Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, National Security Policy; Arms Control and Disarmament, Volume III

120. Memorandum of Discussion at the 459th Meeting of the National Security Council⁰

Washington, September 15, 1960.

[Here follows a paragraph listing the participants.]

1. U.S. Policy on Continental Defense (NSC Action No. 1842–d; NSC 5802/1; NSC Action No. 2151–f–(1);¹ Memo for NSC from Executive Secretary, subject: “Future NSC Agenda Items”, dated April 12, 1960;²NIE 11–8–60;³NIE 11–60; NIE 11–7–60;⁴ Memos for NSC, subject: “U.S. Policy on Continental Defense”, dated July 14 and August 8, 1960)⁵

Mr. Gray presented this subject to the Council by reading the first two paragraphs of his Briefing Note. (A copy of Mr. Gray’s Briefing Note is filed in the Minutes of the Meeting and another is attached to this Memorandum.)⁶ Mr. Gray then called on the Secretary of Defense to introduce the Defense presentation. Secretary Gates said that Mr. John H. Rubel, acting in place of Dr. Herbert York, would make the presentation. (A copy of Mr. Rubel’s presentation is filed in the Minutes of the Meeting and another copy has been furnished General Goodpaster for the White House files.)⁷

The President said that for the last twenty minutes he had been making up his mind to go into training as an Indian and live on deer in the Rocky Mountains.

Mr. Gray then resumed his briefing by reading Paragraph 4 of his Briefing Note dealing with Questions 4 and 5, of the reference Discussion Paper on the subject.⁸ Mr. Gray then said that Questions 1 and 2 in the Discussion Paper⁹ had been covered in Mr. Rubel’s presentation. In addition, the draft Record of Action before the Council had a bearing on Question 2. Question 3, which had to do with decision-making and response doctrine, was also covered by the draft Record of Action. However, Mr. Gray said he would like to take a moment on behalf of himself to suggest that Item g of the draft Record of Action simply read, “Noted that any test which involves destroying a satellite or space vehicle should not proceed without specific Presidential approval.” It seemed to Mr. Gray that the other language in the draft of sub-paragraph g was a directive for research and development. Secretary Gates and General Twining endorsed Mr. Gray’s suggestion.

Mr. Gray then said he had been requested to make an observation on behalf of Mr. McCone who was unable to attend the meeting. Over a period or years the Atomic Energy Commission had received many briefings by NORAD which indicated that immense requirements would be levied against our atomic stockpile. These briefings had acknowledged that plans for such requirements did not have the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. McCone was concerned about unilateral service planning in an area affecting the stockpile of atomic weapons. General Twining said unified commanders were authorized to make plans which are later approved by the JCS. There was no reason why the unified commanders’ plans should be presented to the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. There was also no possibility that an Air Defense Commander could obtain atomic weapons directly without the approval of the JCS. Secretary Gates observed that requirements for weapons stated unilaterally by the Services were many times what the Services would actually get.

The President wondered what right any individual officer had in any military service, which was supposed to be disciplined, to state his own individual feelings publicly. No unified war planning about [would?] be possible if every officer was allowed to tell Congress what forces we should have.

Mr. Dillon said the State Department had a few observations to make on the Continental Defense paper. The first observation was not substantive; it dealt with the title, which might not be appropriate any longer. “Continental defense” had once meant the defense of the population of the U.S. but it now appeared that active defense of the population would not be possible and that it would be necessary to concentrate on defending our retaliatory capability. Mr. Dillon said this policy was merely mentioned in passing, however. He then turned to his main point, namely, the tremendous psychological effects of the ability to shoot down an incoming missile if this ability were developed and demonstrated by the enemy rather than by ourselves. Mr. Dillon recalled a recent briefing by Mr. Dulles on the Soviet A–ICBM effort. If the Soviets demonstrated the ability to destroy an incoming missile and we could not demonstrate a similar ability, the psychological power and prestige of the Soviets would be greatly increased and our attempts to explain away the demonstration would not be convincing. Mr. Dillon felt the U.S. should develop a capability to demonstrate the destruction of an incoming missile at least as early as the USSR. In his view this was a good reason for not reducing our research and development effort on Nike/Zeus. Moreover, he felt it was perhaps worthwhile coordinating what we know about Soviet efforts in this field with information about our own efforts. Perhaps the Comparative Evaluation Group should make a thorough study of the subject. Turning to his final point, Mr. Dillon said that Item–d of the draft Record of Action provided that Mr. Gray and the Secretary of Defense would confer with the President concerning a study of the survival of our decision-making capability. The Discussion Paper points out that the preparation of response doctrine is difficult because of possible unforeseen contingencies. Foreign policy considerations are important elements entering into decisions with respect to response doctrine. Accordingly, Mr. Dillon felt that the Department of State should participate in any study concerned with response doctrine.

