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

52. Memorandum of Discussion at the 273d Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, January 18, 1956, 9 a.m.¹

Washington, January 18, 1956, 9 a.m.

[Here follows a paragraph listing the participants at the meeting.]

1. Status of the Mobilization Base (NSC Action No. 1277; NSC 5501 Paragraph 55–a)²

The presentation on the “Status of the Mobilization Base” was introduced by Assistant Secretary of Defense Pike who thereafter called upon his Deputy, Mr. Lanphier,³ who presented the bulk of the report. An introduction and summary of the contents of the presentation was distributed to the members of the Council just prior to the delivery of the report. This document together with a collection of the 27 charts used in the course of the presentation are filed in the Minutes of the meeting.⁴

At the conclusion of the presentation on the mobilization base which consumed the better part of an hour, the President was the first to speak. He said that it seemed to him that the results of the report on the mobilization base pointed to one very logical conclusion. This was that we should take all feasible measures to protect more effectively the mobilization base which is already in being. This, the President believed, could be accomplished without great additional expenditure. He said he had particularly in mind better protection for the control centers and storage depots of the mobilization base. He also had in mind better protection for the installations at our SAC bases. For a comparatively reasonable cost we could go a long way to assure protection of our mobilization base. Beyond this single conclusion, the President said, it was hard to go because it was so difficult at this time to forsee the type of war which the United States might be obliged to fight in the future. Mobilization planning on the assumption that such a war might not involve the use of nuclear weapons should proceed. On the other hand, mobilization planning should not be carried out to the extent of achieving our complete requirements for either kind of war, that is, general war without nuclear weapons and general war involving their use. The President expressed skepticism of this latter approach and said that our approach should above all be the one which would provide the nation with the greatest possible reactive power. It was foolish to accumulate a lot of military matériel which would gradually become obsolescent. It was very important, however, that we try to cut the ratio of loss for the matériel that we do acquire and store. We should never forget the lesson that modern warfare is a constant practice in improvisation.

The President then added that he would very much like to see the appropriate officials in the Pentagon sit down and ponder this problem of the character of a future war. They might first talk about the probabilities, second about the degree of damage the United States was likely to sustain, and third how we can plan without unnecessarily dispersing our efforts. In short, we must get a composite of thinking about the shape of a future war and the kind of mobilization base it would require on the most profound and careful basis.

Secretary Wilson commented that the presentation just made was designed to indicate where we are now with respect to the mobilization base. He added that he was by no means clearly satisfied with the existing status. In response the President said he would recall the saying of a very wise German soldier to the effect that all plans in war are worthless but planning itself is invaluable. The President repeated that as he had understood the presentation the amounts required for greater protection and dispersion of the mobilization base would not be tremendously large and furthermore might very well constitute the difference between victory and defeat in a future war. He added his opinion that the United States had never had as able a group of Chiefs of Staff as it now had. Accordingly, the Secretary of Defense should be in a position to have the composite judgment on the required kind of mobilization base that the President had just indicated should be sought.

Secretary Wilson then requested that two of the charts previously displayed again be placed on the easel. These were the charts showing transportation losses and “Gross National Product with Projection for Mid-Range Plan Production Requirements”. With these charts in view Secretary Wilson said that what we must essentially plan on is how the United States is to survive the initial attack in a future war, particularly how it was to get through the first seven days or so. We must avoid planning to fight a future war along the same lines that we had fought the Second World War.

The President interrupted to repeat his conviction that we must promptly get started on measures for further dispersion of our mobilization base facilities and on getting more of these facilities built underground.

Secretary Wilson then expressed the opinion that the first objective of the Soviet Union in a future general war would be to separate Western Europe from North America. The President disagreed with Secretary Wilson and said that in his opinion the first Soviet move in such a war would be to try to neutralize the industrial capacity of the United States. The members of the Council indicated general agreement with the President’s view.

Governor Stassen referred to the point made in the course of the presentation that the production of certain vital electronic components was currently concentrated 100 per cent in a single target area. This was such a dangerous situation that Governor Stassen said he would like to revive an idea which he had mentioned to the members of the Council at an earlier discussion of the mobilization base. Would it not be possible to take factories and installations such as this and shift them from a target area to coal-mining areas of the United States where at the present time there was a surplus of labor and where such industries would be outside the target area of a Soviet attack. Governor Stassen believed that such transfers could be achieved without great cost and expressed the opinion that nothing would do more to discourage an enemy attack on the United States than the knowledge that our mobilization base and our vital installations were thoroughly dispersed throughout the country. The President expressed sympathy with the objectives sought by Governor Stassen’s proposal but pointed out that there would be difficulties in carrying it out because we purchased our military matériel from private firms under contracts.

Secretary Wilson said that in any event the President had put his finger directly on the first course of action we should take, namely, to give increased protection to what we already have available in our mobilization base. Secretary Wilson pointed out that it was much easier to disperse the production of components than it was to disperse large factories and installations. On the whole it would be better to fabricate more items at an efficient price at existing locations than to build additional plants in new locations.

