these meetings the recommendation of Secretary Wilson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a much shorter and more positive statement was not pursued. The Council turned its attention instead to the text of NSC 5602 and the proposed amendments to it. Of the five substantive changes suggested by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council readily accepted their version of the mobilization base paragraph and added to the arms control statement the sentence stressing the vital importance of effective inspection procedures. The Council adopted the JCS caution against making concessions in advance or placing trust in Soviet faithfulness to written agreements, but this was entered as an addition to the negotiation paragraph, rather than a substitution for its text as the Joint Chiefs of Staff had wished. The JCS attempt to include specific mention of the missions of the Army and Navy in the initial stages of general war was rejected.

A decision on the final JCS proposal, regarding the use of nuclear weapons in operations short of general war, was deferred after lengthy discussion. In its support, Admiral Radford had explained that nuclear weapons were rapidly being integrated into the armed forces, so that maintaining a distinction between circumstances in which they would or would not be used was becoming steadily more difficult. To this President Eisenhower replied that he agreed from a strictly military point of view, but political realities, namely the opposition of US allies to the use of nuclear weapons, could not be ignored.

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles agreed with the President, stressing that a virtually automatic recourse to nuclear weapons when countering local aggression would forfeit the support of allies. But Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey took another view on grounds of cost. Maintaining different kinds of forces for different kinds of wars was too expensive; the United States should use nuclear weapons in all types of warfare. After hearing these views the President ordered the matter held in abeyance. The Council members did not return to it at their further meeting on 1 March, where they reached agreement on all other parts of NSC 5602.

On 15 March 1956 President Eisenhower approved the amended version of the paper, which was issued as NSC 5602/1. The key statement on nuclear weapons had received a slight extension but was otherwise unchanged:

Nuclear weapons will be used in general war and in military operations short of general war as authorized by the President. Such authorization as may be given in advance will be determined by the President.

The parallel passage regarding use of chemical and bacteriological weapons in general war remained, but with radiological weapons omitted, it having been observed that the state of their development made it premature to mention them in the policy. Sponsored by the Department of State, the following paragraph had been added:

If time permits and an attack on the United States or U.S. forces is not involved, the United States should consult appropriate allies before any decision to use nuclear, chemical or bacteriological weapons is made by the President.29

JCS Reaction to the New National Security Policy

or the remainder of the period covered by this volume, NSC 5602/1 was the

For the sentiment of basic national security policy. In the area of military policy,

the new paper, like NSC 5501 before it, fell short of providing the clear guidance the Joint Chiefs of Staff would require to translate basic policy into specific plans and programs. Critical aspects of the policy remained open to interpretation, as would be apparent when it came to apportioning limited resources between the forces to deter or counter a major attack and the forces to oppose other forms of aggression. The new policy simply named both types as essential elements of the US security forces, leaving it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to argue out their differing views on the proper balance to be struck between them.

Similarly, the degree of reliance to be placed on nuclear weapons was not precisely delineated. The policy provided for the use of nuclear weapons in general war and at least contemplated employing them in other military operations. In the future consideration of this matter, some would be impelled toward a greater degree of reliance by the inherent momentum of the increasing availablity of nuclear weapons and their integration in the armed forces in numbers that seemed to justify regarding them as conventional armament. The principles of the New Look, which had now shaped the military policy of the United States and the structure of its armed forces for three years, logically pointed toward greater rather than less dependence on nuclear arms. But others would find reason to question a preponderant emphasis on nuclear weapons in those portions of NSC 5602/1 that sketched an approaching state of mutual deterrence and stressed considerations of allied unity, which seemed to make it increasingly less likely that use of the weapons would be found appropriate in most circumstances.

These features of NSC 5602/1, together with the general terms in which most of its provisions were cast, made it possible, as one Chief of the period later pointed out, "to find language in the Basic National Security Policy to support almost any military program." 30

The more immediate reaction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was, once again, to the overall aspects of the policy. On 12 March 1956, after the National Security Council had completed its deliberations but three days before the President approved NSC 5602/1, the Joint Chiefs of Staff addressed a memorandum on "Military and Other Requirements for Our National Security" to the Secretary of Defense. Closely limited in distribution, the memorandum expressed a grave concern that the manner of implementing US policy did not match the requirements of the peril and urgency cited both in NSC 5501 and in the revised policy statement that was shortly to supersede it.

Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff are in agreement that the military elements of the present national strategy have been generally adequate, they are of the opinion that in spite of our military posture, the free world situation is gradually deteriorating. Unless adequate steps are taken to change this trend, the United States will, in a span of a relatively short number of years, be placed in great jeopardy. Our basic national security objectives remain valid to the extent that they are feasible, but require vigorous new actions if they are to be attained....

The deterioration of the free world position leads the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the conclusion that either the programs for general strategy have not been resolutely implemented or that the general strategy is inadequate to cope with the situation now confronting the United States as the leader of the free world.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff were convinced that the problems of the United States in its leadership role were primarily in the political, social, and psychological fields. Specifically, they believed that there was a feeling throughout the world that the United States lacked the essential determination to act in time:

Slowness of reaction time can be a critical weakness in the implementation of any national policy. Decisiveness is endangered by the need to obtain concurrences of our allies and by the requirements of our constitutional processes.

While disclaiming any particular competence in this largely political field, the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested three measures that might help restore the confidence of the free world in US national determination: the Congress should grant the President, on request, the authority to take quick action in times of crisis, to include the use of armed forces; the Congress should also grant much broader authority than previously existed to expend funds or deliver equipment without delay for military and economic aid projects; finally, national policy must not include the requirement that major allies always concur in a US determination to oppose aggression. On the last point, the Joint Chiefs of Staff considered that "if there has been any single tendency in the execution of our national security policy which has operated against our national interest in the past few years, it has been an over-concern for the acquiescence of allies in major crises." 31

The JCS memorandum, to which there is no recorded reply, reflected the same disquiet over a perceived deterioration in the free world position that had earlier led the Joint Chiefs of Staff to recommend a complete restudy of the basic national security policy as a matter of urgency. Even though endorsed by the Secretary of Defense, this course had not been taken by the National Security Council.

Dissatisfaction with the new policy continued within the Department of Defense. Before the paper was two months old, the Under Secretary of the Navy recommended to Secretary Wilson that the Joint Chiefs of Staff undertake an extensive draft revision of NSC 5602/1, to produce a Defense version of the basic national security policy.32 This suggestion was not followed. Instead, many of the critical aspects of the policy were argued out by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the course of preparing the joint strategic plans to implement it. As will be recounted in the next chapter, the JCS deliberations more clearly defined the issues and led to further decisions and interpretations by the President and the Secretary of Defense, supplementing the policy in NSC 5602/1.

Strategic Planning

2

In the National Security Act of 1947 the first listed duty of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was "to prepare strategic plans and to provide for the strategic direction of the military forces." During the first five years following enactment of the basic legislation the Joint Chiefs of Staff discharged their planning responsibility in a rather unsystematic manner. Plans were drawn to meet particular contingencies, but they were not prepared or revised on a regular schedule. The plans were not interrelated in a comprehensive system, nor were they scheduled to provide timely guidance for the necessary annual decisions concerning budgets, force levels, deployments, and mobilization.1

The JCS Program for Planning

Unti

【ntil late in 1949 the unsystematic approach to planning resulted from the relatively small size of the Joint Staff. The National Security Act Amendments of that year authorized enlarging the Joint Staff to 210 officers, more than doubling the number previously assigned, but not many months later the outbreak of the conflict in Korea imposed new requirements on the JCS supporting organization. Thus, although the Director, Joint Staff, had submitted recommendations for placing JCS planning on a systematic basis as early as December 1949, a formal JCS "Program for Planning" was not adopted until mid-1952.

On 14 July 1952 the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued JCS Memorandum of Policy (MOP) 84, which called for the preparation each year of joint strategic plans for the long, mid, and short range. The Joint Long-Range Strategic Estimate (JLRSE) would treat the five-year period starting on 1 July approximately five years after approval of the estimate by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was designed to translate US national policy into long-range supporting military strategy and objectives and also provide guidance for research by identifying desirable objectives for technical development.