The National Security Council

During the presidential transition, President-Elect Eisenhower appointed Robert Cutler, one of his closest advisers during the campaign, as his special assistant for national security affairs. He asked Cutler to conduct a study of the NSC and make recommendations on how it might be better used to formulate national security policy. The NSC was created by the National Security Act of 1947 “to advise the president with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security.”⁵ President Truman had convened the NSC, but many of those involved did not believe he had used it effectively. Eisenhower wanted the NSC to be “the most important policy-making body in government.”⁶

By law, the members of the NSC were the president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, director for mutual security, and director of the Office of Defense Mobilization (later changed to the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization). During the Eisenhower administration there was also a “standing request” for the participation of the secretary of the treasury and the director of the budget. Advisers to the NSC were the chairman of the JCS, the director of central intelligence (DCI), and the special assistant to the president for cold war planning. The legislation also called for an executive secretary to the council and the president’s special assistant for national security affairs (in later administrations this position would be known as the national security adviser).

Cutler’s most important contribution to the NSC was to take what was formerly known as the “senior staff” and transform it into the NSC planning board. The planning board consisted of representatives from the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury, the Mutual Security Agency, the Office of Defense Mobilization, the JCS, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Psychological Strategy Board. As special assistant to the president, Cutler chaired the planning board. The planning board had lengthy meetings three times a week to discuss recommendations submitted by the represented departments. It then prepared drafts of policies for the consideration of the NSC. Planning board meetings were known for their intense debates. The point was not to resolve differences. Rather, it was to clearly identify them in policy drafts, where they were known as “splits.” Prior to NSC meetings, each planning board representative had a “standing and unbreakable” meeting with his department’s NSC representative to brief him on the agenda for the meeting and to go over the policy drafts, focusing on “splits.” Cutler briefed Eisenhower in similar fashion.⁷

The NSC met in the cabinet room on Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. Meetings lasted for two to three hours. After an intelligence briefing by the DCI, the agenda turned to consideration of the planning board’s policy drafts. Eisenhower presided over the meetings himself and played an active role in the discussion. During NSC meetings Cutler acted as facilitator, keeping the discussion on track and clarifying points in the planning board’s draft when necessary. He did not act as a policy adviser to the president. Cutler served as Eisenhower’s special assistant for national security affairs for three years and nine months. During that time the NSC met 179 times. The president missed only six of those meetings.⁸

The NSC apparatus served Eisenhower’s leadership and decision-making style well. His early critics believed that the NSC was a policy-making body and was, therefore, an example of Eisenhower abdicating his decision-making responsibilities to appointees. This was not the case. The planning board spared NSC members from the time-intensive study required to draft policy recommendations. Having been briefed by their representatives on the planning board, members could then discuss these drafts intelligently at council meetings, allowing the president to hear the opinions of his top-level advisers. But the NSC did not make policy. Eisenhower reserved all final decisions for himself. At times, he would announce a decision at the end of the meeting. Other times he would make a final decision later, either alone or in the company of one or two others. In an October 1953 NSC meeting, for example, the secretary of defense continued to advocate for a JCS proposal even after Eisenhower had rejected it. Cutler suggested that the document they were working on reflect this difference of opinion between the president and the JCS. Eisenhower, however, said that “he would tolerate no notice of JCS dissent” from his opinion. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff were, after all, his military advisors; he made the decisions.”⁹ This style of leadership not only ensured that Eisenhower made informed decisions, it made his advisers feel that they had been a part of the process even when they did not get their way, making them more likely to support and defend the final decision.

Operation Solarium

Shortly after the president approved Cutler’s recommendations for the revitalization of the NSC, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles invited Cutler to his home in Washington, DC, on a Sunday afternoon. Also invited were Allen Dulles, the DCI and Foster’s brother, Undersecretary of State Bedell Smith, and Special Assistant to the President C. D. Jackson. Foster Dulles said that he had undertaken a thorough review of the Truman administration’s national security policy. “Now that the President has approved Bobby’s proposed revival of the council,” he said, “shouldn’t we tackle a policy statement to fulfill our campaign ideas? I conceive three possible alternatives to choose from or to combine in part some way or another.” According to Cutler, Foster Dulles spent the next hour laying out his three possible alternatives. Dulles’s guests were very impressed with his presentation. Afterward, Smith suggested further study of the alternatives: “Three teams of crack fellows, expertly captained, each developing an alternative.” The next morning Cutler met with the president and requested a time when Dulles could repeat his presentation and Smith could outline his plan for a staff study. “His plan seems to me a fine way to crank up our first comprehensive basic national security policy for the council,” Cutler said.¹⁰

