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

Eisenhower Library, Eisenhower papers, Whitman file

Memorandum of Discussion at the 160th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, August 27, 1953¹

[Extracts]

top secret
eyes only

August 27, 1953

Present at the 160th Meeting of the Council were the Vice President of the United States, presiding; the Secretary of State; the Acting Secretary of Defense; the Acting Director, Foreign Operations Administration; the Director, Office of Defense Mobilization. Also present were the Secretary of the Treasury; the Acting Director, Bureau of the Budget; the Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission; the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; the Chief of Naval Operations; the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force; the Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps; Robert R. Bowie, Department of State; Frank C. Nash, Department of Defense; General Gerhart, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Robert Amory, Jr., Central Intelligence Agency; the Director of Central Intelligence; Robert Cutler, Special Assistant to the President; C. D. Jackson, Special Assistant to the President; the Acting White House Staff Secretary; the Executive Secretary, NSC; and the Deputy Executive Secretary, NSC.

There follows a summary of the discussion at the meeting and the chief points taken.

1. Report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff²

Mr. Cutler introduced the subject report by reading to the Council the President’s directive to the Secretary of Defense.³ Thereafter the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, read the memorandum to the Secretary of Defense dated August 8, 1953,³ and signed by himself, General Ridgway, Admiral Carney and General Twining, which constituted the report called for by the President. (A copy of this report is filed with the minutes of the 160th NSC meeting.)⁴

When he had finished reading the report, Admiral Radford pointed out that it had been drafted by its four authors before they had taken office and prior to any staff discussion, in the interests of preserving secrecy. Accordingly, the document represented the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before they had had an opportunity to become acquainted in detail with existing plans and programs. In sum, Admiral Radford stated that this report represented the view of the four individuals who had written it regarding the problems we faced today.

The Vice President inquired whether the military program set forth in this report would not cost more than the current program.

Admiral Radford replied that, on the contrary, it would ultimately cost less. It would, he pointed out, take time and money to make the redeployments and alter the commitments contemplated in the report, but once these changes had been made it would be possible to effect substantial savings.

The Vice President then inquired whether the report still contemplated the maintenance of United States bases overseas.

Admiral Radford answered “yes”. While the report certainly contemplated bringing back U.S. personnel in large numbers, we proposed to keep our bases and to try to get indigenous personnel to take over certain tasks in overseas bases now being performed by U.S. military personnel.

The Vice President then asked whether the report contemplated a complete change of United States foreign policy with respect to Europe.

Admiral Radford replied that it certainly contemplated a review of our commitments to NATO.

Secretary Dulles observed that he had hitherto assumed that, in the main, the purpose of our military bases on foreign soil was to deter global war or, if it occurred, to win the war. To him this involved the maintenance of bases around the perimeter of the USSR. “Am I correct”, asked Secretary Dulles, “in assuming that most of these bases would be maintained in terms of Admiral Radford’s report?”

Admiral Radford replied that Secretary Dulles’ assumption was correct. We would certainly continue to deploy naval and air forces abroad; though in the case of Air, at least, such forces would be rotated. All the bases would be maintained in a state of effective readiness even if U.S. personnel might not be fully deployed in each base all the time.

Secretary Dulles stated that the Joint Chiefs would certainly wish the United States to carry out a foreign policy designed to preserve these overseas bases.

Admiral Radford replied in the affirmative, and then asked if any of the other Chiefs wished to comment.

Admiral Carney stated that the members of the Council should bear in mind that certain conditions had been imposed on the Chiefs in the preparation of this study, particularly budgetary limitations. As a result, the authors of the report could discern only one course of action which would concurrently safeguard the national security and meet the budgetary limitation. So serious were the implications of the course of action selected that the views expressed in the report might, upon closer examination, prove unacceptable. Nevertheless, continued Admiral Carney, we look on the present proposal as a modification rather than as a reversal of existing basic security policy.

Secretary Dulles observed that the heaviest impact of the course of action recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff would be the reduction of United States land forces in Central Europe, Japan, and Korea. This would mean, he presumed, greater dependence, for preserving the security of these areas, on the deterrent force represented by air power and atomic weapons.

Admiral Carney replied that he was unable to give a categorical answer on this point. Air and naval forces alone, he believed, could never constitute an effective deterrent to enemy ground attack. Certainly, continued Admiral Carney, this report would involve a most careful examination of the question whether we want to try to fight a war on the overseas periphery—as remote as possible from the continental U.S.—or, on the contrary, greatly reduce this peripheral defense.

