127. Editorial Note
In a memorandum for the record of the White House daily staff meeting on February 4, 1963, Legere wrote:
“If the meeting this morning had any significance, and I think it did, it was less due to anything specific that was said than it was due to an expression of general opinion among the group, particularly Bundy and Kaysen. In a discussion which began by focusing on General de Gaulle once again, Bundy said in the most serious way that he felt there was really no logic whatever to ‘nuclear policy.’ What he meant by this was that the military planners who calculate that we will win if only we can [Page 464] kill 100 million Russians while they are killing 30 million Americans are living in total dreamland. He said that ‘the President is certainly not going to win the next election on this issue’; I am not sure what that means either, but believe that Bundy meant to say that the President considers a nuclear Armageddon totally unrealistic.” (National Defense University, Taylor Papers, White House Memoranda)