Eisenhower agreed to the proposal, and the group made plans to meet later in the week. To avoid interruption, they met late in the afternoon in the Solarium, a room on the third floor of the White House with floor-to-ceiling windows and a panoramic view of the Washington Monument and the Memorial Mall. Eisenhower was enthusiastic about the idea for a study of Dulles’s three policy alternatives and asked Cutler to prepare a detailed written proposal for his approval. Cutler suggested that they call the project “Operation Solarium.”¹¹

On May 9, 1953, Cutler presented Eisenhower with a detailed proposal for Operation Solarium. Task Force A would study the alternative of containment, “the general policy toward the USSR and its bloc, which has been in effect since 1948.” Under this alternative, the United States would prevent the spread of communism beyond its current boundaries while avoiding general war with the Soviet Union or Communist China. This strategy was defensive—it sought to deter Soviet aggression “until the Soviets shall decay from internal weaknesses inherent in despotic government.” It believed that “time is on the side of the free world—that if we can ‘last out’ the Soviets will deteriorate and fail.” Task Force B would study the alternative of deterrence. In this alternative, the United States would make clear that it has “drawn a line.” The fall to communism of any country beyond this line would constitute grounds for the United States to “take measures of our own choosing, including offensive war” against the Soviet Union or Communist China. The use of nuclear weapons was an inherent aspect of this strategy. Task Force C would study the alternative of “roll back.” In this alternative, the United States would undertake, by offensive action, to restore communist countries to the “free world.” This alternative was consistent with the rhetoric of the 1952 Republican campaign and sought to roll back communism in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Of the three alternatives, it held the greatest risk of general war.¹²

Eisenhower approved the proposal and even chose some of the men who would serve on the task forces. The most interesting choice was George Kennan as the chairman for Task Force A.¹³ Kennan had written the so-called long telegram, a 5,363-word telegram to President Truman’s Secretary of State James Byrnes outlining what he believed should be U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. The long telegram along with “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” an article that he wrote anonymously for Foreign Affairs magazine, were the basis of U.S. containment policy under Truman.¹⁴ Eisenhower’s choice of Kennan to lead this task force must have come as a surprise to Dulles. As Kennan later recalled: “I derived, I must say, a certain amount of amusement from it… . Since it was only three months since he had fired me from the foreign service, this gave me a certain satisfaction, I must say.”¹⁵

The “General Information and Guidance” provided to each Operation Solarium task force included a section on “U.S. National Objectives.” Admitting that it was difficult to reduce U.S. objectives to a single statement, participants were instructed to see NSC 153 and Eisenhower’s speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) on April 16, 1953. NSC 153 was a document prepared by the new NSC planning board and approved by the NSC in June 1953. Its purpose was to combine and summarize all existing U.S. national security policy. It superseded NSC 20, NSC 68, and NSC 135 from the Truman administration, as well as NSC 149 that had been adopted earlier in the Eisenhower administration. It was, essentially, the set of policies that Task Force A was being asked to defend. In its first paragraph, under the heading “General Considerations,” was the problem Eisenhower believed was most important. “There are two principal threats to the survival of fundamental values in institutions of the United States: a) The formidable power and aggressive policy of the communist world led by the USSR. b) The serious weakening of the economy of the United States that may result from the cost of opposing the Soviet threat over a sustained period. The basic problem facing the United States is to strike a proper balance between the risks arising from these two threats.”¹⁶

Eisenhower’s speech to the ASNE is worthy of further consideration. On March 5, 1953, just six weeks after Eisenhower had taken office, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, died. Stalin’s death set off an intense debate among Eisenhower’s advisers regarding how the United States should respond. C. D. Jackson, Eisenhower’s special assistant for Cold War operations, believed that “Stalin’s death had provided the United States with its first significant and normal opportunity to seize the initiative” in the Cold War. He suggested that the United States “exploit Stalin’s death to the limit of psychological usefulness.” He recommended that the president make a speech as soon as possible, calling for a meeting of the “Big Four” to negotiate all the outstanding issues between the Soviet Union and the West.¹⁷

