STATEMENTS BY JAMES LAY
TO FREDERICK D. BARON ON SEPTEMBER 8, 1975

I was the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council throughout 1960. My summer address is Route 2, Box 273-A, Stanley, Virginia 22851.

1. I am unable, after all these years as Executive Secretary of the NSC and subsequently of the United States Intelligence Board, to recollect the substance of discussions relating to the Congo in NSC meetings during 1960. My principal function at NSC meetings was as the official recorder of the minutes of these meetings, and not as a policymaker. I cannot at this time recall the substance of any specific discussions or decisions relating to Patrice Lumumba in NSC meetings during this period.

2. I cannot recall whether there was any discussion of assassinating Lumumba at any NSC meetings.

3. I do not recall whether President Eisenhower ever made a remark at an NSC meeting that could have been construed as an order to assassinate Lumumba.

4. I do not recollect whether any reference was made at any NSC meeting to an assassination plan or attempt in which the United States was engaged.

5. In 1960 Robert Johnson was a member of the NSC Staff as the notekeeper at NSC meetings in the absence of Deputy Executive Secretary Marian Boggs, who normally took the notes and prepared a first draft of the official NSC minutes subject to my review and

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