Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950–1955, The Intelligence Community, 1950–1955

138. Memorandum for President Truman of Discussion at the 126th Meeting of the National Security Council¹

Washington, November 26, 1952.

[Omitted here are a short paragraph that indicates the President presided at the meeting and discussion of agenda item 1: The Situation in the Far East.]

2. A Project To Provide a More Adequate Basis for Planning for the Security of the United States (Memo for NSC from Acting Executive Secretary, same subject, dated October 21, 1952; Memos for NSC from Executive Secretary, same subject, dated November 25 and 26, 1952, and August 30, 1951;² Memo for NSC from Executive Secretary, subject: “Summary Evaluation of the Net Capability of the USSR to Injure the Continental United States”, dated November 25, 1952;³ NSC Action No. 543;⁴SE–14)⁵

When the President turned to the second item on the Agenda Mr. Lay called the Council’s attention to the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the report and to the latest changes recommended by the Director of Central Intelligence at the instance of the Internal Security Committees and finally, to the two alternative recommendations made by the Senior Staff to replace the first two recommendations by the Director of Central Intelligence. Mr. Lay pointed out that the Senior Staff had taken no action on the third recommendation in General Smith’s memorandum.

The President then asked General Smith to comment on the proposals in his memorandum. After explaining briefly the background of the present evaluation, General Smith summarized what he had heard of the discussions in the Senior Staff on the first two of his three recommendations and called the Council’s attention to his most recent revision of his third recommendation, which was at this point distributed to the members of the Council. General Smith then turned to the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and stated that he agreed with a number of the points made therein and disagreed with others. Firstly, there could be no question of the need for the production of so-called “Commander’s Estimates” for the use of the President and the National Security Council. The Joint Chiefs, said General Smith, do not believe that the production of such estimates requires the creation of any new machinery. With this view General Smith said he could not agree, but added that if the present evaluation actually met all the requirements of the President and the Council there was, of course, nothing more to be done.

General Smith then noted that the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not believe that the Director of Central Intelligence was the appropriate official to prepare Commander’s Estimates. With this view General Smith found himself in agreement, but he went on to say that he did not think that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were, themselves, the appropriate body to prepare the kind of estimate which the President and the Council required. The data which must be amassed to provide the kind of report that was required would by no means be purely military data. Those agencies of the Government which were concerned with passive defense, civilian defense, sabotage and the like, were also directly or indirectly involved in the preparation of such estimates. Plainly, he continued, the problem was too large and too complicated for any one Government agency to solve by itself. It seemed obvious to General Smith that the National Security Council alone was the proper agency to guide and coordinate such studies. Obviously it could not do this directly, but it could do so by calling on the instrumentalities available to it. With all deference to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concluded General Smith, the problem which concerned the Council transcends the purely military sphere, although General Smith conceded that it might well be possible, as suggested by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to have that body monitor such a study provided the National Security Council was assured that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would make use, in its preparation, of the resources of all the Government agencies which were required.

The President then turned to Secretary Foster for his comment, stating that the problem was obviously very controversial.

Secretary Foster said he would prefer to listen first to the views of Mr. Gorrie, Mr. Wadsworth and others before stating his own.

Mr. Gorrie⁶ expressed general agreement with the views stated by General Smith and said that he agreed with the recommendations offered to the Council by the Senior NSC Staff.

Mr. Wadsworth⁷ also expressed agreement with the view of General Smith that the civilian agencies would have very significant contributions to make in the preparation of such evaluations in the future. Mr. Wadsworth further pointed out that he was not in a position to be as clear on this problem as he would have liked, since he had not been permitted to examine the basic studies prepared by the Joint Chiefs and others, to back up the conclusions which appeared in the current report. Mr. Wadsworth concluded by stating his anxiety to be of maximum use in any future attempts along these lines.