When collaboration between Jackson and the State Department on a speech reached an impasse, Eisenhower began working on one with Emmet Hughes, one of his speech writers. Hughes later told the story of how the president came up with the idea for the speech. “Look, I am tired—and I think everyone is tired—of just plain indictments of the Soviet regime,” Eisenhower lamented. “What have we got to offer the world? What are we ready to do, to improve the chances of peace?” After a long pause during which Eisenhower stared out the window of the Oval Office, “he wheeled abruptly toward me and went on … ‘Here is what I would like to say. The jet plane that roars over your head costs three-quarters of a million dollars. That is more money than a man earning ten thousand dollars every year is going to make in his lifetime. What world can afford this sort of thing for long? … Now, there could be another road before us—the road of disarmament. What does this mean? It means for everybody in the world: bread, butter, clothes, homes, hospitals, schools—all the good and necessary things for a decent living. So let this be the choice we offer.’ … The excitement of the man and the moment was contagious and stirring.”¹⁸ The result of this exchange was “The Chance for Peace,” a speech that Eisenhower made to the ASNE on April 16, 1953:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.¹⁹

The speech mentioned all of the major outstanding differences between the United States and the Soviet Union, including arms control, but made no specific proposals. “The Chance for Peace” was broadcast on television and radio throughout much of the world. It was also translated into forty-five languages and printed in newspapers. Even Pravda, the Soviet state newspaper, carried an accurate translation. An article that ran in the same issue of Pravda, however, was not complimentary. Eisenhower, it said, merely wanted each of the outstanding differences he had mentioned to be settled in favor of the United States.²⁰ Eisenhower had reason to be disappointed by the Soviet response but remained open to negotiations and insisted that any policy adopted by the NSC retain that possibility.

After more than five weeks of work at the National War College, Operation Solarium’s three task forces made their presentations to the NSC on July 16. The strategy put forth by Task Force A was to (1) maintain, over the long term, armed forces capable of providing security for the United States and vital areas of the “free world”; (2) assist in building up the economic and military strength of the free world; and (3) exploit the political, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities of the Soviet Union without increasing the risk of general war. Task Force A believed that time was on the side of the United States—that if it could build up and maintain its strength and that of its allies, Soviet power would deteriorate to a point where it no longer posed a threat to the security of the United States and the free world. Containing Soviet expansion would, however, continue to require the use of military force, such as in Korea. While these operations would run the risk of initiating a general war, this risk was “not high” and may be deterred in the future by the build-up of indigenous forces in areas of likely Soviet aggression. The United States should also consider “announcing that the U.S. will feel free to use atomic weapons in case of local aggression in the future.” Task Force A believed that this strategy could be pursued within the general framework of existing U.S. policy without altering the cost or risk of general war.

The strategy put forth by Task Force B was that (1) “any advance of Soviet military forces beyond the present borders of the Soviet bloc be considered by the United States as initiating general war,” and in such a general war, “the full power of the United States will be used as necessary to bring about the defeat” and “dissolution” of the USSR; (2) the United States should make clear to the Soviet Union in an “appropriate and unmistakable” way that the United States is determined to carry out this policy; and (3) the United States should reserve the freedom of action to, in the event that indigenous communists seize power in a country outside the current Soviet Bloc, “take all measures necessary to reestablish a situation compatible with the security interests of the United States.” General war in this strategy was defined as a war in which the United States would apply “its full power whenever, however, and wherever necessary.” This explicitly included the use of nuclear weapons. Although the United States expected that its allies would assist in such a general war, the policy was, “in final analysis,” a unilateral one. Under “Alternative B,” the United States would be required to maintain, “for the foreseeable future” a military capable of defeating the Soviet Union in a general war. Task Force B proposed its alternative “as a support, rather than a substitute for existing policies.” Its primary contribution to existing policies was to deter Soviet aggression with the threat of general war—nuclear war. “Any suggestion is rejected that there is a place in the atomic age for a U.S. military establishment having less offensive power than that which the rulers of the Soviet Union must regard as an unacceptable risk in war.” Because communist aggression would be deterred by the threat of general war, peripheral wars like the one in Korea would be eliminated. This would, in the opinion of Task Force B, reduce both costs and the risk of general war.

The strategy put forth by Task Force C was to (1) “increase efforts to disturb and weaken the Soviet Bloc” and to strengthen the “free world to enable it to assume the greater risks involved”; and (2) “create the maximum disruption and popular resistance throughout the Soviet Bloc.” To the current U.S. policy of containing Soviet expansion, this strategy sought to add ending the USSR’s domination of countries outside its borders, such as those in Eastern Europe; bringing down the “Iron Curtain”; and destroying communist parties in the “free world.” Initially, the United States would engage in this intensified Cold War covertly, using “a national program of deception and concealment” so as to prevent the Soviet Union from gauging the “depth and extent of our challenge.” Such a strategy would require a “departure from our traditional concepts of war and peace.” To do so would mean public and congressional acceptance of the greater costs of a stronger military establishment, including universal military training and service. The United States, Task Force C believed, should also maintain its freedom of action by avoiding participation in any additional regional military alliances or disarmament discussions.²¹ Alternative C would be the costliest and run the greatest risk of general war.