Mr. Gray said he could not disagree with Mr. Dillon’s last suggestion.

The President felt the discussion was omitting a great many important considerations. The State Department had just mentioned in passing the question of greater emphasis on passive defense of the population. However, the presentation which the Council had just heard clearly indicates that if greater emphasis is not given to passive defense, there will be no U.S. Without passive defense we could retaliate but the people we are supposed to be defending would all be dead and there would be no State Department to worry about foreign affairs. The President said that war was still waged for the purpose of destroying the enemy’s will to make war. The classical way of destroying the enemy’s will was to destroy his armed forces; now we destroy his will by destroying his cities. We are now in a condition such that, no matter what convictions we have previously held, we have to agree to adopt a much larger program for the protection of the population. The presentation clearly indicates the urgency of such a program. The President felt we should get busy at once on measures for passive defense of the population. Mr. Dillon said his “passing mention” had not meant to deprecate the points the President had just made.

Mr. Patterson said the presentation seemed to indicate that there was no active defense against ballistic missiles. He wondered what studies by the Department of Defense indicated with respect to the value of fall-out shelters in saving lives compared to active defense measures. Mr. Rubel replied that some data on this subject was contained in the Discussion Paper on Page 16. Studies had been made predicting the effect of fall-out shelters on the situation after an attack. The conclusion of all such studies is that an attack involving more that 2000 megatons would kill more persons from fall-out than from direct effects. In this situation civilian casualties can be reduced by a factor of 2 or even 4 or 5, depending on the character of the attack, by having fall-out shelters available. However, when the attack involves more than 50,000 megatons, then even fall-out shelters will not solve the problem because the fall-out is too great to cope with. In the megaton ranges we now think reasonable, fallout shelters will result in a reduction in civilian casualties.

Mr. Patterson said that Mr. Gray had pointed out that existing shelter policy is based on the assumption of active defense, an assumption which does not appear to be tenable today. In these circumstances Mr. Patterson felt that responsibility for reviewing current shelter policy devolved upon OCDM.

The President believed that a great deal of attention must be concentrated on deterrence. We must be skillful in letting the enemy know what would happen to him if he launches an attack against us. Referring to one of Mr. Dillon’s points, the President said he would favor a demonstration of U.S. ability to shoot down an incoming ICBM. Nevertheless, most of our money should be put on deterrence. There seems to be a great deal of talk about small, limited wars but in the President’s view these small, limited wars might readily develop into general war. The President believed that there was a need for social scientists to predict for us what people will do under the circumstances of a rain of nuclear missiles. The President believed that a realistic strengthening of the OCDM shelter program should be undertaken if at all possible. He agreed that there should not be a complete re-orientation of our shelter program at the present time but he felt our thinking had now progressed to a point that he had been stressing for a long time, namely, how can we recover from a massive nuclear attack. Perhaps we should advertise our strengthening of the OCDM shelter program instead of playing it in a low key as provided by present policy. Turning again to deterrence, the President said he would want the enemy to realize that enemy cities can be destroyed by our retaliatory forces. He believed we should think more in terms of cities and deterrence than we had in the past.

Mr. Gray said a question had been asked about the shelter program in the USSR. He understood that the Soviet shelter program was going forward and that the emergency exits for Soviet fall-out shelters in new multiple family dwellings in the Soviet Union had been visually observed. However, it appeared that there was no “crash” shelter program in the USSR. He believed the observation of the emergency exits he had just referred to constituted the first firm intelligence on an orderly Soviet shelter program.

The President said that in this country we could not persuade Congress to allow us to build shelters in government buildings. He believed one of the urgent things on our agenda was a re-examination of current shelter policy. Indeed, the whole subject of passive defense of the population should be re-examined with particular reference to fall-out shelters.

