Stop Nineteen: Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Washington DC
In 1950, the United States National Security Council issued a 58-page top-secret document outlining American policy during the Cold War. The document is credited with shaping US foreign policy for the next twenty years. The strategy outlined in the document made containment of the Soviet threat the number one US priority in the world. NSC-68 dramatically increased military funding, a departure from typical declines in military funding at the conclusion of war. The document was declassified in 1975.
Primary Source: United States. Executive Secretary. A Report to the National Security Council: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security. 14 Apr 1950. Washington, DC: GPO. Accessed on the Web. Wilson Center For International Scholars <www.legacy.wilsoncenter.org/coldwarfiles/documents/nsc68.pdf> 29 Apr 2015.
Excerpts from National Security Document 68 (1950)
“It is apparent from the preceding sections that the integrity and vitality of our system is in greater jeopardy than ever before in our history. Even if there were no Soviet Union we would face the great problems of the free society, accentuated many fold in this industrial age, of reconciling order, security, and the need for participation, with the requirements of freedom….It is quite clear from Soviet theory and practice that the Kremlin seeks to bring the free world under its dominion by the methods of the cold war. The preferred technique is to subvert by infiltration and intimidation.
At the same time the Soviet Union is seeking to create overwhelming military force, in order to back up infiltration with intimidation. In the only terms in which it understands strength, it is seeking to demonstrate to the free world that force and the will to use it are on the side of the Kremlin, that those who lack it are…doomed….
A further increase in the number and power of our atomic weapons is necessary in order to assure the effectiveness of any U. S. retaliatory blow, but would not of itself [be sufficient]. Greatly increased general air, ground and sea strength, and increased air defense and civilian defense programs would also be necessary to provide reasonable assurance that the free world could survive an initial surprise atomic attack of the weight which it is estimated the U.S.S.R. will be capable of delivering by 1954…Furthermore, such a build-up of strength…might put off for some time the date when the Soviet Union could calculate that a surprise blow would be advantageous. This would provide additional time for the effects of our policies to produce a modification of the Soviet system….
The “overall policy [of the United States is] designed to foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish.”
Analysis Questions:
Primary Source: United States. Executive Secretary. A Report to the National Security Council: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security. 14 Apr 1950. Washington, DC: GPO. Accessed on the Web. Wilson Center For International Scholars <www.legacy.wilsoncenter.org/coldwarfiles/documents/nsc68.pdf> 29 Apr 2015.
Excerpts from National Security Document 68 (1950)
“It is apparent from the preceding sections that the integrity and vitality of our system is in greater jeopardy than ever before in our history. Even if there were no Soviet Union we would face the great problems of the free society, accentuated many fold in this industrial age, of reconciling order, security, and the need for participation, with the requirements of freedom….It is quite clear from Soviet theory and practice that the Kremlin seeks to bring the free world under its dominion by the methods of the cold war. The preferred technique is to subvert by infiltration and intimidation.
At the same time the Soviet Union is seeking to create overwhelming military force, in order to back up infiltration with intimidation. In the only terms in which it understands strength, it is seeking to demonstrate to the free world that force and the will to use it are on the side of the Kremlin, that those who lack it are…doomed….
A further increase in the number and power of our atomic weapons is necessary in order to assure the effectiveness of any U. S. retaliatory blow, but would not of itself [be sufficient]. Greatly increased general air, ground and sea strength, and increased air defense and civilian defense programs would also be necessary to provide reasonable assurance that the free world could survive an initial surprise atomic attack of the weight which it is estimated the U.S.S.R. will be capable of delivering by 1954…Furthermore, such a build-up of strength…might put off for some time the date when the Soviet Union could calculate that a surprise blow would be advantageous. This would provide additional time for the effects of our policies to produce a modification of the Soviet system….
The “overall policy [of the United States is] designed to foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish.”
Analysis Questions:
- How does NSC-68 characterize Soviet actions?
- NSC-68 was largely based on Kennan’s telegram. How does NSC-68 differ from Kennan’s recommendations? What is left out?