Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, Volume XX

38. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (Wilson)¹

Washington, June 16, 1955.

SUBJECT

• Progress Report on the Control of Armaments Made to the President and the National Security Council by the Special Assistant to the President on 26 May 1955²

1. In response to your memorandum dated 2 June 1955,³ subject as above, the Joint Chiefs of Staff submit herewith their views regarding the Progress Report on a proposed policy of the United States on the question of Disarmament, prepared by the Special Assistant to the President. Certain of these views were conveyed to Mr. Stassen during informal discussions held with him on 6 June 1955.⁴

2. A study of the report reveals that it contains merely a broad outline of a disarmament plan couched in most general terms. Therefore, considerable elaboration and clarification is required to determine its full impact on U.S. security. Pending receipt of additional information in sufficient detail to permit a sound military evaluation of the effects on national security, the following preliminary comments are made.

3. The Plan proposed in the Progress Report is based on the following premises:

a. A cardinal aim of United States policy should be to prevent the USSR from achieving a capability of effective destruction of the United States through a surprise attack.

b. The United States now has a meaningful superiority in nuclear weapons and the means for their delivery which gives the Free World a commanding lead, militarily, vis-à-vis the Communist Bloc/but that lead will decrease markedly with time.

c. A “leveling off” of all armaments at some near future date, including the cessation of nuclear production, would leave the margin of Free World superiority essentially unimpaired.

d. During the next ten years, the USSR will attain the capability of destroying effectively the United States through surprise attack; within five years, the United States and its Allies will attain the capability of destroying effectively the USSR, and will retain this capability even though a surprise attack were first launched against the United States.

e. By “leveling off” (in say, two years), both the United States and the USSR will be stopped short of a nuclear weapons capability sufficient for mutual annihilation. If this end can be accomplished, the cardinal aim of United States policy stated above will have been achieved.

4. The comments of a general nature which appear immediately below are considered to be pertinent to the Progress Report in its entirety.

a. The Report, by concentrating on the necessity for arriving at an armaments agreement primarily directed toward preventing wide-scale devastation which might occur in general war, tends to obscure the implications to United States security of a continuation of the Cold War, which is a more immediate prospect. In this connection, the Estimate of the Situation upon which United States basic national security policy is predicated (NSC 5501), states, in part, as follows:

“19. Despite the talk of “coexistence’, the Communist powers will continue strenuous efforts to weaken and disrupt free-world strength and unity and to expand the area of their control, principally by subversion (including the support of insurrection), while avoiding involvement of the main sources of Communist power. This strategy will probably present the free world with its most serious challenge and greatest danger in the next few years.”⁵

b. The element of “surprise” is given primary emphasis in the Report. While the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not minimize the advantages which might accrue to an aggressor if he were unexpectedly to initiate hostilities with an all-out atomic offensive, they consider that “surprise” should be viewed as a relative term, the net measure of which is the ability of the “surprised” to react to the unexpected event. To safeguard against a “surprise” attack, current United States policy places emphasis upon an increasingly effective intelligence service, alert plans, civil defense plans, warning systems, and a vigilant state of readiness in the armed forces. Given a constant and determined effort along these lines, the effects of “surprise” can be minimized. An agreement for a limitation of arms, safeguarded by an adequate inspection system, should minimize the possibility that large-scale preparations for aggression could go undetected. However, since complete reliance cannot be placed on the effectiveness of such an inspection system, it could in no way supplant the other essential safeguards requisite to an alert military posture. For these reasons, it is considered that the United States, in assessing the benefits which could accrue from a limitation of armaments agreement, should not ascribe undue weight to its value as a safeguard against “surprise” attack.

c. There is frequent reference in the Report to the current world trend in armaments as an “arms race”—which lends an impression that the United States is seriously straining itself to keep pace with the Soviets in this field. Actually, the United States and its Allies have, as a matter of policy, endeavored to set a level of forces and armament expenditures which can be maintained over the long term, with due consideration for economic and other factors which affect the well-being of their people. Barring unforeseen developments, substantial augmentation of these forces is not now contemplated, but their effectiveness will be improved through progressive re-equipment made possible and necessary by technological advances. This course has been deliberately chosen as best suited to the requirements and peculiar capabilities of the Western democracies. However, should the necessity arise and were the United States truly to embark on an arms race, its armaments output could be increased many fold—well beyond that of the Communist Bloc.

d. The tactics of the Soviets appear temporarily to have undergone change. However, the Joint Chiefs of staff consider there has been no evidence that their objectives have changed or that they are genuinely seeking an equitable and effective disarmament arrangement in the interests of easing international tensions. Many of these tensions, existent primarily as the result of their aggressive policies and actions, could be eradicated overnight by the Soviets if they were to conform to decent international behavior; others are susceptible of negotiation if the Soviets set their demands at a level such that agreements would redound to the mutual advantage of the parties concerned. It can be said that aggressive gains by the Communists have been limited mainly by the military strength of the United States as represented by its atomic superiority. On the other hand, experience has shown that past international agreement on the limitation of armaments has not averted war, but instead, has served to permit the rearmament of the violator without awakening timely counteraction by the intended victims of aggression.

