Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume VIII, National Security Policy

89. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Nitze) to Secretary of Defense McNamara⁰

Washington, June 5, 1962.

In your review of the draft of Basic National Security Policy you deleted the bracketed portion of the following passage on page 35, Section D:¹

“D. Strategic Forces

9. Scale and Character of Strategic Forces. Attainment of a stable military environment requires strategic forces sufficiently effective so that Sino-Soviet leaders would expect—without question—the Bloc’s present power position [relative to the US] to be worsened drastically as a result of a general nuclear war. In assessing the appropriate scale of a US effort designed to meet this requirement it should be borne in mind that the Soviet calculus must take into account not merely relative [US]-Soviet strength after a nuclear exchange but also its consequences for the Communist position in Eastern Europe, for the relative power of Communist China, and for the possibilities of maintaining Communist control over the Russian base.”²

It seems to me that the resulting position is too weak. To say that our strategic forces should only be able to worsen the Bloc’s power position in a general nuclear war is to set too modest an objective. The ability to worsen the Bloc’s power position as the result of a general nuclear war would be easily satisfied in an absolute sense with a much less effective strategic retaliatory force than we provide for in our present 5-year plan. The concept of the relative strength of the U.S. to that of the Soviet Union seems to me important to state clearly. Below are two formulations for you to consider as alternatives to the first sentence in the quoted passage:

1. Attainment of a stable international military and political environment requires strategic forces sufficiently effective that Sino-Soviet leaders would expect the Bloc’s military position relative to the U.S. and its allies to be worsened as the result of a general nuclear war.

2. Attainment of a stable international military and political environment requires strategic forces sufficiently effective that Sino-Soviet leaders would expect the Bloc’s military position relative to the U.S. and its allies to be inferior after a general nuclear war.³

Paul H. Nitze

0. Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 66 A 3543, 381 (Relo) BNSP (31 Mar 62). Secret. A stamped notation on the source text reads: “Dep Sec has seen.”
1. Reference is to the May 7 draft; see Document 83.
2. All brackets are in the source text.
3. McNamara wrote in the margin: “Paul, I prefer the original less the bracketed portions. The concept of a ‘worsened relative military position after a general nuclear war’ is not a meaningful one to me when each side has the capacity to destroy the other’s civilization. RMcN”