that, "until the Communist Regimes are convinced that their aggressive and expansionist policies will be met by countermeasures which inherently will threaten the continued existence of their regimes, it will not be feasible to induce a change in their basic attitude or bring about the abandonment of their present objectives." Moreover, "the desired conviction in Communist minds can be brought about only through positive, dynamic, and timely action by the United States." 9

The military policies enunciated in NSC 5501 when approved on 7 January 1955 could be recognized as conforming broadly to the general principles of the New Look, but with certain differences of emphasis that were to generate discussion in the following months. President Eisenhower, indeed, had just supplied a restatement of those principles in a letter to the Secretary of Defense on 5 January, which was released to the public. 10 A basic consideration underlying the policy, the President explained, was that the security of the United States was inextricably bound up with the security of the free world; thus it became essential to "do everything possible to promote unity of understanding and action among the free nations."

Considerations applying specifically to US military preparations were these: first, there was no "single critical danger date and no single form of enemy action. to which we could soundly gear all our defense preparations"; second, "true security . . . must be founded on a strong and expanding economy, readily convertible to the tasks of war"; third, "we should base our security upon military formations which make maximum use of science and technology in order to minimize numbers of men"; and fourth, the increasing efficiency of long-range bombing aircraft and the destructiveness of modern weapons gave the United States reason, for the first time in its history, to be deeply concerned over the serious effects which a sudden attack could conceivably inflict upon its territory.

Our first objective must therefore be to maintain the capability to deter an enemy from attack and to blunt that attack if it comes-by a combination of effective retaliatory power and a continental defense system of steadily increasing effectiveness. These two tasks logically demand priority in all planning.

Other essential tasks during the initial period of a possible future war would require the Navy to clear the ocean lanes, and the Army to do its part in meeting critical land situations.

The President noted that to meet "lesser hostile action-such as local aggression not broadened by the intervention of a major aggressor's forces-growing reliance can be placed upon the forces now being built and strengthened in many areas of the free world." But because that reliance could not be complete, and US vital interests or pledged commitments might be involved, there remained certain contingencies for which the United States should be ready with mobile forces to help indigenous troops deter local aggression, direct or indirect. Even when meeting such requirements, however, the New Look program contemplated reductions in the overall size of the armed forces. Given the practical considerations limiting the rapid deployment of large military forces from the continental United States immediately on the outbreak of war, the President believed the number of troops. maintained on active duty could be correspondingly cut. Reserve forces, the

mobilization base, and the stockpile of critical materials could be relied on to provide the remainder of the requirements for full-scale war operations.

The most notable difference in emphasis between the President's pronouncements of 5 January 1955 and the basic national security policy paper concerned the relative importance of nuclear retaliatory forces as against other elements of US military power. In the wording of NSC 5501 there was little to suggest any substantial difference in priority between the nuclear delivery forces and continental defense programs designed to deter or meet a major attack and the ready mobile forces to deter or deal with local aggression. In his letter to Secretary Wilson, however, the President made the maintenance of effective retaliatory power and the improvement of continental defense a first charge on the military planners. His statement regarding ready mobile forces could be read as suggesting that the need was a residual and possibly even a decreasing one. Subsequent consideration of US defense requirements by the Joint Chiefs of Staff tended to turn on the interpretation of the paragraphs in the basic national security policy, whereas Secretary Wilson, in reaching decisions or preparing recommendations on such specific matters as force levels and budget allocations, clearly took his principal guidance from the President's letter.

During the first half of 1955 the argument against preponderant US emphasis on nuclear air retaliatory power was carried almost exclusively by the Army Chief of Staff, General Matthew B. Ridgway. On 27 June 1955, a few days before his retirement, General Ridgway recapitulated the views he had been advocating in a letter to the Secretary of Defense. It was to be noted that the factors and requirements he stressed were for the most part already included in NSC 5501; the Army Chief of Staff was arguing not for a change in the basic national security policy but for redirection of its implementation.