5. With respect to the more specific features of the Plan, the Joint Chiefs of Staff consider that the following are favorable aspects:

a. It is based on a sound assessment of Communist intentions, ambitions, and lack of good faith, and upon a generally acceptable statement of principles which should guide and influence United States policy on disarmament.

b. By prescribing no ban on atomic weapons, the Plan would serve to rectify a dangerous weakness in the current United States position on disarmament.

c. It insists on an adequate inspection system—competent, prepositioned, and unhampered. The assessment of this as a favorable feature is based upon the assumption that the phrase “leveling off of all armaments efforts” is intended to encompass all of the elements of a nation’s military strength and potential.

d. If implemented in full, without any concessions in the direction of balanced strength, it would leave the Free World, at least temporarily, in an over-all position of military superiority vis-à-vis the Communist Bloc.

6. As opposed to the foregoing favorable aspects, the following are considered to constitute weaknesses of the Plan:

a. The Plan makes “leveling off of armaments” an antecedent to the elimination of the more fundamental causes of world tension. The complexity of the problem and its far-reaching implications render the achievement of an effective arms limitation agreement a task of vast proportions, requiring the creation of an optimum climate as an essential precondition. The Joint Chiefs of Staff consider it unlikely that such an agreement could be evolved before the resolution of the basic causes from which the present trend in armaments derives.

b. It assumes that the USSR may accept a possibly permanent position of military inferiority to the United States and enter into an agreement which would permit the retention by the United States of a complex of encircling bases and a legal superiority in nuclear weapons and means for their delivery.

c. Inasmuch as the same degree of inspection and control will be required for the monitoring of a “leveling off” agreement as for a “reduction” agreement, it is not apparent on what grounds the United States can support the plan now proposed in opposition to a comprehensive plan for the reduction and limitation of armaments. While it provides that we make it clear that the First Phase Plan is considered to be the prelude to a future agreed reduction in the present level of armaments, the plan fails to develop the United States position in the likely event that the Soviets (and possibly our Allies) demand firm commitments regarding certain of the suggested later phases as part of the first phase agreement; e.g., reduction of foreign bases and armed forces located in other countries, and balanced reduction of nuclear capabilities and other armaments below present levels, etc.

d. It does not establish as essential the early participation of Communist China, whose military power and aggressive policy is the greatest present threat to peace and stability in the Far East. The Joint Chiefs of Staff hold that the United States should not become committed to any armaments arrangement in which Communist China is not controlled from the outset by the terms of the agreement.

e. It fails to provide special consideration for Germany and Japan, neither of whose military forces will have reached minimum programmed goals by 1957.

f. It assumes that the United States would be adequately protected against a Soviet violation of the agreement by the provision that either the United States or the USSR could renounce the agreement unilaterally in the event of a violation by the other party, confirmed by the International Armaments Commission. Aside from any consideration as to whether an international commission would be able to agree that a violation had occurred, it is extremely doubtful that the United States would really have freedom of action in the face of world opinion and pressure from its Allies. Rather, experience leads to the conclusion that present compulsions toward seeking an armaments arrangement would inevitably reappear, in magnified form, to influence the United States against unilateral withdrawal, with all the implications that could flow therefrom.

g. As implied in subparagraph 4 c above, the phrase “leveling off of all armaments efforts” needs clarification in order to indicate whether this process would apply to all aspects of military posture and potential. Unless it does so apply, many factors which can radically and rapidly affect relative military posture might not come within the purview of the control and inspection system; for example, research and development, industrial preparedness, and peace-to-war conversion capability.

7. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have maintained that, in the absence of a revolutionary change in the ambitions and intentions of the Soviet regime, there is less risk to the security of the United States in the continuation of current armament trends than in entering into an international armaments limitation agreement. They concur, however, in the thesis that the United States should maintain the initiative and Free World leadership in the promotion of conditions under which armament limitations would not be to the disadvantage of our national security. As distinguished from a first-phase plan, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would favor, in principle, a comprehensive and carefully phased program for the international control of atomic energy and the limitation, reduction and regulation of all armed forces and armaments, if implemented subsequent to or in conjunction with the settlement of other vital international problems. They consider that the incorporation of certain features of the First Phase Plan into such a comprehensive control plan would not be an impracticable new approach to the problem. Of major importance, however, is the necessity of insuring:

a. The concurrent elimination of aggressive and subversive activities on the part of the Communist world.

b. A progressive rollback of the Iron Curtain and the creation of an Open World.

c. That major issues having serious implications to United States national security not be left for subsequent and independent negotiations.

8. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend that the foregoing views be incorporated in the Department of Defense position with respect to the Proposed Policy of the United States on the Question of Disarmament set forth in the Progress Report.

For the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

Arthur Radford⁶
Chairman

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Staff Secretary Records. Top Secret. The transmittal letter from Wilson to Dillon Anderson, June 21, is filed with the source text.
2. Document 33.
3. Not found in Department of State files.
4. See footnote 6, Document 34.
5. NSC 5501 is scheduled for publication in volume XIX.
6. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.