Office of the Historian

795.00/11–950

Memorandum by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (Smith) to the National Security Council 1

top secret
Washington, 9 November 1950.

In the present situation, the Central Intelligence Agency, with the concurrence of the Intelligence Advisory Committee, would restate previously agreed estimates (J.I.C. 531/102 and N.I.E. 23) in the following terms:

1.
To date there is insufficient evidence to indicate that the USSR intends to commit Soviet forces overtly in Korea. However, the commitment of Chinese Communist forces, with Soviet material aid, indicates that the USSR considers the Korean situation of sufficient importance to warrant the risk of general war.
2.
The probability is that the Soviet Union considers that the U.S. will not launch a general war over Chinese Communist intervention in North Korea and the reaction thereto. The principal risk of general war is through the exercise of Soviet initiative which the Kremlin continues to hold. The probability is that the Soviet Government has not yet made a decision directly to launch a general war over the Korean-Chinese situation. There is a good chance that they will not in the immediate future take such a decision. At what point they will take a decision to launch a general war is not now determinable by Intelligence.

It is our opinion that action by U.N. forces to attack troop concentrations or air fields north of the Yalu River, or to pursue enemy aircraft into Chinese territory would not increase the already substantial risk that the situation may degenerate into a general war involving Russia. In other words, the Kremlin’s basic decision for or against war would hardly be influenced by this local provocation in this area. However, such provocation would probably materially increase the extent of Chinese Communist reaction in Korea proper. (See par. 7, National Intelligence Estimate No. 2.)

Walter B. Smith
  1. This memorandum was read at the 71st meeting of the National Security Council on November 9; for an account of that meeting, see Truman, Years of Trial and Hope, pp. 378–380.↩
  2. Not printed. Documentation on the work of the U.S.-U.K. Joint Intelligence Committee is scheduled for publication in volume iii.↩
  3. Dated November 8, p. 1101.↩