Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, National Security Policy, Volume XIX

117. Memorandum of Discussion at the 320th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, April 17, 1957¹

Washington, April 17, 1957

[Here follow a paragraph listing the participants at the meeting and agenda items 1–2. For item 2, “Review of Basic National Security Policy: Foreign Economic Issues Relating to National Security,” see volume X, page 703.]

3. Review of Basic National Security Policy: Political Elements of National Strategy (NSC 5602/1; Memo for NSC from Executive Secretary, subject: “Review of Basic National Security Policy: Proposed Council Agenda”, dated February 19, 1957; NSC 5707; NSC 5707/1; NSC 5707/2;NSC Action No. 1675; NSC 5707/3; NSC 5707/4; NSC 5707/5;NSC 5707/6)²

Mr. Cutler next invited the attention of the Council to NSC 5707/6. In the course of a short briefing, Mr. Cutler pointed out that the time was short, and that the Council might desire to pass over questions 3, 4 and 5 of NSC 5707/6 on grounds that these questions had previously been treated in prior discussion papers.³ Since the Council accepted Mr. Cutler’s judgment, he invited their attention to the sixth question, reading as follows:

“6. How can the United States help to make the UN a more effective instrument for safeguarding the peace?

• “a. Should the United States seek to create a permanent UN military organization (or otherwise strengthen the UN as an instrument for the settlement of international disputes)?
• “b. In view of enlarged UN membership, (1) how can the United States most effectively utilize UN machinery to settle disputes and enforce security? (2) Is it feasible or desirable to limit UN activities in conformity with the UK view?”

Mr. Cutler called first on Secretary Dulles. The latter replied that he did not believe that a permanent UN military force was a realistic goal at the present time. He said he had been party to the whole operation in past years which attempted to set up such an organization. He also thought it not practical to earmark specific forces of member nations for UN use. In point of fact, the UN forces in the Middle East were proving effective, but this had been done on an ad hoc basis. If there had been a permanent UN force it would not have worked in the Middle East because it would have been made up of British, French and, indeed, possibly of Soviet contingents. The President said he agreed with Secretary Dulles’ conclusions, and Admiral Radford stated that as far as he was concerned it was “simply impossible” at this time to create a permanent UN military organization.

As to question 6–b, the President stated that there was really not much use talking about it. The State Department would have to wrestle with each problem in this area as it came up and play the music by ear.

Secretary Dulles commented that he was not quite certain of the validity of the statement that the United Kingdom desired to limit UN activities. It was true that not so very long ago the British had been very critical of the fact that the Guatemalan problem had been solved by recourse to the machinery of the Organization of American States. Now, however, they found the shoe on the other foot in the case of Cyprus, and they wished that they had some kind of regional organization, consonant with the UN Charter, which would help them solve such knotty problems as that presented by Cyprus.

Mr. Cutler then turned to question 7, which he read as follows:

“7. Assuming that the United States should maintain its secure retaliatory nuclear capabilities in the absence of a safeguarded disarmament agreement, are there measures in the field of control of armaments which could reduce the likelihood of resort to force? For example:

• “a. What minimum measures of control might discourage or prevent countries now without nuclear weapons from developing such weapons?
• “b. Would the exchange of ground observers lessen the chances of a Soviet nuclear attack?
• “c. Should the United States review its present policy that any agreement on thinning out or withdrawal of opposing forces in Europe must be contingent upon prior German reunification?
• “d. Should the United States consider agreements for control of armaments in other areas of tension, e.g., the Middle East?”

He explained what lay behind this question in terms of a written brief (copy of which is filed in the minutes of the meeting).⁴

The President said he felt obliged to quarrel with an assumption which underlay question 7 as set forth particularly in Mr. Cutler’s briefing. This, said the President, was the assumption that there would be no security for either the United States or the USSR if each of them kept on building up its nuclear capabilities. The President believed that security might result from such a course of action, for the good and sufficient reason that each side would realize the folly of resorting to a course of action in the shape of nuclear general war in which each country would be completely destroyed. This was the security of the stalemate.