General Ridgway believed that "the present United States military forces are inadequate in strength and improperly proportioned" to meet the full dimensions of the Soviet threat and the commitments the United States had assumed throughout the world:

The Soviet Communist Bloc has created and is prosecuting a continuous state of conflict as a matter of national policy. They have shown the intention and capability to capitalize on subversion or on local war for military and political advantage in China, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Malaya, Korea, Indochina, and other places, in spite of the superior United States strength in long-range air forces, although this superiority has been obvious to the world since World War II. As the point in time approaches, possibly between 1958 and 1962, when Soviet nuclear weapon and delivery developments will give the Communist Bloc the capability of inflicting critical damage on the United States war-making potential, coupled with a concurrent improvement of Soviet air defense capability, the United States nuclear-air superiority will have lost most of its present significance.

Yet in the face of this prospect, "the present United States preoccupation with preparations for general war has limited the military means available for cold war to those which are essentially by-products or leftovers."

While a "mobile ready force" element is provided for in published policy statements, the actual development of a mobile ready force must compete with increasingly emphasized continental defense, and with, in my opinion, overemphasized nuclear-air requirements; all of which are requirements related primarily to general war.

It was General Ridgway's conclusion that the commitments which the United States had pledged created a positive requirement for an immediately available mobile joint military force of hard-hitting character. The military power of the United States "must be real and apparent to all concerned, and it must be capable of being applied promptly, selectively and with the degree of violence appropriate to the occasion." 11

The Killian Report

y the spring of 1955 the National Security Council had concluded that new intelligence estimates of Soviet capabilities and intentions called for a reappraisal of the basic national security policy.12 The most influential of these studies was one submitted to the President on 14 February 1955 by the Technological Capabilities Panel of the Science Advisory Committee to the Office of Defense Mobilization and entitled "Meeting the Threat of Surprise Attack." Known as the "Killian Report," after the panel chairman, Dr. James B. Killian of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it contained a timetable showing the relative military strengths of the United States and the Soviet Union and how they would change in the future. Currently, the appraisal read, the United States possessed an offensive advantage over the Soviet Union but was vulnerable to surprise attack. By the start of 1956 and extending to 1958 and perhaps a few years beyond, the United States would have improved its defenses and offensive striking power so as to have a very great advantage over the Soviet Union. During this period, the United States, though severly damaged, would emerge a battered victor in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. By as early as mid-1958, however, the Soviet offensive capability might have improved to the point where an attack by either side would result in mutual destruction. The Killian panel recommended, therefore, that, after the timetable had been reviewed by the President and the National Security Council, an intensive study be undertaken to determine the political and diplomatic advantages that could be realized during the two or more years of the period of greatest US superiority that would start in 1956.13

Anticipating a review of the Killian Report by the National Security Council, the Acting Secretary of Defense requested the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Replying on 18 April, they agreed it was desirable to make the study but cautioned against basing it on a firm assumption that "the USSR CANNOT mount a decisive attack on the United States during the period 1956-1957 and ending 1958-1960." The latest intelligence estimates of the Soviet nuclear weapons stockpile and delivery capability, combined with the uncertainty as to what level of

damage would be decisive, made such an assumption dangerous.1 The JCS views were not forwarded to the National Security Council, however, since the Council had already referred the Killian panel's recommendations directly to the Planning Board. Further instructions to the Planning Board were forthcoming on 4 August when the National Security Council directed it to combine the study of the Killian Report with a general review of key aspects of the basic national security policy.15

Toward A Revised National Security Policy

The Planning Board, on 1 September 1955, agreed on the following procedure for the review: each Planning Board member would submit recommendations for changes in NSC 5501; a subcommittee of the Planning Board or the Board Assistants would bring up to date the "Estimate of the Situation" in NSC 5501; on the basis of these recommendations and revisions, the Planning Board would draft a revision of NSC 5501 for submission to the Council.16