Again called upon for his views, Secretary Foster stated that it seemed to him that there were two fundamental points at issue. The first of these was the adequacy of the present report on the net capability of the Soviet Union to inflict damage on the United States. Secretary Foster said he was frank to admit that there were serious gaps in this report as far as it constituted the basis for planning United States courses of action. Some of these shortcomings, he added, derived from the very nature of the beast. Such evaluations as the one in question naturally involved the war plans of the United States. These plans are, of course, very sensitive and the Chiefs of Staff quite properly leaned over backward to protect the security of these plans. The inevitable result was to create difficulties for the civilian agencies, though it seemed to him that these agencies could not appropriately expect the Joint Chiefs to reveal the details of such plans. However, continued Secretary Foster, he felt certain that he was speaking for the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he stated that they would make available everything that is really necessary to the production of this type of study to the appropriate civilian officials if the latter were in a position to establish their need to know. Furthermore, continued Secretary Foster, the Joint Chiefs had expressed their readiness to provide oral presentations on the problem to whatever group of the National Security Council it was determined should receive such information. All-in-all, said Secretary Foster, the present methods for producing such estimates were the best that had been found so far and he believed, as a first attempt, the present paper represented real progress even if it were obvious that further progress was necessary. As a suggestion to that end, Secretary Foster thought an ad hoc committee should be set up to take a careful look at the problem raised by General Smith’s memorandum and to try to determine whether further evaluations of the type under consideration should be coordinated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Director of Central Intelligence, or by an augmented NSC staff.

Summing up, Secretary Foster said that he recommended that the Council accept the first recommendation proposed by the Senior Staff. As to the second Senior Staff recommendation, with respect to the preparation of new terms of reference, there was some question as to whether the Council ought to accept it. Whether, as Secretary Foster put it, they patient can actually diagnose his own disease. Nevertheless, Secretary Foster stated that he had no specific recommendation to substitute for the one proposed by the Senior Staff.

The President then asked General Bradley if he desired to make any comment.

General Bradley stated that he did not differ fundamentally with the views expressed by General Smith. On the whole he was inclined to believe that the NSC Staff was the group best fitted to undertake studies such as these in the future. No single agency could do such studies and no single agency should try. As to the furnishing of information on United States capabilities and possible courses of action in the military field, General Bradley emphasized that the Joint Chiefs were wholly in favor of the “need to know” rule on sensitive material. Within this reservation, however, the Chiefs were prepared to reveal whatever was necessary for the preparation of such studies. In point of fact, there were too many people who were curious about our war plans and had no legitimate interest in them. General Bradley promised that the Joint Chiefs would do anything in their power in order to achieve the kind of estimate needed, but would only monitor the effort as a last resort.

Asked for his views by the President, Secretary Bruce stated briefly that he was in agreement with the recommendations proposed by the Senior Staff.

General Smith then entered the discussion with the statement that he was sure the Council could clean this matter up and that the differences could be ironed out. This was, he said, a phase of the old argument between G–2 and G–3. He illustrated the dilemma with which he had been confronted in carrying out the task of preparing the present report by noting that he had recently required certain assumptions with respect to the civil defense capabilities of the USSR in the contingency of an attack by the United States. We obtained these assumptions, he stated, from the Joint Strategic planners orally, but when we came to cast up the score and to write these vital assumptions into the report, this was not permitted because the Joint Chiefs of Staff had not acted on these assumptions. It was impossible to prepare a study of the net capability of the USSR to damage the United States under such procedures. Nevertheless, continued General Smith, by the use of assumptions supplied by the military it was certainly possible to prepare an adequate evaluation without jeopardizing the security of war plans.

The President stated that the current discussion had been extremely interesting and productive, but that it seemed to him that the problem posed in General Smith’s third recommendation ought to have more study before the Council reached any conclusions on it. He expressed the hope that all the requisite agencies would get together to provide a reasonable basis for Council action at a future meeting.

General Smith said that he thought it would be most helpful if Mr. Amory, as a representative of the Director of Central Intelligence, could sit down with representatives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in order to explain what was needed to achieve the right result.

