dent's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, the Planning Board consisted of officials at the Assistant Secretary level representing the departments and agencies holding NSC membership. Advisers from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff also participated in the Board's business, the latter being an officer designated as the Special Assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for NSC Affairs. As working-level support there was a staff of Board Assistants consisting of officials detailed by the members of and advisers to the Planning Board. Those representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff were drawn from the office of the Special Assistant for NSC Affairs.

The function of the Planning Board was to prepare papers for consideration by the Council on any subject arising within the NSC system. Initial drafts were produced by the member agencies having primary interest and were refined by the Board Assistants working with others in their own departments. Submitted to the Planning Board, the resulting draft received further consideration until an agreed paper, or one in which divergencies were identified for resolution, was produced for submission to the Council. At the time the paper was distributed to the Council members, usually with notice of its scheduled discussion at a future NSC meeting, it went also to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for comment. The views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, forwarded through the Secretary of Defense, were then circulated to the Council members by the NSC Secretariat.

The National Security Council discussed and amended the paper in the light of member and adviser comments and submissions, including those of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Upon reaching agreement the Council "adopted" the paper and recommended to the President that he approve the policy statement it contained. Although the President normally participated in the discussion, he usually deferred the announcement of his decision for a few days. This practice was to some extent symbolic, emphasizing the fact that the decision was the prerogative solely of the President. It also allowed time for a final circulation of the formal record of NSC action among the members.

The President's approval of a policy statement included direction that it be implemented "by all appropriate executive departments and agencies of the U.S. Government." The Operations Coordinating Board then had the responsibility for integrating the activities of the departments toward this purpose. Headed by the Under Secretary of State, the Board included the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Directors of Central Intelligence and of the United States Information Agency, and several others, but had no JCS representation. The Operations Coordinating Board rendered periodic progress reports on the measures being taken to implement the policy, the results achieved, and changes in the world situation that affected the assumptions on which the policy was based, sometimes with a recommendation that its revision be considered.7

Thus the NSC system as it operated under President Eisenhower provided channels for presentation of the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at various stages in the process, including the initial drafting of the policy papers. Within the Planning Board and its supporting Board Assistants no practical distinction was maintained between the participants who represented NSC members and those representing NSC advisers such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The views of

each representative were recorded, whether joined in agreement or expressed in majority and minority positions. Amendments recommended by the JCS representative on the Planning Board were identified as such and did not necessarily conform to the stand taken by the Department of Defense representative.

The policy papers developed through the NSC system fell into three broad categories. First were the comprehensive statements of overall policy, taking into account the political, military, economic, and psychological aspects. Second were the papers dealing with geographic regions of the world or single countries. Finally there were papers dealing with specific functional areas such as disarmament, internal security, and trade policies.

Throughout the Eisenhower administration the central overall policy paper was titled "Basic National Security Policy." It was normally reviewed and revised annually. Papers in the other two categories expanded and developed specific policies set forth in their fundamentals in the basic national security policy. The substance of the paragraph on arms control, for instance, would receive detailed treatment in a paper devoted exclusively to that subject. Thus emerged an interlocking set of policy papers, defining national objectives and methods and measures for achieving them, which became the guide to action for all government agencies. The discussions of most critical importance surrounded the formulation of the basic national security policy, and this was the NSC paper with which the Joint Chiefs of Staff were most concerned.

A New Statement of National Security Policy: NSC 5501

s 1955 opened, the Eisenhower administration had just competed a review of its basic national security policy, and publication of NSC 5501 soon followed. The policy issued on 7 January 1955 was necessarily designed to meet the situation imposed by the basic Soviet hostility toward the noncommunist world. This fundamental antagonism had given rise to the cold war, which, since the end of World War II, had gradually frozen the major powers into two hostile camps. As a result, Europe was divided by the iron curtain into the communist East and the free West. Most significant was the division of Germany. Attempts by the victors of World War II to write a German peace treaty had failed, with the result that the rival great powers had established rival German states in their respective zones. By the beginning of 1955, the Western powers had negotiated the rearmament and entry into NATO of West Germany, an agreement that had only to be ratified by the several governments to enter into effect.

