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

47. Memorandum of Discussion at the 394th Meeting of the National Security Council⁰

Washington, January 22, 1959.

[Here follow a paragraph listing the participants at the meeting and Agenda Items 1. “Significant World Developments Affecting U.S. Security,” and 2. “Visit of Deputy Prime Minister Mikoyan to the United States.”]

3. Review of NSC 5410/1 (NSC 5410/1; NSC 5810/1; NSC Actions Nos. 1077 and 1102;¹ Memo for NSC from Executive Secretary, same subject, dated January 7, 1959²)

In his briefing of the Council Mr. Gray pointed out that there had been a policy paper of one sort or another on “U.S. Objectives in the Event of General War with the Soviet Bloc” since 1948. The existing policy on this subject, NSC 5410/1, needed to be up-dated since it had been adopted almost five years ago. He continued by pointing out that the lengthy and involved review of the paper in the Planning Board had resulted in wide divergences of view as to what a revised paper should contain. Indeed there was some question as to whether there was any need for a policy on this subject at all. In this situation the Planning Board had finally decided to prepare the discussion paper which was now before the Council in order to solicit guidance from the Council as the basis for either rescinding NSC 5410/1 altogether or as the basis for revising of this policy.

Mr. Gray then read to the Council the first question contained in the discussion paper reading as follows:

“Should a statement of U.S. policy in the event of war be limited to the subject of existing policy (NSC 5410/1), i.e., U.S. objectives in the event of general war with the Soviet Bloc; or should it cover additional contingencies such as (a) major war initiated by Communist China, and (b) other war initiated by a member of the Sino-Soviet Bloc?”

Mr. Gray asked Secretary Dulles for his view on this question. Secretary Dulles replied that while he had a few remarks to make on the general subject of the discussion paper, he would prefer not to answer the specific questions since they were a lot easier to ask than to answer. He then went on to say that the present paper (NSC 5410/1) which had been prepared some years ago was plainly outdated. It would be unfortunate to keep it on the books as an outdated policy document, particularly in view of its practical relationship to U.S. military planning. With respect to the present policy statement (NSC 5410/1), Secretary Dulles expressed the opinion that Paragraph 4 which called for efforts to prevent the active participation of Communist China in the war on the side of the U.S.S.R. was unwise. This matter certainly needed to be reviewed. Likewise, the assumption in the paper that you could have a general nuclear war in which a “victory” could be achieved also needed to be reconsidered. There was also an implicit assumption in the present policy statement that the U.S. did not need any policy with respect to a war except a policy which dealt with the problem of general war and not with limited hostilities. This assumption also needed reconsideration. For these reasons and others, Secretary Dulles again said that he thought the present policy statement was obsolete and was indeed actually a liability because it had become a kind of Bible from which status there flowed undesirable practical consequences.

While it was one thing to find fault with the present paper (NSC 5410/1), it was quite another to suggest the form and content of a new paper on this subject. Secretary Dulles said that he would personally hate to have to undertake the new paper himself. He nevertheless felt the effort should be made. While he would rather have no paper than the present one, he would prefer to see a new policy statement however difficult or almost impossible it might be to write.

Mr. Gray said that he agreed with Secretary Dulles that such a paper was difficult to write and that the effort to write it had been his most difficult task in the six months and one day that he had been in his present job. Nevertheless, he too felt that we should try to write a new paper. For this purpose we needed the guidance of the Council and that is why we had posed the questions set forth in the discussion paper. As a matter of fact, Mr. Gray said that Secretary Dulles had really answered the first question in the discussion paper in the course of his general remarks just completed. Secretary Dulles agreed that this was the case and also called attention to the real possibility in connection with the first question that Communist China could be pushed by the U.S.S.R. into starting a major war against the U.S.

Mr. Gray then inquired whether Secretary McElroy or General Twining had any general comments on the discussion paper that they wished to make. Secretary McElroy replied that he agreed with Secretary Dulles in general and that we should strive to redo or up-date the present policy statement. Such a policy was plainly needed for the purpose of providing basic guidance to the military. Secretary McElroy thought that such a policy statement should be addressed to a situation of general war because the variety of possible limited wars was so great that it would be extremely difficult to provide any concrete policy guidance concerning them. Finally, said Secretary McElroy, changes in the situation in the Sino-Soviet Bloc could be so frequent that he believed that a review of any policy statement respecting our objectives in the event of general war with the Sino-Soviet Bloc should be reviewed much more frequently than NSC 5410/1. Indeed such a review should perhaps be undertaken annually.

