Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume III, Microfiche Supplement, National Security Policy; Arms Control and Disarmament

175. Memorandum From Gray to Haydn Williams¹

Washington, July 8, 1959

Herewith the Issues for Discussion as presented in the meeting with the President on July 2nd. I have expressed to you my concern that this paper not be widely distributed and you gave me your assurance on this point. Indeed, I would like to understand that after the principals have been briefed, and certainly at the conclusion of the National Security Council meeting, this copy will be destroyed.

The basic of this request is that this paper has no status and was used in a privileged discussion with the President. Furthermore, I have indicated to you that left to my own devices, I would not have framed the issues in quite this way. This statement resulted from efforts to get agreement as to the issues as between State and Defense.

Gordon Gray
Special Assistant to the President

Same letter to: Rear Admiral C O Triebel

Howard C. Furnas

Enclosure

Paper Prepared by the NSC

Washington, undated

ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION

1. Have we arrived at the point of general war when sizeable USSR and US forces are directly engaged? Alternatively, do we believe that a situation of general war will exist only when the circumstances indicate that the survival of the US is at stake?

2. Should the US place main but not sole reliance on nuclear weapons and consider them as conventional weapons from a military point of view; or should the US develop and maintain flexible and selective capabilities for limited war in order to insure that any significant US participation in limited hostilities would not have to be nuclear?

3. Should it be assumed that local or limited aggression will occur only in the under-developed areas or is it conceivable that a limited war could be fought in developed areas such as non-NATO Europe or Japan? What about Communist China?

4. With respect to local or limited aggression, would US objectives be served by prompt and resolute application of force necessary to defeat such local aggression; or might US interests be served in certain cases by restricting the application of force to that degree necessary to achieve objectives of limiting the area and scope of hostilities and restoring the status quo ante?

It is agreed that with respect to local or limited aggression the use of any US force will be applied in a manner and on a scale best calculated to avoid hostilities from broadening into general war.

1. Source: Transmits discussion paper on uses of nuclear weapons in limited war. Top Secret. 2 pp. Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up, Review of Basic National Security Policy.