The rulers of Communist China also remained avowedly hostile to the United States, and the National Security Council believed they could be expected to seek expansion of their area of control while trying to expel US power and influence from the Far East. By the beginning of 1955, the Chinese communists were exerting military pressure on the Nationalist-held offshore islands scattered along the South China coast. These actions, if successful, were considered to be preliminaries to a possible assault on Taiwan. In Indochina, where the Chinese-supported Viet Minh

had scored an impressive victory over the French in 1954, it appeared doubtful that a viable anticommunist regime could maintain itself in South Vietnam. As a countermove to communist advances in Southeast Asia, the United States had taken a leading role in forming the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). At the start of 1955, the first SEATO Council meeting was about to take place.

The basic threat to US security identified in NSC 5501 was that "posed by the hostile policies and power, including growing nuclear power, of the Soviet-Communist bloc, with its international Communist apparatus." The basic problem confronting the United States was "how, without undermining fundamental U.S. values and institutions or seriously weakening the U.S. economy, to meet and ultimately to diminish this threat to U.S. security.”

The rapidly growing air-atomic capabilities of the Soviet Union were of major concern to the President and his advisers. "Already," read NSC 5501, "the USSR has the capacity to inflict widespread devastation on major free world countries allied to the U.S. and serious damage to the U.S. itself. Over approximately the next five years the USSR will almost certainly develop the net capability to strike a crippling blow at the United States." Beyond that was an even more ominous prospect. By 1963, and perhaps as early as 1960, the USSR was expected to possess operational intercontinental missiles, against which there was no known defense. The US program for intercontinental ballistic missiles "should approximate this timetable," and it was estimated that in the early 1960s the United States would still be capable of inflicting equal or greater damage on the Soviet Union in a nuclear exchange.

The probable result, in the Council's view, would be a situation of mutual deterrence, "in which each side would be strongly inhibited from deliberately initiating general war or taking actions which it regarded as materially increasing the risk of general war." War might occur, nevertheless, as the result of miscalculation or a major technological breakthrough by the Soviet Union, and it had to be recognized that "general war might occur as the climax of a series of actions and counteractions which neither side originally intended to lead to that result."

Thus a deliberate resort to war by the Soviet Union was held unlikely in either the current situation of US nuclear superiority or the future one of mutual deterrence. Instead, the communist nations were expected to continue strenuous efforts to weaken and disrupt the strength and unity of the free world and to expand the area of their control, principally by subversion and the support of insurrection, "while avoiding involvement of the main sources of Communist power." After attaining atomic plenty, the communist nations would probably increase the pace of their attempts at local expansion, with a bolder use of force or the threat of force. In the years immediately ahead, also, the Soviet Union would continue to take a conciliatory tone in foreign relations, speaking of peaceful coexistence and dangling before the world the hope of a relaxation of tensions. This was a refinement in Soviet diplomacy that had developed under Georgi M. Malenkov, who had succeeded to the Soviet premiership upon the death of Stalin in 1953.

The effect of this apparently conciliatory approach on allies of the United States was of particular concern to the National Security Council:

Whenever the Soviet "soft" line is dominant, our allies will be eager to explore it seriously, and will probably wish, in seeking a basis of "coexistence," to go to further lengths than the U.S. will find prudent. Even if the USSR offers no real concessions, these tendencies will probably persist, supported by large segments of public opinion. It will be a major task, therefore, to maintain the necessary unity and resolution in the free world coalition whenever and wherever the Soviets press their "peace offensive."

The lessening of allied cohesion had already become evident in 1954, when the United States had been unable to rally its allies to some form of united emergency action to prevent French military defeat in Indochina.

According to NSC 5501, preventive war as a means of stopping the growth of Soviet nuclear capabilities was an unacceptable course for the United States and its allies. Instead, "U.S. policies must be designed to affect the conduct of the Communist regimes... and to encourage tendencies that lead them to abandon expansionist policies." To this end the United States should seek to deter communist aggression while avoiding total war, maintain and develop the necessary will, strength, and stability in the free world to face the communist threat, and take other actions designed to "foster changes in the character and policies of the Soviet-Communist bloc regimes." Among other things, "the U.S. should be ready to negotiate with the USSR whenever it clearly appears that U.S. security interests will be served thereby."