Governor Stassen observed that the enemy would be well aware of those instances where there was 100 per cent production of some vital item concentrated in a single plant because the employees in such a plant were bound to know this fact.

Secretary Wilson did not reply further to Governor Stassen but said that the first thing he wanted to see happen was to get our basic thinking on the mobilization base sorted out. There were obviously many illogicalities and incongruities in present planning on the mobilization base.

Turning to Secretary Wilson the President said that he would like to have Mr. Wilson get the Joint Chiefs of Staff together with him and talk the whole problem out in some remote place away from the telephones for perhaps two days or for even a week. After such a meeting had reached conclusions as to the desired approach to Government planning and development of the mobilization base, the President said he would like to talk over this conclusion with the Secretary of Defense, [remainder of paragraph (14 lines of source text) not declassified]

Dr. Flemming stated that he nevertheless assumed that the United States mobilization planning should still envisage the possibility of general hostilities occurring outside of the United Sttates, for instance in the Far East. The President told Dr. Flemming that he ought to plan for full ground mobilization in view of the possibility of the miracle occurring that no nuclear weapons would be used but such planning would not be so detailed or so fully implemented as would be the plans for what we required for the initial phases of a war, that is, for the first seven days or so.

Dr. Flemming then said he would like to revert to the point earlier raised by Governor Stassen. It seemed terrible that the production of all landing gear for aircraft was concentrated in the city of Cleveland. It certainly should be possible to do something to rectify this situation, perhaps by way of dispersal. The President agreed with Dr. Flemmingthat close attention should be given to this kind of problem. While manufacturers generally hated to move away from the location where they had long been doing business, General Motors had done it and we ought to try to see what we can do. Secretary Humphrey said that he was pretty well aware of the problem of landing gear production. There would be nothing very difficult in setting up new installations to produce this item in other communities in the event that the city of Cleveland and all the technicians in this industry were to be destroyed in the initial phases of an atomic war. The President replied that if this operation was relatively small and did not cost very much, he did not see why the move could not be made before Cleveland was actually attacked.

In summing up the President stated that he was at least certain of one thing: we do have to engage in planning the mobilization base but let us not set up all our priorities on the assumption that we can do everything when we know that a great many things will not be done after the first nuclear strike.

The National Security Council:⁵

a. Noted and discussed a report by the Department of Defense and the Office of Defense Mobilization on the subject, prepared pursuant to NSC Action No. 1277, as presented at the meeting and summarized in a written report distributed at the meeting.

b. Noted the President’s request that the Secretary of Defense together with the Joint Chiefs of Staff make a thorough analysis and report on the basic military planning concept which should govern the planning and development of the mobilization base.⁶

c. Noted the President’s statement that emphasis in mobilization planning should be given to the protection of existing critical supplies and facilities from destruction during the initial phases of a nuclear war.

Note: The action in b above subsequently transmitted to the Secretary of Defense.

[Here follow the remaining agenda items, including an oral briefing by Allen Dulles (for extracts, see volume X, page 64).]

S. Everett Gleason

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret. Prepared by Gleason on January 19.
2. NSC Action No. 1277, taken by the NSC at its 226th meeting on December 1, 1954, included a directive by the President to the Department of Defense and the Office of Defense Mobilization to prepare a revised presentation on the status of the mobilization base on the basis of 1) the revised approved military plan, 2) allowance for estimated bomb damage, and 3) a determination of U.S. provision of allied aid requirements. (Department of State, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by the National Security Council) Paragraph 55–a of NSC 5501 noted that the strong security posture required by the national strategy necessitated a mobilization base adequate to maintain military readiness, and to provide the basis for the successful prosecution of a general war. It added that this mobilization base must be based on factors (1), (2), and (3), cited in NSC Action No. 1277. (Ibid.: Lot 63 D 351, NSC 5501 Series)
3. Thomas P. Pike, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Supply and Logistics) and Robert C. Lanphier, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Supply and Logistics).
4. This report by the Department of Defense and the Office of Defense Mobilization to the Natonal Security Council, dated January 18 and entitled “The Status of the Mobilization Base With Relation to the Joint Mid-Range War Plan for July 1957” is in Department of State, S/P–NSC Files: Lot 62 D 1, NSC 5501 Series. The 27 charts are filed in the minutes.
5. Paragraphs a–c and the Note that follow constitute NSC Action No. 1503, approved by the President on January 24. (Department of State,S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95, Records of Action by the National Security Council)
6. In a memorandum to Lay, dated Februray 25, 1957, Secretary of Defense Wilson transmitted and summarized the report prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and approved by himself, pursuant to NSC Action No. 1503–b. (Ibid., S/P Files: Lot 67 D 548, Military and Naval Policy)