Admiral Radford then called attention to the fact that available trained reserves of military manpower were almost used up. Quite apart from the budgetary considerations, this fact had weighed heavily in the conclusions reached in the report. Our allies, said Admiral Radford, must be induced to supply more men for the task of common defense.

Secretary Dulles answered that he had said just this, and in very vigorous language, to the Prime Minister of Japan recently.⁵ He had urged the necessity for larger Japanese forces to provide the initial defense of Japan against Communist attack. Another factor which seemed to Secretary Dulles of great importance, was that dependence on mobile U.S. forces would largely obviate the very difficult public relations problem invariably occasioned when large U.S. forces were stationed in foreign countries. It was not, therefore, wholly a question “whether you’ve got the men to put there and the money to keep them there”, but the international friction which the presence of these forces produced nearly everywhere. In general, continued Secretary Dulles, he found himself very sympathetic to the report’s approach, but he was worried as to how the redeployment of U.S. forces could be carried out without causing foreign governments and peoples to conclude that the U.S. thought the menace of the USSR and of global war had diminished or vanished. There would be very great danger if we withdrew completely from Europe or from other areas where our security dictated that we maintain some troops. This was all the more true since the governments of many friendly nations were at the moment themselves tending to lower their defense sights. Moreover, most such governments simply could not afford to increase their defense contributions to a point which would take up the slack after our withdrawal.

In response to Secretary Dulles, Admiral Radford stated that the Chiefs had had no illusions as to the difficulty of the course they had chosen. It was necessary, however, to consider the counterweights to the withdrawal and redeployment of American forces. In the first place, Admiral Radford argued that it is generally realized by all friendly foreign nations that a strong United States is the greatest deterrent to the launching of global war by the Soviet Union. Secondly, the report had stressed the necessity for spelling out clearly, to our friends and to the enemy, our national objectives and policies. This would involve clearly stating that we are concentrating our great strength and not merely abandoning our allies.

Secretary Humphrey, who had thus far remained silent, stated that the report was “terrific”. He could not be more impressed. This was the most important thing that had happened in this country since January 20.

Secretary Kyes agreed that the Joint Chiefs’ report was an historic event.

General Ridgway then stated that he wished to make a few comments on what seemed to him a very profound question and problem. He said that he desired to emphasize in the first place that the present report did not constitute the corporate view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but rather the view of the individual Chiefs prior to their taking office. It was as dangerous to construe this report, on the one hand, as a withdrawal of American power into the Western Hemisphere as, on the other, for the U.S. to embark on preventive war. Certainly, said General Ridgway, he desired to make it crystal clear that he did not subscribe to the withdrawal of our forces stationed overseas. After all, the present report merely recommended a careful examination of the concept it set forth.

Secondly, General Ridgway insisted that he would not possibly subscribe to any theory that you could prevent war through the deterrent effect of any single military arm. Thirdly, implementation of the concept in this report would have to be most carefully phased and timed. Securing adequate protection of the vitals of the American continent did not mean that you abandoned Europe, though General Ridgway said he was personally ready to admit that the United States could not, at one and the same time, assure adequate defense of the continental United States and an adequate defense posture overseas.

The Vice President then inquired whether he was correct in assuming from this report that in the event of a major conflict the United States would use atomic weapons both in the tactical and in the strategic realm.

Admiral Radford replied that this was indeed the case, and that it would require public announcement regarding the use of atomic weapons. Admiral Radford went on to say that, as he saw it, we had been spending vast sums on the manufacture of these weapons and at the same time we were holding back on their use because of our concern for public opinion. It was high time that we clarified our position on the use of such weapons if indeed we proposed to use them.

Mr. Jackson then asked Admiral Radford if it had occurred to the authors of the report that even a slow and partial redeployment of U.S. forces back to this country would be interpreted widely abroad as a withdrawal to Fortress America.

Admiral Radford replied that this point had been prominent in the thinking of the Chiefs, but went on to say that it had seemed to him quite possible that the continuation of our present deployment presented problems almost as difficult. We could not, for example, hope to station troops forever in Japan. There was also the friction which the presence of such forces engendered. So you had to balance one evil against another.

Mr. Jackson commented that we must make our position clear before we proceeded to carry out our plans, if the worst effects of executing this policy were to be avoided.

Admiral Radford expressed agreement with this point, and noted the very strong sentiment in Congress for just such a move as seemed to be contemplated in this report. It would be easy for the Congress to misunderstand seriously the intent and extent of the redeployment.

