Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, National Security Affairs, Volume II, Part 1

S/S–NSC files, lot 63 D 351, NSC 5410

Statement of Policy Adopted by the National Security Council¹

top secret
NSC 5410/1

[Washington,] March 29, 1954.

Note by the Executive Secretary to the National Security Council on U.S. Objectives in the Event of General War With the Soviet Bloc

References:

A.

NSC 5410²

B.

Memo for NSC from Executive Secretary, same subject, dated March 22, 1954³

C.

NSC Action No. 1077⁴

D.

NSC 162/2⁵

The National Security Council, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Director, Bureau of the Budget, and the Acting Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, at the 190th Council meeting on March 25, 1954 adopted the statement on the subject contained in NSC 5410 with the changes therein which are set forth in NSC Action No. 1077–b.

As noted by the Council at the Council meeting, the President has given his tentative approval to the statement on the subject enclosed herewith as a planning guide for use by all appropriate executive departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, with the understanding that he is prepared to discuss this matter further with the Joint Chiefs of Staff if they so request.

Accordingly, the Annex to NSC 162/2 is hereby superseded.

James S. Lay, Jr.

[Enclosure]

Statement of Policy by the National Security Council

top secret

[Washington, undated.]

U.S. Objectives in the Event of General War With the Soviet Bloc

(Assumes that general war has been forced upon the United States, directly or indirectly. Reference to territory of the Soviet Union means the area included within the August, 1939, borders.)

1. To achieve a victory which will insure the survival of the United States.

2. To preserve and retain as many of its effective allies as possible.

3. To reduce by military and other measures the capabilities of the USSR to the point where it has lost its will or ability to wage war against the United States and its allies.

4. To prevent, by all means consistent with other U.S. objectives, the active participation of Communist China in the war on the USSR side. Failing this objective, to reduce by military and other measures the capabilities of Communist China to the point where it has lost its will or ability to wage war against the United States and its allies.

5. To render ineffective the control structure by which the Soviet arid Chinese Communist regimes have been able to exert ideological and disciplinary authority over individual citizens or groups of citizens in other countries.

6. To prevent, so far as practicable, the formation or retention, after the war, of military power in potentially hostile states sufficient to threaten the security of the United States.

7. In pursuing the above objectives, the United States should from the outset of general war:

a. Mobilize fully its moral, human and material resources.

b. Obtain the full participation of its principal allies in the collective war effort.

c. Seek the participation in or contribution to the collective war effort by other nations, as consistent in each case with attainment of the above objectives.

d. Divide, as practicable, the peoples and armed forces of the Soviet Union and Communist China from their communist regimes, and the peoples of the satellites from their Soviet-dominated regimes; and so far as possible enlist the active support of these peoples on the side of the United States and its allies in prosecuting the war against the Soviet regime.

e. Make clear that this war is not an attempt by the United States to impose by force of arms, a particular political or economic system upon the world, but rather a defense against efforts by the Soviet regime to do so.

f. While avoiding premature decisions or commitments, commence formulation of, and keep under continual review, plans with respect to such issues as terms of surrender, border and territorial rearrangements, the forms or administration of government in enemy territory, independence for national minorities, and the degree of post-war responsibility to be assumed by the United States in readjusting the inevitable political, economic and social dislocations resulting from the war; and exert U.S. influence at every opportunity during the war to shape political and other developments in ways favorable to U.S. post-war objectives.

8. The United States should maintain after the cessation of hostilities, U.S. and allied military strength adequate to achieve postwar objectives.⁶

1. Copies to the Secretary of the Treasury, the Directors of the Bureau of the Budget and Central Intelligence, and the Chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
2. Not printed.
3. Not found.
4. See footnote 10, supra.
5. Dated Oct. 30, 1953, p. 577.
6. In a memorandum to the NSC, May 3, Executive Secretary James S. Lay, Jr., noted that President Eisenhower had indicated at the 194th meeting of the NSC on Apr. 29 in NSC Action No. 1102 that he had considered the further views of the JCS as embodied in a memorandum of Apr. 22 and that the President had directed that NSC 5410/1 be used as a planning guide by all appropriate executive departments. A copy of Lay’s memorandum of May 3 is in S/P–NSC files, lot 12 D 1, NSC 5410.