Editorial Note
In an address before the Council on Foreign Relations at New York City on January 12, 1954, Secretary Dulles expounded the doctrine of “massive retaliation” which he had first enunciated during a speech at the National Press Club at Washington on December 22, 1953. Dulles subsequently discussed this doctrine at greater length in an article entitled “Policy for Security and Peace” in the magazine Foreign Affairs, April 1954, pages 353–364.
The massive retaliation doctrine emerged as part of a larger evolving “New Look” defense strategy enunciated in the NSC 153 and 162 Series and also in the NSC 151 Series; for documentation, see pages —ff. For documentation concerning “massive retaliation”, the evolving “New Look” defense strategy as it applied to Europe, and Secretary Dulles’ statement before the Thirteenth Session of the North Atlantic Council at Paris on April 23, 1954 setting forth the United States position regarding atomic and hydrogen weapons, see volume V, Part 1, pages 508 ff.