Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, National Security Affairs; Foreign Economic Policy, Volume I

711.59/6–650

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Executive Secretariat of the Department of State (McWilliams)

top secret

[Washington,] June 6, 1950.

Meeting of Advisory Committee,¹ June 6

Participants:	Mr. Webb
	Mr. Jessup
	Mr. Barrett
	Mr. Fisher
	Mr. Nitze
	Mr. McWilliams

Mr. Nitze summarized the paper for discussion—a statement of differences in planning assumptions with respect to NSC 68 between the NSRB and the Department.² The NSRB has put forward a maximum program of civil defense which essentially is designed to care for the civilian population after a war has started. The Department believes that we can not do everything under the guise of NSC 68 and that we should concentrate on the things we can do which we feel will help prevent a possible war rather than to proceed on the assumption that a war will occur in the near future and to plan what should be done then.

Mr. Fisher pointed out that he asked to have this subject put on the agenda because this is the first time we are meeting this argument which will be presented many more times in the future. He pointed out that by indicating the necessity of building up forces you automatically create a frame of mind which considers that war is immediate and this in turn makes it impossible to achieve our objective which is preventing a war.

Mr. Webb agreed that this is so and pointed out that the President and the Bureau of the Budget would be subjected to all sorts of pressure for expanding programs. He pointed out that the power people would want to expand and would need a greater amount of money and likewise the public roads people would say that we must have more and better roads and every other agency would press for more money to expand their programs. It was agreed that this sort of thing must be headed off—that it required firm leadership to sort out the things which are important to be done and not agree to programs such as these mentioned above which do not contribute to the primary objective of preventing war.

The consensus of the group was that the position we should take with NSRB, and also in the future in regard to this issue, is that we must concentrate on the political, psychological and defensive mechanism to prevent dropping of bombs and an out-break of war. We must proceed with the assumption that we can not do everything and we should concentrate only on those things which set the above pattern. We must reject the idea that we are fighting a war tomorrow because, when planning is done with that assumption, the inevitable result will be to make the assumption come true.

W. J. McWilliams

1. The Under Secretary’s Advisory Committee, consisting of certain principal officers of the Department other than the Assistant Secretaries for geographic areas, first met on May 9. The consensus of that meeting was that the Committee should be used to provide high-level policy guidance on major foreign policy problems. It was agreed that aspects of NSC 68 should be discussed at future meetings. (611.00/5–1050)
2. Reference is to document AC D–1, June 5, “Differences in Planning Assumptions in NSC 68,” not printed.