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

PPS files, lot 64 D 563, “NSC 79, 1952”

Paper Drafted by Louis J. Halle of the Policy Planning Staff¹

[Extract]

top secret

[Washington,] December 29, 1952.

United States and Allied War Objectives in the Event of Global War

. . . . . . .

summary of conclusions

1. Our present conflict with the Soviet Union cannot be definitively ended in our favor short of the elimination or radical modification of the Soviet regime. While this would be the most desirable outcome, our national interest might be adequately secured by success that fell short of this absolute attainment. It could not be set as an objective of the conflict itself, moreover, in the absence of global war, without strongly implying that our national interest requires global war, which would be contrary to our basic policy of averting war.

2. A global war would represent a phase of the present conflict which was not necessarily final. Our prime objective in that phase would be to achieve the greatest possible improvement of our position in the conflict, subject to the overriding requirement that the cost be less than the destruction of the elements of our own civilization.

3. Our immediate war-aims would be (first) survival through strategic defense, and (second) assurance of survival through victory.

4. We would work for the re-establishment, after the elimination of the Soviet system, of a world of diversity in which all nations could enjoy reasonable scope for development in accordance with their respective needs and dispositions, under the protection of an effective rule of law that insured their peace and security.

5. Such a rule of law would require the establishment of a world authority equipped to enforce minimum standards of behavior on the nations, which authority would prescribe what military forces each nation might maintain, and what forces, if any, each should hold available to it for enforcement action.

6. The United States, while subject to the authority, might expect to have, as the preponderant power in the world, the leading role in its direction; but its position of leadership would be held as trustee for the entire world community of nations, and its special responsibility would have to be discharged on behalf of that community in order for it to count on the community’s continuing consent to its leadership.

7. With respect to Russia, our objective after the elimination of the Soviet regime and system would be its replacement by a respectable native regime with which we could conclude a genuine peace of mutual agreement, leading to its full participation in the organization of the post-war world. This would require us to limit the identification of our enemy in the war to the Soviet regime and system, eschewing any doctrine of national or popular guilt.

8. A genuine peace with a Russian successor government would have to preserve Russia’s essential territorial integrity and should leave Russia (like any other country with respect to which such determination could be made) neither too strong for the security of others nor too weak for the discharge of its proper responsibilities in the world. This suggests that Russian territory might well be retracted at least to the 1938 borders of the Soviet Union. The postwar status of the Baltic states cannot now be determined, but there is no occasion for the United States to change its present official position of recognizing their right to independence. The post-war status of the Ukraine, White Russia, and the other territories occupied by “minor nationalities” should, for the most part, be determined between them and the successor government of Russia as an essentially domestic matter. We should refrain from committing ourselves to their independence or quasi-independence, we should refrain from guaranteeing them the opportunity of self-determination, and we should refrain also from committing ourselves to their continued association with Great Russia. In sum, we should not make ourselves responsible for determining or maintaining their post-war status.²

1. This paper was the latest product of the ongoing project initiated by NSC 79 of August 1950. See the memorandum by Bohlen with enclosure, Dec. 19, 1952, supra.

2. On Jan. 14, 1953, S. Everett Gleason, Acting Executive Secretary of the NSC, transmitted to the senior Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Central Intelligence Agency members of the NSC Senior Staff a preliminary draft report on the subject of U.S. and Allied war objectives in the event of global war prepared pursuant to the record of the NSC Senior Staff meetings of Sept. 6, 1950 and Feb. 23, 1951 by the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State. A copy of the memorandum of transmittal is in S/P–NSC files, lot 62 D 1, NSC 79 Series. The preliminary draft report is not attached; presumably it was the paper printed here.

   The only documentation found in Department of State files pertaining to the NSC project after Jan. 14, 1953 is a 40-page draft paper on U.S. war objectives written by Halle and dated Feb. 20, 1953. There is no indication as to whether this paper represented a further elaboration of the Dec. 29 report or if it was drafted at the formal request of any individual, staff, agency, or bureau. A copy of the Feb. 20 report is in PPS files, lot 64 D 563, “NSC 79”. The NSC Planning Board resumed consideration of the war objectives project in the spring of 1953 and incorporated it into the NSC 153 Series of June 1953. NSC 153/1, June 10, 1953, is printed on p. 378.