Mr. Cutler remarked that he had been very much impressed with Admiral Radford’s comments on the manpower problem as it affected the armed forces, and asked whether Admiral Radford would not expand on this subject now. If the draft law expires next year, for example, how would we get the men necessary to do the job?

Before Admiral Radford could reply to Mr. Cutler, Secretary Kyes said he felt impelled to point out the very heavy responsibility that we all have to see to it that our American men and women in the armed forces were properly paid and pensioned. These men and women were, after all, the heart of our defense. They were not being adequately rewarded now, and our Congress and Government should feel obliged to recognize the need for proper compensation to these splendid men and women.

It then became the turn of General Twining to comment on the JCS report. He said he wished to concur in everything that Admiral Radford had stated. He added that each of the four authors of the report had in the first instance prepared a statement of his own views and had presented these views unilaterally. Nevertheless, all four papers closely resembled each other.

Secretary Kyes then inquired whether the authors of the report would have had different views if the budget problem had not been introduced. General Twining replied “no”.

The Vice President observed that money was obviously a consideration. But, he inquired, even if we had had the required money, would we have preferred to continue the policy and program which was currently in effect?

Admiral Radford replied that this had been Admiral Carney’s position, but not that of the others.

The Vice President then asked if it was the unanimous opinion of the four Chiefs that the United States was now over-extended. All four answered in the affirmative. In that case, said the Vice President, we would be obliged to redeploy our forces even if it were to prove possible to find the money to support the present deployment of our forces overseas.

Agreeing with the Vice President, Admiral Radford expressed the strong personal opinion that there were other factors than money alone which clearly dictated a redeployment. For one thing, it would be impossible for the United States to maintain armed forces of the present size and composition on any voluntary basis.

Mr. Flemming said that this was a problem which ODM had been intensively studying. He was therefore much interested in the statement in the report that any significant augmentation of our armed forces would compel us to go to full mobilization.

Secretary Humphrey added that not only would it be necessary to go to full mobilization because of manpower shortages, but it would also be necessary to resort to a controlled economy, since we were taking all that we could take out of our economy short of such controls.

The Vice President said that as he understood the present report, the Chiefs of Staff had first studied the enemy’s capabilities and intentions and had concluded that plans and programs which had been made in 1950 would inevitably be different from the plans that we would make at present. In 1950, the primary danger posed by the Soviets was an attack on the ground against Europe. At that time, moreover, we had, of course, tremendous atomic superiority over the Soviet Union. Now, however, or thinking in terms of, say, 1955, the enemy himself will have large atomic resources in addition to extensive ground forces. Would it be true, inquired the Vice President, that to the extent that the enemy has acquired sufficient atomic capability to launch a devastating attack on the United States, the problem of coping with this attack becomes more prominent, while the problem of coping with a conventional attack recedes?

In reply, Admiral Radford stated that after the outbreak of the Korean war in June 1950, we really did not know the enemy’s ultimate intentions, so all we could do was to build up our forces in all categories. This was sound. We commenced to build up our military establishment so that it could be ready for a full-scale war effort at a certain date. No military man, continued Admiral Radford, could conceivably disagree that we must continue to keep our armed forces built up. The atomic factor, however, now looms much larger, and the problem of continental defense is now much more important than it seemed in the summer of 1950.

Secretary Dulles then inquired why the general program set forth in the JSC report would cost less. Does it, for example, cost less to maintain troops at home than abroad?

Admiral Radford answered that it would cost less to maintain these forces in the United States, but, quite apart from this factor, one could anticipate a much higher enlistment rate in our armed forces if our soldiers and sailors did not have to contemplate the separation from their families which resulted from deployment overseas. Still other benefits would accrue to our training program and the use of our pool of specialists.

Secretary Dulles said that he took it that the present report had not gone into the question of the costs of our military assistance program. Admiral Radford replied that it had not done so in detail, and Secretary Dulles went on to inquire what would happen to this program now. There could be no denying that NATO is sick at the present time. There was great uncertainty and dissension among the member nations. Secretary Dulles planned to have a preliminary meeting about the first of October with the Foreign Ministers of the NATO states. This would be devoted largely to generalities as to the political situation, since the NATO powers were not as yet ready to talk about force goals for the next year. The latter subject would come up at a full NATO meeting in December. In any case, continued Secretary Dulles, in order to keep the spark of life alive in the NATO body, it would be necessary to have this October meeting. Accordingly, it was absolutely vital to make up our own minds as to our program and policy before these NATO meetings, and particularly prior to the December meeting. The time was all too short to educate and lead public opinion in the desired direction.

