Abstract

This essay presents the main arguments of the National Security Study Memorandum 200, developed in 1974 by the Office of the Secretary of State of the United States. This document, entitled Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests, reveals the steps in family planning that the U.S. government would take to reduce population growth rates in less developed countries, particularly those that received aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Though originally confidential, the NSSM 200 became public in the 1990s, and is one of the few sources that help us understand how the U.S. government interpreted demographic growth in the 1960s and 1970s, its relation to poverty in developing countries, and the national security of the U.S.