Resolutely pursued, such a policy offered "the best hope of bringing about at least a prolonged period of armed truce, and ultimately a peaceful resolution of the Soviet bloc-free world conflict and a peaceful and orderly world environment." But failure to pursue it resolutely “could, within a relatively short span of years, place the U.S. in great jeopardy."

To carry out this general policy would require a flexible combination of military, political, economic, propaganda, and covert actions to enable the full exercise of US initiative. Moreover, programs to be applied "between now and the time when the USSR has greatly increased nuclear power should be developed as a matter of urgency."

The military element of this flexible combination must be capable both of deterring general war and of dealing with other forms of overt communist aggression. Within its military forces the United States must develop and maintain effective “nuclear-air retaliatory power," secure from neutralization or from a Soviet knockout blow, even by surprise, while also continuing accelerated programs for continental defense.

The United States must also have other ready forces, which, together with those of its allies, must be sufficient (a) to help deter any resort to local aggression, or (b) to punish swiftly and severely any such local aggression, in a manner and on a scale best calculated to avoid the hostilities broadening into total nuclear war. Such ready forces must be properly balanced, sufficiently versatile, suitably deployed, highly mobile, and equipped as appropriate with atomic capability, to perform these tasks; and must also, along with those assigned to NATO, be capable of discharging initial tasks in the event of general war.

The circumstances under which the atomic capability included in the ready forces might be used were treated in another important paragraph of NSC 5501.

The ability to apply force selectively and flexibly will become increasingly important in maintaining the morale and will of the free world to resist aggression. As the fear of nuclear war grows, the United States and its allies must never allow themselves to get into the position where they must choose between (a) not responding to local aggression and (b) applying force in a way which our own people or our allies would consider entails undue risk of nuclear devastation. However, the United States cannot afford to preclude itself from using nuclear weapons even in a local situation, if such use will bring the aggression to a swift and positive cessation, and if, on a balance of political and military consideration, such use will best advance U.S. security interests. In the last analysis, if confronted by a choice of (a) acquiescing in Communist aggression or (b) taking measures risking either general war or loss of allied support, the United States must be prepared to take these risks if necessary for its security.

In all but the extreme circumstances just mentioned, however, US policy must be predicated upon the support and cooperation of major allies and certain other free world countries, who were expected to furnish military bases and provide their share of military forces. The United States should, therefore, continue to provide military and other assistance to dependable allied nations where necessary to enable them to contribute to the collective military power of the free world. "The basic strategy and policy of the U.S. must be believed by our appropriate major allies generally to serve their security as well as ours."

Further essential elements of the US basic national security policy included internal security and civil defense programs, an informed public, an adequate mobilization base, and an effective intelligence system. Finally, reflecting the basic economic philosophy of the Eisenhower administration, NSC 5501 contained a caution that "the level of expenditures for national security programs must take into full account the danger to the U.S. and its allies resulting from impairment, through inflation or the undermining of incentives, of the basic soundness of the U.S. economy." The Federal Government should continue its determined effort to achieve a balanced budget while recognizing, nevertheless, that the United States must continue to meet the necessary costs of the programs essential for its security.

The comments submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the development of NSC 5501 showed them to be less than satisfied with the new policy statement. They believed that while it contained a realistic appraisal of the gravity of the Soviet-communist threat, the paper failed to state in clear, simple terms, the major objectives US policy was designed to attain. The prime objective, in the JCS view, should be "to create, prior to the achievement of mutual atomic plenty, conditions under which the United States and the free world coalition are prepared to meet the Soviet-communist threat with resolution and to negotiate for its alleviation under proper safeguards." Instead, they found, the policy paper sought a solution to the problem of US security mainly by attempting to bring about a reorientation of the communist regimes through persuasion leading to mutually acceptable settlements. The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed it must be recognized