Secretary Humphrey responded to this statement by pointing out that we could not go on as we have been going another year. What with the hydrogen bomb, people are demanding a genuine reappraisal of our national security position. The stage was now all set. If we did not walk out onto the stage, the results would be terrible.

Secretary Dulles replied that while this might be true, the change of policy proposed in the JCS report could result in a grave disaster if we were not allowed sufficient time to prepare public opinion abroad for this change. Domestic opinion would, of course, be delighted with this new concept. The difficulties would come overseas.

From the standpoint of proper implementation, inquired the Vice President, would it not be desirable to relate the Joint Chiefs’ report to the Solarium study?

Secretary Humphrey recommended that the Solarium study be suspended, but Secretary Dulles replied that the study would be very useful.

Mr. Cutler commented that it seemed to him that the Council had reacted very favorably to the report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He then suggested that he should report this reaction to the President and inquire whether the President wanted (1) the Joint Chiefs to review the military program in detail and make specific recommendations for carrying out the concept of their report; (2) to inform the NSC Planning Board to take the views of the Joint Chiefs into account in their preparation of a new basic policy; and (3) to ask the Psychological Strategy Board to develop the best possible program to handle the psychological problems with our allies that the adoption of the Joint Chiefs’ concept would pose.

Secretary Humphrey thought Mr. Cutler’s proposal rather too involved. It seemed to Secretary Humphrey that the next important step was for the State Department to explore carefully and to digest the implications of adopting the JCS concept. On the military side there seemed little more to do.

Admiral Radford expressed his emphatic agreement with Secretary Humphrey that for the present no more study was needed by the Pentagon. What was required was a decision by the National Security Council as to the validity of the general concept advanced by the JCS report. Accordingly, the first thing was to provide the President with an expression of opinion by the members of the National Security Council.

Mr. Cutler, on the other hand, said that he felt it undesirable for the Council to offer the President any final opinion on this report until the State Department and the PSB had had an opportunity to study the report from the foreign policy and psychological viewpoints, and give their views to the Council.

Secretary Dulles expressed the opinion that the President would probably want the State Department to explore the whole matter. The problem was extremely delicate, and its solution would require time.

Mr. Cutler then asked whether the Council should leave the report substantially in the hands of the Secretary of State to head up the process of exploring whether and how its concept could be carried into effect.

Secretary Dulles concurred in this suggestion, and pointed out that after the State Department had reached an opinion on the report, he would certainly want the Psychological Strategy Board to study the public relations aspects.

Secretary Humphrey expressed his conviction that at present the United States lacked an adequate defense for its own vitals. Obviously, such defense must be provided, and quickly. This could be done in one of two ways: We can either do everything that we are doing now in providing for our national security, and add continental defense to the total; or else we can follow the view expressed in the present report, cut down on what we are doing elsewhere, and jack up our continental defense. It was up to the Secretary of State, continued Secretary Humphrey, to answer the significant question whether the course of action suggested by the Joint Chiefs’ report was a wise course of action.

Mr. Flemming said that while he agreed that much more attention must in the future be paid to the defense of the continental United States, he was not willing to commit himself in favor of the JCS report until the Secretary of State had studied all its foreign policy implications.

Secretary Dulles then informed the Council that in his recent speech to the American Bar Association in Boston⁶ he had urged that no single country, not even the United States, could, out of its own resources, adequately match the strength of a powerful totalitarian state. We were in no position to extract from our people what tyrannical rulers could extract from their people. The attempt to do so would “bust us”. Accordingly, the only way the free world could hope to maintain sufficient strength so that each of its members did not “go broke”, was the pooling of resources. The combined resources of the nations of the free world, if effectively employed, could be enough to offset the Soviet bloc. Therefore, to take any measures which destroyed the unity of the free world, or shifted the defense burden to the United States alone, would not be a real economy in the long run. The “art of the thing” is to reshape our policy and program in such fashion that we can still maintain enough free world cohesion to provide for a common pooling of resources. Isolation, warned Secretary Dulles, would cost the United States dearly in the long run. Secretary Dulles prophesied that this reshaping could probably be accomplished, but he pointed out that the whole free world was in the grip of nervous tension and greatly feared a revival of the Fortress America concept. We must handle ourselves carefully, therefore, if we would avoid disaster.