Secretary Dulles expressed agreement with Secretary McElroy that you could not cover all the various contingencies of limited war in a single policy statement. He had made his reference to limited war simply to be sure that a new policy statement avoided any implication that the only kind of hostilities we would have to face with the Sino-Soviet Bloc was general war. It was this negative thought that Secretary Dulles wanted to avoid. He did not mean, however, that he would attempt to guess what limited wars might actually occur and what our policies should be with respect to such limited war. The President said he agreed with the thought expressed by Secretary Dulles.

Mr. Gray then requested the guidance of the Council with respect to the second and third questions in the discussion paper which he pointed out were political as well as military or strategic questions. The second and third questions read as follows:

• “2. In the light of the capability of the United States and the U.S.S.R. in the foreseeable future to destroy one another, even after a surprise nuclear attack, should the United States in the event of general war initiated by the U.S.R.R.:

  “Despite the loss of U.S. lives and resources which might be involved, endeavor by all necessary means to reduce the capabilities of the U.S.S.R. to the point where it has lost its will or ability to wage war against the U.S. and its allies; and yet be prepared to consider an offer by the U.S.S.R. to cut short the nuclear exchange at a point advantageous to the U.S., even though the U.S.S.R. might retain some will and ability to continue the struggle?”

• “3. Should the U.S. accept an otherwise advantageous settlement:
  • “a. If Communist control were maintained over the satellites?
  • “b. If a Communist Government retained power in the U.S.S.R.?
  • “c. Only if all Communist controls were destroyed?”

With respect to these questions the President observed that everyone knew that in such matters we took Clausewitz as our guide. Clausewitz, in his doctrine, put all his emphasis on the destruction of the will of the enemy to wage war rather than the enemy’s capabilities to do so. However, said the President, perhaps it was rather futile to try to make a real differentiation between destroying the will or destroying the capability of an enemy to continue war. Look at the example of Fidel Castro. He had started out with a dozen ragged men and had ended by destroying Batista and his large forces. This was an example of the destruction of the will to fight so we are really trying to destroy the enemy’s will. War is after all waged for a purpose. Our purpose is to defend ourselves. To defend ourselves means that we must destroy the present threat to ourselves. Accordingly, once we become involved in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, we could not stop until we had finished off the enemy; that is, forced him to stop fighting. If at any point in the hostilities we agree to make terms with the enemy, we would only make terms which allayed the Communist threat to us.

Secretary Dulles expressed some doubt as to whether one could destroy the Communist threat in the world simply by destroying the Kremlin and the U.S.S.R. The Communist movement in the world was wider than the Soviet Union. Ideologies cannot be destroyed by military forces alone. If you destroy the present Communist center in Moscow, the very suffering and dislocation of so terrible a war would tend to keep the Communist ideology alive. The President agreed with Secretary Dulles and added that never in history had an ideology been destroyed by war.

Secretary McElroy added the comment that what we hoped to do if we ever became involved in a war was not to get everyone to accept our own ideology but to try to achieve a world in which everybody could live and let live.

General Twining expressed his disagreement with any doctrine which called for the application of degrees of pressure against the Soviet Union in the event that we became involved in general war. On the contrary, said General Twining, it was his view that if we ever got into such a fight, we should use all our powers to win rather than to fight with one hand only. He pointed out that we had war-gamed a general war against the Sino-Soviet Bloc three times and in each case the U.S. had managed to survive despite the fact that so many people nowadays argue that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. each has the power to destroy the other in the event of general war between them.

At this point Mr. Gray expressed the view that the guidance already provided by the Council had been valuable but that he would like to raise one more question for discussion. This was the question contained in Paragraph 6 reading as follows:

“Can and should the United States undertake now to formulate post-war policies and plans, e.g., terms of enemy surrender, border and territorial arrangements, administration of enemy territory, and independence for national minorities?”

