Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy, Volume I

Policy Planning Staff Files

Memorandum by the Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Nitze)¹

top secret

[Washington,] December 19, 1949.

The Problem: To state the tentative position of the State Department with respect to an acceleration of the program to test the feasibility of a thermonuclear reaction.

Assumptions:

1. That the present state of knowledge in the atomic field makes it appear that a thermonuclear reaction has at least a 50% probability of being possible either for us or for the USSR;

2. That the cost in dollars and diversion of technical personnel and materials will be approximately as outlined in the A.E.C. memorandum;²

3. That in the view of the Department of Defense knowledge as to whether or not such a reaction can be made to take place and knowledge as to its potentialities and limitations as a weapon are of importance to the national defense;

4. That it is not proposed at this time to decide whether, in the event such a reaction is proven to be feasible, actual weapons will be constructed or, if constructed, the conditions under which they might be employed.

Considerations: The Department of State is of the view

1. That the most immediate risks facing the security of the free world and ultimately of the U.S. are in the ideological, economic, and political aspects of the cold war;

2. That emphasis by the U.S. on the possible employment of weapons of mass destruction, in the event of a hot war, is detrimental to the position of the U.S. in the cold war;

3. That, even though it is probable that the USSR would actually use weapons of mass destruction only in the event of prior use by others, it is essential that the U.S. not find itself in a position of technological inferiority in this field;

4. That more is to be feared from a growing fission bomb capability and a possible thermonuclear capability on the part of the USSR than is to be gained from the addition of a thermonuclear possibility to our growing stockpile of fission bombs.

Conclusions: It is recommended

1. That the President authorize the A.E.C. to proceed with an accelerated program to test the possibility of a thermonuclear reaction;

2. That no decision be made at this time as to whether weapons employing such reaction will actually be built beyond the number required for a test of feasibility;

3. That the N.S.C. reexamine our aims and objectives in the light of the USSR’s probable fission bomb capability and its possible thermonuclear bomb capability;

4. That, pending such a review, no public discussion of these issues on the part of those having access to classified materials in this field be authorized.

1. A handwritten notation at the top of the source text indicates that copies of this memorandum were transmitted to Lucius D. Battle, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, presumably for the Secretary, to Savage, and to Arneson.
2. Reference is presumably to the memorandum by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, November 9; for text, see p. 576.