Secretary Kyes said that he thought Admiral Radford had specifically warned against any reversion to the idea of Fortress America. Admiral Radford replied that he had warned against such a course, and that the Chiefs had all appreciated the seriousness of the problems which Secretary Dulles had raised. He wondered, however, if there was not another aspect of maintaining large American forces overseas which was far from favorable. Would not such a course lead many of the nervous governments and peoples of Europe to continue to think that the United States was actively seeking war? The redeployment proposed in the present report might, if carried out, go far to spike the argument that this nation sought war. Admittedly, however, the problem of clarifying our intentions overseas was crucial.

Secretary Humphrey stated succinctly that the next move was the Secretary of State’s.

The Vice President observed that he assumed that the JCS concept was still a concept of standing up to the USSR and not knuckling down to it.

The Secretary of State then drew an analogy between the maintenance of troops in various states of the United States and the concept of deployment contained in the present report. He argued that the citizens of New York, Texas, or Massachusetts, did not consider themselves vulnerable to attack and invasion because our troops were quartered in Louisiana, Illinois, or some other state. We knew we were safe because, while our troops were concentrated, they could quickly be dispatched to the danger zone. What was necessary was to gain acceptance for this kind of concentration among the peoples of the free world. If we do not succeed in selling this interpretation of the proposed redeployment, we can anticipate that the governments and peoples of the free world will dismiss our proposed new policy as simply camouflaged isolation.

The Vice President pointed out that the idea of Fortress America had originally arisen during the great debate on foreign policy prior to American entry into the second World War. At that time it meant to its exponents that America could be defended, but Europe could not. We now believe, however, that we can defend all vital parts of the free world by applying the principle of concentration of forces. This, insisted the Vice President, was not the Fortress America of the past.

Thereafter, discussion centered on the nature of Council action on the report and on the relation between this report and the Solarium study. Mr. Cutler pointed out that this relationship would have to be worked out, and meanwhile every effort must be made to prevent leaks as to the content of the JCS report.

On the latter point, General Ridgway asked permission to repeat his belief that if NATO got any inkling of the content of this new concept, rightly or wrongly, the NATO powers would almost certainly construe it as an abandonment, and the consequences would be terrifying.

Admiral Carney expressed a different view. He said that the United States had always considered that it would withdraw its own contribution to the NATO forces at such time as the European states had achieved the capacity to defend themselves. In the parts of Europe, he went on, with which he was well acquainted, the authorities were not seeking the presence of our forces, but rather assistance in building their own. For this reason, Admiral Carney was convinced that the concept of redeployment could be sold without the consequences which some members of the Council feared.

Admiral Radford, agreeing with Admiral Carney, pointed out that we might well be obliged to redeploy our divisions in Germany whether we adopted the concept in the JCS report or not. If the EDC failed of ratification and it was decided that Germany should be neutralized, we would be obliged to withdraw U.S. forces from Germany, and Admiral Radford said he could think of nowhere else in Europe where they could be sent. Apart from the faint possibility that some of these forces could be sent to French Morocco, General Ridgway agreed that there was no place in Europe to which these troops could be sent.

At the conclusion of the discussion, Secretary Humphrey again warmly praised the work of the Joint Chiefs. He appeared to speak in this respect for all the Council members, to a greater or lesser degree.

The National Security Council:⁷

a. Noted the oral report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prepared at the direction of the President prior to their taking office.

b. Agreed to recommend to the President that the Secretary of State be authorized to explore, from the point of view of foreign policy, the possibility of adopting the concept set forth in this report.

Note: The action in b above subsequently approved by the President and transmitted to the Secretary of State for appropriate action.⁸ In approving this recommendation, the President stated for the record that the “concept” was a crystallized and clarified statement of this Administration’s understanding of our national security objectives since World War II.

. . . . . . .

S. Everett Gleason

1. Drafted by Deputy Executive Secretary Gleason on Aug. 28.
2. For information on the presumed origins of the report under reference, see the editorial note, p. 394.
3. Not found in Department of State files.
3. Not found in Department of State files.
4. The report has not been found. Regarding the minutes of NSC meetings, see footnote 1, p. 394.
5. For additional information on the Secretary’s conversation with Prime Minister Yoshida, see telegram 13 from Tokyo, Aug. 7, 1953, scheduled for publication in volume xiv.
6. Secretary Dulles’ address before the American Bar Association at Boston on Aug. 26, 1953 entitled “The U.S. Constitution and the U.N. Charter—An Appraisal,” is printed in Department of State Bulletin, Sept. 7, 1953, pp. 307–310.
7. Paragraphs a–b constitute NSC Action No. 889. (S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) files, lot 66 D 95, “NSC Records of Action”)
8. See the memorandum by the President to the Secretary of State, Sept. 8, p. 460.