Secretary Dulles said that what worried him most in this problem area was the probability that unless the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR found some safe way to stop the building up of nuclear weapons stockpiles, other countries would presently begin to fabricate nuclear weapons. Such a development would certainly decrease the security of the United States. The President stated his thorough agreement with Secretary Dulles’ position.

Mr. Cutler then referred to a recent telegram from Governor Stassen which raised much the same question as question 7 in a somewhat different context.⁵ Apropos of this, the President said he was greatly interested in the various statements which suggested an apparently greater Soviet interest in disarmament than they had shown in any previous meetings of the Disarmament Subcommittee.

At this point Secretary Wilson intervened to say that the discussion up to this point has been rather in the stratosphere. What the Council really needed to consider was what was to be done about the Defense Department programs for the fiscal years 1959 and beyond. What would be the shape of our military programs for the fiscal years 1959, 1960 and 1961? At least, continued Secretary Wilson, he was certain that in these years we would require some reduction in our personnel strengths which could be compensated for through the increased fire power of our new weapons. As for fiscal year 1958 expenditures, Secretary Wilson said he could safely forecast that they would be over $38 billion and perhaps close to $39 billion.

Admiral Radford added that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been facing some extremely tough problems in trying to think ahead even as far as fiscal year 1960. For example, should we continue to procure B–52 bombers, or should we shift to B–58s, or should we think largely in terms of guided missiles? Admiral Radford added his strong feeling that there would have to be a very drastic reduction in the current level of expenditure for continental defense in order to provide and maintain our offensive capabilities. The Joint Chiefs were up against this problem right now because the demands of our continental defense programs were simply skyrocketing.

From this subject the Council went into a discussion of the program for providing an atomic-powered aircraft. Secretary Wilson said that this was a most costly program, although he had succeeded in reducing funds allocated to it from the amount of $500 million a year to $150 million a year. The President expressed astonishment and anger. He did not believe, he said, that the atomic-powered aircraft could be shown to be in any sense a useful military asset. He believed that two or three scientists in a room and a budget of a few thousand dollars was all that should be devoted to this and similar programs. He added the comment that everyone seemed to be “going nuts” on research and development programs. Secretary Wilson, Admiral Strauss and Mr. Brundage indicated that they would confer shortly and present to the President a report and recommendations on the program for the development of an atomic-powered aircraft.

Mr. Cutler pointed out that although the time was short, he very much wished the Council to look at question 12 on NSC 5707/6, which read as follows:

“12. Can the United States confront the Soviets with choices which, without sacrifice of U.S. security, might offer the Soviets a greater sense of security in return for sacrifices of other Soviet interests (e.g., arms control of [or] force reductions in return for sacrifice of Russian positions in Germany, Eastern Europe or the Near East)?”

In the course of briefing the Council on what lay behind this question (a copy of the briefing note⁶ filed in the minutes of the meeting), Mr. Cutler referred to the staff study recently completed by the Department of State on the withdrawal of forces from Central Europe. While he noted that this study (a copy of which is likewise filed in the minutes of the meeting)⁷ had reached the conclusion that under existing circumstances and at the present time the United States should not seek an agreement with the Soviet Union by which Soviet forces would be withdrawn into the Soviet Union and U.S. forces withdrawn from Germany, Mr. Cutler pointed out that circumstances might change in the future. It was possible that we should either find ourselves compelled to bring back our forces deployed in Western Europe, or would find it desirable to do so. Accordingly, he would recommend that the Council now authorize a very high-level and fully secret study of this question and our response to it if the circumstances did indeed change.

The President replied that his impression of the matter was that the whole thing was in the political stage. It was accordingly up to the State Department to make proposals with respect to the area covered by question 12, rather than for the National Security Council to do so. If the United States once got a military capability in ballistic missiles, we would be just as safe in defending ourselves from the United States [Soviet Union] alone as we would be in having U.S. forces deployed in Western Europe. In short, our selfish interest in Central Europe was a political rather than a military interest, so that suggestions for the study called for by Mr. Cutler were really for the future. Meanwhile, the State Department should be ready to advise us as to what course of action to follow if any of the matters raised by Mr. Cutler’s briefing note came up for decision.