Mr. Dillon asked whether the President approved the idea of undertaking a study on the possibility of developing a capability to demonstrate the shooting down of an incoming ICBM. The President said he approved such a study, although he felt nothing was quite as important immediately as improving our passive defenses. Mr. Dulles said he wished to endorse Mr. Dillon’s idea of studying the demonstration of an ability to shoot down an ICBM. He asked whether the Comparative Evaluation Group should undertake this study. The President thought the study should be undertaken by the Comparative Evaluation Group.

Mr. Rubel reported that the U.S. was engaged in a tremendous effort to install Nike/Zeus missiles in Kwajalein and Roi Namur. When these installations are completed, an Atlas will be fired from Vandenberg and the Nike/Zeus installations in the South Pacific will attempt to shoot it down. Mr. Rubel said that there had been no slowing down in our A-ICBM efforts. In fact, one of the most able scientific and technical teams in the country was engaged in attempting to develop Nike/Zeus. The President said there was another element in Mr. Dillon’s suggestion. If we are going to shoot down an ICBM, we ought to invite certain people to witness the event, including newspapermen, TV reporters, and possibly certain foreign officials.

Mr. Douglas said that the Department of Defense has hesitated to regard all passive defense measures as within its province. He wondered whether it was not essential for the Department to review this position at this time and take a positive stand as to what passive defense measures should be under the Department of Defense. The President observed that he could see no need for the National Guard except as it might be important in passive defense measures. He believed that U.S. officials thought too much in terms of sending a great army overseas after a nuclear attack on the U.S. In his view, if the reserves have any function, they will have to perform that function where they are located at the time of the attack. The idea of a great overseas army is a fantasy but there is a field of operation for federally-trained and disciplined units in the U.S. in case of attack. The President then said that perhaps civil defense should be under the Department of Defense. We had tried to separate civil defense functions from military functions but perhaps this had been a wrong approach.

Mr. Douglas said the military services had taken a negative attitude toward passive defense in the past but he believed this attitude was now changing, even though it was not fully reflected in the present statement of policy on continental defense. Mr. Patterson thought that in the minds of the people there was bound to be a clear distinction between civilian defense and military functions. In this connection he noted that people often ask, what are the military services doing about shelters. Action by the military services with respect to shelters was not within the jurisdiction of OCDM but, from the standpoint of a unified approach to the problem, it was very important to realize that actions taken by the military with respect to shelters had a great effect on the people. Mr. Douglas said that a great problem arose when an attempt was made to apply a voluntary shelter program to military personnel temporarily residing in an area. Mr. Dillon thought that nothing would give more impetus to a civilian voluntary shelter program than a program by the military services to protect their own personnel. The President agreed. He added that in strengthening the shelter program it was necessary to be sensible and not attempt a program of a complete shelter for every person, which would leave everyone broke. He would be glad to hear any words of wisdom from members of the Council on how to carry out a sensible shelter program.

Mr. Gray said he had no words of wisdom on this subject at this time but he did want to indicate that the Council had provided guidance to the Planning Board in the work of revising existing continental defense policy. The President said that OCDM should consult with the Departments of State and Defense and any others that might be necessary in reexamining our shelter policy on a down-to-earth basis. He would like to see all the agencies he had mentioned feeling a sense of responsibility for taking a new look at this question. The President then thanked Mr. Rubel for making an interesting and an alarming presentation.

The National Security Council:¹⁰

a. Discussed the subject on the basis of the Discussion Paper prepared by the NSC Planning Board, transmitted by the reference memorandum of July 14, 1960, and a Department of Defense presentation by Mr. John H. Rubel, Acting Director, Defense Research and Engineering, covering certain portions of that Paper.

b. Noted that the Planning Board would proceed in the light of the Council discussion with a review of NSC 5802/1, pursuant to NSC Action No. 2151–f–(1).

c. Noted the Department of Defense view that no overall reorientation of air defense efforts seems to be indicated at this time, but that a re-examination of present air defense concepts to explore means for improving the U.S. capability to cope with follow-on attacks by manned bombers and non-ballistic missiles, following an initial ballistic missile attack, is being made within the Department of Defense, and the results will be included in the annual report on the status of the military program as of June 30, 1960.

d. Noted that the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs would confer with the President and the Secretary of Defense with regard to the proposal for a study of the capabilities, plans and programs to ensure the survival of the decision-making machinery and of reliable means of communication with the surviving retaliatory forces on land, and sea, and in the air, within the time dimensions of a surprise ballistic missile attack. In this study, attention should be given, with the participation of the Department of State, to the problem of an effective and flexible response that is not dependent upon the survival of the seat of government and other vital links of the planned system for command and control.