As Mr. Gray finished reading this question he observed that Secretary Dulles was smiling and the President was laughing. Accordingly Mr. Gray observed that he guessed that the answer to this question had been provided. The President, however, commented that what we must do in connection with the problem raised by this question was to use our imagination. On the other hand, imagination will not solve non-imaginable problems which by implication the President thought were contained in this question. What were going to be the conditions after a general war between the U.S. and the Sino-Soviet Bloc asked the President. That was precisely what he would like to know. Who was going to re-educate the defeated enemy in a conflict which resulted in such terrible devastation and pulverization of the enemy’s territory? If we got hit, what had we better do with Soviet Russia and Communist China? This was the sense of this question and while the President doubted if you could answer the question with any specifics, it might be possible to work out a few reasonable guide lines.

General Twining asked if he might express the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said that the Chiefs believed in the value of this type of policy statement. On the other hand, they wished it to confine itself to the problem of our policy in the event of general rather than on and including limited wars. As a title they preferred “U.S. Objectives in the Event of General War with the Sino-Soviet Bloc”. They were anxious that objectives in such a war be included.

The President inquired what could be our objectives in such a general war beyond the objective of hitting the Russians as hard as we could. General Twining responded by stating that we planned in the event of such a war “to shoot the works” and not to apply our military power degree by degree against the enemy. Perhaps in the course of such a conflict we might find it advantageous to negotiate but we should certainly not plan to negotiate in advance. If the Communists want to stop, that would be O.K. We finish the attack and then talk to them but we shoot the works.

At this point Mr. Gray reverted to the second question, posing it in somewhat different terms and stressing the importance of the political questions which underlay it.

The President commented that the only form in which you could expect to get a peace offering would be from that side in the conflict which was putting up the white flag. The U.S. will never do this so we should go ahead and hit the Russians as hard as possible. We could not do anything else. They, the Russians, will have started the war, we will finish it. That is all the policy the President said he had. Secretary Dulles stated that this statement of the President might indeed constitute the statement of policy. Mr. Allen Dulles warned against a repetition of President Roosevelt’s call for unconditional surrender which he believed had prolonged the Second World War for perhaps a year’s time. The President insisted he was not calling for a revival of the doctrine of unconditional surrender.

General Twining then completed his brief statement of the Joint Chiefs’ views which he took from a memorandum submitted to the National Security Council Planning Board by the Defense and JCS members of a drafting committee under the date of November 5, 1958 (a copy of this memorandum is attached to this Memorandum).³ General Twining noted that according to this memorandum the Joint Chiefs wished to include in a new policy statement Paragraph 3 of NSC 5410/1 calling for the reduction of the capabilities of the U.S.S.R. to a point where it had lost its will or ability to wage war against the U.S. and its allies. On the other hand, the Joint Chiefs wished to delete Paragraph 4 of NSC 5410/1 which called for preventing by all means consistent with other U.S. objectives, the active participation of Communist China in the war on the U.S.S.R. side.

After Mr. Gray stated the consensus of the meeting that a new statement of policy should be undertaken by the Planning Board, the President closed the discussion by observing that we ought to be clear among ourselves that if we are going to hit the Soviet Union, we are going in the process to remove the threat posed by the Soviet Union. There was, accordingly, no use to talk about negotiating a settlement in the midst of the war. The Soviets would certainly not keep any negotiated settlement to which they agreed. They never had in the past.

In closing Mr. Gray observed that he thought that the suggestions by Secretary McElroy for an annual review of such a policy statement was a good idea but he wanted very much to get a new statement of policy on the subject done first. It would be a considerable task.

The National Security Council:⁴

a. Noted and discussed the subject in the light of a discussion paper prepared by the NSC Planning Board transmitted by the reference memorandum, and the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as presented orally at the meeting by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

b. Directed the NSC Planning Board to prepare for Council consideration a new statement of U.S. policy along the lines discussed in the meeting, to supersede NSC 5410/1.

[Here follow Agenda Items 4. “U.S. Policy Toward Greece,” and 5. “U.S. Policy Toward Yugoslavia.”]

S. Everett Gleason

0. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret. Drafted by Gleason.
1. See Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, vol. II, pp. 643–644 and p. 646, footnote 6, respectively.
2. This memorandum enclosed a discussion paper prepared by the Planning Board, much of which is quoted and summarized in this memorandum of discussion. (Department of State, S/P–NSC Files: Lot 62 D1, NSC 5904 Series) See the Supplement.
3. Not found attached; for text, see the Supplement.
4. The following paragraphs constitute NSC Action No. 2039, approved by the President on January 23. (Department of State, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by the National Security Council)