The Joint Chiefs of Staff chose not to make formal recommendations for the revision of NSC 5501. Rather, their views were presented informally by Major General F. W. Farrell, their Special Assistant for NSC Affairs, to Brigadier General C. H. Bonesteel, the Defense member of the Planning Board, who prepared consolidated comments for the Department of Defense.1 When presented to the Planning Board on 24 September, General Bonesteel's comments described NSC 5501 as an appropriate statement of national security policy, subject to updating and some differing emphasis. The indicated changes in emphasis, while generally compatible with views the Joint Chiefs of Staff had already expressed, fell short of encompassing the full extent of their previous objections to the policy in NSC 5501.18

The recommendations submitted by other agencies represented on the Planning Board also concluded that NSC 5501 remained generally valid. None of the agencies proposed any political or diplomatic actions to take advantage of the US nuclear superiority during 1956–1958, as recommended in the Killian Report. In fact, one respondent, the Central Intelligence Agency, observed that "we have found it difficult to envisage methods to support more effective or aggressive U.S. policies" during that period.

It was not surprising, then, that the draft revision of the basic national security policy, produced by the Planning Board on 8 February 1956 as NSC 5602, contained no recommendations for extraordinary political or diplomatic action during the next few years. All that remained of the idea was a slightly reworded repetition of the statement in NSC 5501 that programs for carrying out the general US strategy should be developed and conducted as a matter of urgency, with special emphasis in the period before the Soviets achieve nuclear parity.

The basic thrust of the policy was unchanged. Ruling out preventive war, the United States must seek to affect the conduct and objectives of the communist regimes in ways that furthered US security interests, fostering tendencies that

would lead them to abandon expansionist policies. The program of negotiation and influence should proceed under the cover of a powerful military deterrent designed to prevent further communist expansion until the persuasive policies could take effect. The revision of NSC 5501 that NSC 5602 represented lay mainly in the strengthening of some statements, the expansion of others, and the addition of new paragraphs. The text of the proposed revision was at least one quarter longer than NSC 5501.

In part the expansion of the text resulted from an attempt to spell out more fully, though still largely in general terms, the political strategy to be used in attempting to influence the communist bloc and the means of placing "more stress than heretofore on building the strength and cohesion of the free world," both of which had been called for in the previous policy paper. An addition under the latter heading was the statement that the United States should provide new weapons (non-nuclear) and advanced technology to allies capable of using them effectively and should seek relaxation of the atomic energy legislation to permit the progressive integration of nuclear weapons into NATO defenses, "at least to the extent of enabling selected allies to be able to use them upon the outbreak of war." In NSC 5602 there was also an increased emphasis on dynamic research and development for military application, since unless there was greater effort in this field, "U.S. weaponry may in the future fall qualitatively behind that of the USSR." The new paper repeated without change the portion of NSC 5501 that cautioned against excessive governmental expenditures that might undermine the US economy.

NSC 5602 was circulated to the Council members on 8 February 1956, with notice that it would be considered at an NSC meeting late in the month.19 The Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared their comments for submission through the Secretary of Defense. They proposed substantive changes in five of the paragraphs.

In its military section, NSC 5602 retained the following text from NSC 5501:

As part of its military forces, the United States must develop and maintain its effective nuclear retaliatory power, and must keep that power secure from neutralization or from a Soviet knockout blow, even by surprise. The United States must also continue accelerated military and non-mílitary programs for continental defense.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended adding at this point, "Other essential tasks during the initial period following a possible future attack would require the Navy to clear the ocean lanes, and the Army to do its part in meeting critical land situations." The paragraph had continued with the statement that “so long as the Soviets are uncertain of their ability to neutralize the U.S. nuclear retaliatory power, there is little reason to expect them deliberately to initiate general war." The Joint Chiefs of Staff would add a second element of Soviet uncertainty, regarding their ability "to isolate the United States from the rest of the allied world."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that their changes, while retaining appropriate emphasis on the requirement to maintain effective nuclear retaliatory power, would add other military tasks important to the objectives of the US military