Office of the Historian

S/S–NSC files, lot 66 D 148, “Solarium”

Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Cutler)1

top secret
[Washington,] July 31, 1953.

Points for Consideration in Drafting New Policy

(1)
To build and maintain, at the lowest feasible cost, U.S. capability for a strong retaliatory offensive, a base for mobilization, and continental defense.
(2)
To concentrate on creating: (a) strong, independent, and self-sufficient groupings of nations, friendly to the United States, centered on Western Europe (including Germany) and on the Far East (including Japan) and (b) a position of strength in the Middle East.
(3)
To confine future foreign assistance:
(a)
to progressively lessened support of the regional grouping in Western Europe as it becomes self-sufficient;
(b)
to supporting the development in longer term of the regional grouping in the Far East and the position of strength in the Middle East.
(c)
to limited military aid and technical and economic assistance to other free nations, according to the calculated advantage of such aid to the U.S. world position.
(4)
To determine the areas in which any clearly recognizable advance by Soviet bloc military forces beyond present borders will be considered by the United States as initiating general war between itself and the Soviet bloc.
(5)
To take selected aggressive actions of a limited scope, involving moderately increased risks of general war, to eliminate Soviet-dominated areas within the free world and to reduce Soviet power in the Satellite periphery.
(6)
To take action, other than military, to reduce indigenous Communist power in the nations of the free world.

Note: The foregoing policy—

(1)
estimates the risk of general war resulting from aggressive action directed at the Soviet bloc as less grave at the present time than did Task Force “A”.
(2)
accepts moderately increased risks of general war by taking some of the aggressive actions against the Satellites proposed by Task Force “C”.
(3)
aims during the near future to create a “climate of victory”, to bolster the morale and strength of the free world while forcing the Soviet bloc on the defensive.

  1. This memorandum appears to be a revision of the paper discussed by the NSC at its 157th meeting on July 30; for an extract of the memorandum of discussion, see supra.↩