage
The DPA was used during the Korean War to establish a large defense
mobilization infrastructure and bureacracy. Under the authority of the Act,
President Harry S. Truman established the Office of Defense Mobilization, instituted
wage and price controls, strictly regulated production in heavy industries such
as steel and mining, and ordered the disperal of wartime manufacturing plans
across the nation.[3]
The Act also played a vital role in the establishment of the domestic aluminum
and titanium industries in the 1950s. Using the Act, DOD provided capital and
interest-free loans, and directed mining and manufacturing resources as well as
skilled laborers to these two processing industries.[4]
Use as innovation tool
Beginning in the 1980s, DOD began using the contracting and spending provisions
of the DPA to provide seed money to develop new technologies.[5] Using the Act,
DOD has helped to develop a number of new technologies and materials, including
silicon carbide ceramics, indium phosphide and gallium arsenide semiconductors,
microwave power tubes, radiation-hardened microelectronics, superconducting
wire, and metal composites.[4]
Defense Production Act of 1950
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Defense_Production_Act_of_1950
The Defense Production Act of 1950 (Public Law 81-774) was enacted due to
"Rising wages and prices during the Korean War [which] caused serious
economic difficulties within the United States. In an effort to expand
production and insure economic stability, the Defense Production Act of 1950
(Public Law 81-774) authorized Governmental activities in various areas,
including requisition of property for national defense, expansion of productive
capacity and supply, wage and price stabilization, settlement of labor
disputes, control of consumer and real estate credit, and establishment of
contract priorities and materials allocation designed to aid the national
defense. Under section 712, the Joint Committee on Defense Production was
established to serve as a 'watchdog' over Federal agencies administering the
various programs authorized by the act. The members of the committee were drawn
from the Senate and House Committees on Banking and Currency."[1]
The Defense Production Act Title III Program "authorities were first used
extensively during the early 1950s to expedite expansion of industrial capacity
for many strategic and critical materials, machine tools, and a number of other
critical items needed to satisfy evolving defense requirements. Despite (or,
perhaps, partially because of) enormous successes in expanding needed domestic
production capabilities, use of Title III declined markedly during the late
1950s and early 1960s and eventually ended altogether by the end of the 1960s.
Congress revived and modernized the Title III authorities in the mid 1980s, and
these authorities have been used since that time to promote improvement and
expansion of industrial capabilities needed for national defense
purposes."[2]
"Today's Title III Program differs in fundamental ways from the original
program established in 1950. First, the original program was created in
response to the national emergency resulting from the Korean conflict and Cold
War tensions. Today's program focuses primarily on promoting the transition of
new technologies from research and development to efficient and affordable
production and the rapid insertion of these new technologies in defense
systems."[3]
"Second, the original program was based on virtually unlimited authorities
to encourage private investment in materials production and supply. Today's
program is subject to a number of restrictions to ensure that Government action
is needed and that Title III authorities are the best means to meet the
national defense need. Moreover, proposed Title III actions are subject to
prior review by Congress and are funded with moneys appropriated for Title III
purposes."[4]
"Third, the original program was supported by a funding ceiling of $2.1
billion (in 1950s dollars) and was permitted to obligate these funds based on
probable ultimate net cost to the Government rather than total contract
liability. Today's program has been funded at an average annual rate of $20-$25
million and has been required to obligate funds at 100 percent of contract
liability."[5]
"Despite the significant differences between the original program and
today's, the basic purpose of the Title III authorities has not changed - to
expand domestic production capabilities to meet defense needs."[6] And,
some would argue, to specialize these domestic production capabilities only
towards defense needs, assuming that control of global finance, trade and port
facilities will continue to feed the civilian sector, and that there is no
need, e.g. for US self-sufficiency in oil.
And John Dolva also calls attention to the Advanced Research Projects Agency
Network (ARPANET) of the US DOD, which developed the Internet among other
things.
In any case, we should, sixty years on, know what Project Four Leaves and NSA Memo 261 is.
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