Statement by the President Concerning the Report on the Relationship Between the CIA and Private Voluntary Organizations.
I HAVE received the report from the committee which I appointed on February 15 to review relationships between the Central Intelligence Agency and private American voluntary organizations. This committee consisted of Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach, as Chairman, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare John Gardner, and CIA Director Richard Helms.
I accept this committee's proposed statement of policy and am directing all agencies of the Government to implement it fully.
We will also give serious consideration to the committee's recommendation "that the Government should promptly develop and establish a public-private mechanism to provide public funds openly for overseas activities of organizations which are adjudged deserving, in the national interest, of public support." To review concrete ways of accomplishing this objective, I am requesting Secretary Rusk to serve as chairman of a special committee which will include representatives from the executive, the Congress, and the private community.
Note: The report, in the form of a memorandum to the President signed by the committee members, is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 3, p. 556). The proposed statement of policy is as follows:
"No federal agency shall provide any covert financial assistance or support, direct or indirect, to any of the nation's educational or private voluntary organizations. This policy specifically applies to all foreign activities of such organizations and it reaffirms present policy with respect to their domestic activities.
"Where such support has been given, it will be terminated as quickly as possible without destroying valuable private organizations before they can seek new means of support."
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Concerning the Report on the Relationship Between the CIA and Private Voluntary Organizations. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237778