Statement by the President Upon Establishing the National Security Council Special Committee on the Middle East.

THE United Nations Security Council has called for a cease-fire in the Middle East. This first clear step toward lasting peace has the strongest support of our Government. We have worked as hard as we could to avoid hostilities and to end them. But the fighting came, and the road forward to real peace and progress will not be easy. Still there is now a real chance for all to turn from the frustrations of the past to the hopes of a peaceful future. While the first responsibility falls to the peoples and governments in the area, we must do our best to that end, both inside and outside the United Nations.

The continuing crisis and the effort to help build a new peace will require the most careful coordination of the work of our Government. To ensure this coordination I am today establishing a Special Committee of the National Security Council. The Secretary of State will preside over this Committee, and its members will be the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of the CIA, the Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and Mr. Walt Rostow. I shall meet with the Committee from time to time as necessary, and so will the Vice President and the Ambassador to the United Nations.

I have asked Mr. McGeorge Bundy to serve as a Special Consultant to the President and to be Executive Secretary of the Committee. Mr. Bundy has worked with us before, and he has been in informal consultation in the last year on a number of subjects. Mr. Bundy has now asked his board of trustees at the Ford Foundation for a temporary leave of absence, and he is already at work. I am asking all agencies of the Government to assist him with such staff support as he may request for the Special Committee. The Committee will meet regularly at the White House.