e. Noted the President’s directive that the Director, Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, in collaboration with the Departments of State and Defense and as appropriate with other interested departments and agencies, urgently re-examine, in the light of the presentation and discussion at the meeting, current policies and programs for the passive defense of the population, particularly with regard to fall-out shelters, with a view to making any recommendations as to any realistic measures in this field which will contribute to the basic policy of deterrence of general war.

f. Noted that the Director, OCDM, is making, for use in the review of NSC 5802/1, a re-examination of present planning for the continuity of essential functions of the Government in relation to (1) the reduced time available for implementation of such plans; (2) the unlikelihood of the survival of many key Government officials; and (3) the disruption of communications and the widespread destruction immediately following an attack.

g. Noted that any test which involves destroying a satellite or space vehicle should not proceed without specific Presidential approval.¹¹

h. Noted the President’s approval that the Comparative Evaluation Group undertake expeditiously a comparative study of U.S. and USSR programs to develop anti-ballistic missiles capabilities, in view of the great psychological effect which would result from a demonstration by either the U.S. or the USSR of such a capability.¹²

Note: The actions in c and g above, as approved by the President, subsequently transmitted to the Secretary of Defense for appropriate implementation.

The action in d above, as approved by the President, subsequently transmitted to the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Secretaries of State and Defense, for appropriate implementation.

The action in e above, as approved by the President, subsequently transmitted to the Director, OCDM, and the Secretaries of State and Defense, for appropriate implementation.

The action in f above, as approved by the President, subsequently transmitted to the Director, OCDM, for appropriate implementation.

The action in h above, as approved by the President, subsequently transmitted to the Comparative Evaluation Group for appropriate implementation.

[Here follows Agenda Item 2, “Significant World Developments Affecting U.S. Security.”]

Marion W. Boggs

0. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret; Eyes Only. Drafted by Boggs.
1. See footnote 4, Document 4; footnote 10, Document 8; and footnote 11, Document 79, respectively.
2. Not found.
3. Document 111.
4. NIE 11–60, “Trends in Soviet Military Capabilities in the Period 1965–1970,” dated April 12; and NIE 11–7–60, “Soviet Capabilities and Intentions with Respect to the Clandestine Introduction of Weapons of Mass Destruction into the US.” (Both in Department of State, INR–NIE Files)
5. The July 14 memorandum enclosed a Discussion Paper on “Continental Defense,” prepared by the Planning Board; the memorandum dated August 8 enclosed a draft record of action on the subject. (ibid., S/P–NSC Files: Lot 62 D 1, NSC 5802 Series)
6. The briefing note summarized the Discussion Paper. In paragraph 2, it points out that NSC 5802/1 had been adopted when Soviet manned bombers were the principal threat to U.S. retaliatory capability, but that by 1961 Soviet ICBMs would present a dangerous, and in a few years the principal, threat to SAC bases, ICBM sites, and command installations. This change questioned the validity of then-current reliance on the ability of early warning to allow time for launch of SAC planes before destruction on the ground, time for key decisions, and time for civilian relocation. Also, since the Nike–Zeus system would probably not be operational within 10 years, continued emphasis on active defenses was questionable. See the Supplement.
7. Not found.
8. Question 4 asked whether increased emphasis should be given to protecting the population against fallout, and question 5 whether existing policies to provide for the continuity of essential wartime functions of the Federal government were in need of review.
9. These questions asked whether increased emphasis should be given to passive as compared to active measures for the protection of U.S. retaliatory capacity and whether the air defense effort should be reoriented so that, following initial missile attack, it would retain capability against follow-on manned bombers and guided missiles.
10. The following paragraphs and note constitute NSC Action No. 2300, approved by the President on September 21. (Department of State, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by the National Security Council)
11. A sixth question in the Discussion Paper reads: “Is there a clear need for vigorous research and development efforts to achieve a capability to destroy orbiting satellites and space vehicles?”
12. In his September 27 memorandum of a meeting held September 21, Gray states that the President was at first reluctant to assign this task to the Comparative Evaluation Group, preferring that DOD and CIA make presentations for evaluation by NSC. “He pointed out that he had become allergic to committees and groups for a good many reasons including the time they consumed, the paper work involved and the leaks that generally occurred.” Gray argued that the CEG was experienced and could do the work expeditiously, and the President agreed to paragraph h. (Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up, Meetings with the President)