Admiral Radford pointed out that in connection with the studies which the Joint Chiefs were making as to the shape of the Defense Department programs for fiscal years 1959, 1960 and 1961, which he had mentioned earlier, the JCS would be examining alternative force structures. They would come up with various choices which the NSC would have to discuss and decide; so part of the problems mentioned in paragraph 12 and in Mr. Cutler’s remarks were already the subject of very urgent study in the Defense Department.

The President stated that he had no particular objection to having such matters as were covered in paragraph 12 the subject of study at the present time. He still insisted, however, that the deployment of U.S. divisions in Germany was not justifiable from a political point of view.

Admiral Radford warned that if we proposed in the future to deploy in NATO more than three U.S. divisions, such a course of action would require very severe cuts in other Defense Department programs.

Moved by Admiral Radford’s warning, Secretary Humphrey stated that if the United States decided that there are certain things which we had got to do (such as reducing our deployments abroad), we should make these changes in such a way as to derive the maximum advantage from them vis-à-vis the USSR.

Secretary Dulles said he was obliged to take issue with this point of view. He did not think it was wise for the United States to alter any strategic position on the assumption that the Russians would actually honor any agreements they made with the United States. Rather, we should base such changes on our own careful estimate of what was advantageous to ourselves. He said he certainly hoped that the State Department was studying the problem of the future of Germany. We might conceivably be confronted in a year or so with a united and a virtually neutralized Germany. He explained that he thought this might come to pass because of the mounting pressures on the Soviets. It was proving very costly to them to maintain their position in East Germany and in the other satellites. Secretary Dulles added that he did agree with the President that at the present time these problems were primarily political in character and that it was the responsibility of the State Department to keep them under study.

Mr. Cutler continued a vigorous argument on behalf of his proposal for a joint study by military and State Department officials with a report to the National Security Council, but he failed to carry his point.

There then ensued another brief discussion of concrete problems in the development of Defense Department programs for the coming fiscal years. At the conclusion of this discussion, the President expressed the opinion that we were at the limit of efficient spending in the military field.

At the very end of the meeting, Mr. Cutler asked the Council to take one brief look at paragraph 11, which he read as follows:

“11. Should the United States in general attempt:

• “a. To maintain a high level of tension (through political isolation of the Soviets, propaganda, covert pressures, economic limitations, etc.); or
• “b. To lower tensions and to negotiate acceptable partial agreements whenever possible?”

Thereafter he noted that Secretary Wilson has sometimes at Council meetings expressed the view that we should lower tensions and negotiate acceptable agreements with the Soviets when possible, The President said he was certainly opposed to increasing tensions. Secretary Dulles commented that in the State Department we did not think of these things in these terms. We did not recommend measures in the State Department which were consciously designed either to raise tensions or to lower tensions in the world. Certainly we were not trying to lower tensions by pretending that Soviet intrigues were not as bad as we knew they were. Instead, we dealt with each issue on its own intrinsic merits.

The National Security Council:⁸

Noted and discussed the report on the subject contained in NSC 5707/6.

S. Everett Gleason

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret; Eyes Only. Prepared by Gleason on April 19.
2. Regarding the NSC 5707 series, see vol. X, p. 180.
3. NSC 5707/6, “Review of Basic National Security Policy: Political Elements of National Strategy”, dated April 8, is in Department of State, S/S–NSC Files: Lot 63 D 351, NSC 5707 Memoranda. Questions 3, 4, and 5 of NSC 5707/6 related to maintaining NATO cohesion, the extension of U.S. bases, deployed forces, and alliances outside the NATO area, and the necessary reassurances to U.S. allies “that the increasing integration of nuclear weapons in U.S. armed forces does not diminish U.S. capabilities or willingness to apply limited or local force.”
4. The written brief is filed in the minutes.
5. Reference is presumably to telegram 5610 from London, vol. XX, p. 469.
6. The briefing note is filed in the minutes.
7. The study is filed in the minutes.
8. The paragraph that follows constitutes NSC Action No. 1704, approved by the President on April 18. (Department of State, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by the National Security Council)