With this proposal Secretary Foster expressed agreement and added that he, himself, would be glad to talk with Mr. Amory.

Mr. Lay then inquired whether it was the desire of the Council to accept the two recommendations proposed by the Senior Staff, but to defer action on the third recommendation proposed by General Smith and amended by the paper which he had circulated earlier in the meeting. The Council concurred in Mr. Lay’s understanding of the desired action.

Mr. Murray,⁸ speaking for the Attorney General, stated that he had one small point which involved the transposition of the words “as required” in the second recommendation by the Senior Staff. Mr. Murray stated that he was merely anxious to be assured that it was requisite for the Director of Central Intelligence to collaborate with all the agencies mentioned in this paragraph in the production of the next estimate.

Mr. Lay pointed out that this was the intention of the present language and the Council agreed to the wording suggested by Mr. Murray.

In conclusion, Mr. Lay stated that he desired to emphasize the fact that the NSC Staff had long recognized the need for more adequate staff studies, not only of the type which the Council was today considering, but to provide the basis for better policy statements generally. Where such studies could best be made, whether under the NSC Staff or elsewhere, was of course, he added, for the Council to decide, but there could be no doubt that the NSC Staff was generally agreed on the desirability of improvement. He felt that the NSC Staff could undertake this work, but some reorganization would be required.

The President then repeated his view that the Council could come to no firm conclusion on General Smith’s final recommendation at this meeting, but that the matter should be the subject of further study.

The National Security Council:⁹

a. Received the summary evaluation, “Net Capability of the USSR to Injure the Continental United States”, transmitted by the reference memorandum of October 21 and amended by the reference memorandum of November 25 on the same subject, as an initial effort in response to the NSC directive issued by NSC Action No. 543, and noted that it is characterized by a number of limitations and inadequacies, including the fact that developments since the evaluation was prepared have rendered it, in part, out of date.

b. Instructed the Director of Central Intelligence, in collaboration with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference, the Interdepartmental Committee on Internal Security, and, as required, officials of other governmental bodies, to prepare for early submission to the National Security Council, terms of reference for a more adequate evaluation of the USSR’s net capability to inflict direct injury on the United States, and recommendations for the machinery necessary to produce for the National Security Council such a coordinated evaluation.

c. Deferred action, pending further study, on the recommendation in paragraph 5-c of the memorandum by the Director of Central Intelligence enclosed with the reference memorandum of October 21, amended as follows by the Director of Central Intelligence and circulated at the meeting.

“c. Instruct the Director of Central Intelligence, in collaboration with Officials of other governmental bodies as required, to examine the inadequacies of the present machinery, and to make recommendations to the NSC concerning the character of any new machinery that may be required to produce for the NSC coordinated evaluations, in the nature of ‘Commander’s Estimates,’ of the Soviet Bloc’s net capabilities and probable courses of action vis-à-vis the United States’ security interests. Such evaluations require the integration of national intelligence with adequate military, political, and economic operational information on the United States’ capabilities and contemplated courses of action.”

Note: The action in b above subsequently transmitted to the Director of Central Intelligence for implementation.

[Omitted here is discussion of agenda items 3: Reappraisal of United States Objectives and Strategy for National Security, 4: The National Psychological Effort, and 5: NSC Status of Projects.]

1. Source: Truman Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, National Security Council. Top Secret; Security Information. Drafted on November 28, presumably by Lay.
2. None of these memoranda has been found, but presumably they transmitted to the NSC versions of and comments on the paper attached to Document 131.
3. Not found.
4. Document 86.
5. See footnote 3, Document 131.
6. Jack Gorrie, Chairman of the National Security Resources Board.
7. James J. Wadsworth, Acting Administrator of the Federal Civil Defense Administration.
8. Not further identified.
9. Paragraphs a–c constituted NSC Action No. 687. (National Archives, RG 59, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) File: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by the National Security Council)