After the three presentations, Eisenhower rose and spoke extemporaneously for about forty-five minutes. “He spoke,” according to George Kennan, “with a mastery of the subject matter and a thoughtfulness and a penetration that were quite remarkable. I came away from it with the conviction … that President Eisenhower was a much more intelligent man than he was given credit for being.” Andrew Goodpaster, a member of Task Force C, concurred, saying that Eisenhower showed his “intellectual ascendency over every other man in the room on these issues.”²² After saying that he had never attended a better staff presentation, the president observed that he believed “the only thing worse than losing a global war was winning one.” The American people, he said, had shown their reluctance to occupy conquered territory after a war to see that their interests were upheld, “What would we do with Russia, if we should win?” He also feared the demands being placed upon the American people by an ongoing and increasingly costly Cold War. “If you demand of a free people over a long period of time more than they want to give, you can obtain what you want only by using more and more controls; and the more you do this, the more you lose the individual liberty you are trying to save and become a garrison state.”²³

The president’s remarks suggested that he was opposed to strategies that would be too costly or run too high a risk of general war. “In Eisenhower’s summation,” said Goodpaster, “one could see the demise of the policy of rollback.” Eisenhower had put Goodpaster, in whom he had great trust, on Task Force C to make sure that the idea of rollback was studied thoroughly, but its presentation had convinced him to put this tough rhetoric from the campaign behind him, something he had been inclined to do anyway. As for the heavy-handed deterrence of Task Force B, Robert Bowie, a member of the planning board later said of that policy, “I don’t think there was … any significant inclusion of the idea of drawing the line … in the sense in which it was used in Task Force B.” Kennan, the leader of Task Force A, left the meeting with the impression that “in general he [Eisenhower] was prepared to accept the thesis we had put forward, that our approach to the problem of the Soviet Union, as it had been followed in the immediately preceding years, was basically sound.”²⁴

Although he may have favored the conclusions of Task Force A over those of B and C, Eisenhower said that he believed the similarities in the presentations were more important than the differences. He suggested a meeting of the three task forces to see if they could agree on the best features of each alternative to be combined into a unified policy. After the president left the meeting the task forces expressed their resistance to his suggestion.²⁵ “We were exhausted,” remembered Goodpaster. The participants in Operation Solarium had been away from home for five weeks and had worked every day. “We started at 8 o’clock and broke for lunch briefly, and for dinner. We might have had an hour of exercise in the afternoon but then worked until about midnight.” Besides the exhaustion, the task forces believed that their positions were incompatible.²⁶ When Cutler reported this back to the president “he seemed very put out” and told him to “work out what he thought best.”²⁷

If, after an exhaustive five-week study, Operation Solarium had led Eisenhower to the conclusion that containment, the policy the United States had pursued since the onset of the Cold War, was the best alternative, had the project been worthwhile? “Plans are nothing, but planning is everything,” Eisenhower was fond of saying. “The secret of a sound, satisfactory decision made on an emergency basis has always been that the responsible official has been ‘living with the problem’ before it becomes acute.”²⁸ Solarium had provided the new administration with a complete reexamination of national security policy. The result would allow Eisenhower to justify the changes he wished to make to this policy and put to rest alternatives like “rollback” that had become popular with some in his party.²⁹ Also, the very process was an educational one for Eisenhower and, more importantly, for his national security team. But the process was not over. As we shall see, a great deal of work was yet to be done before the New Look would become official U.S. policy.

On July 30, the NSC met to discuss the written reports submitted by the three Operation Solarium task forces. Cutler believed that the next step should be to direct a special Solarium Committee of the planning board to synthesize these reports into a policy draft for the council’s consideration. With this in mind, he had drafted a memorandum for the planning board, laying out the task. Although there was some disagreement regarding the memo—Cutler had gone beyond instructing the planning board and written a first draft of policy—the council agreed to put the work of drafting a policy in the hands of the planning board and accepted Cutler’s instructions as general “guidelines” or “points for consideration.”³⁰ These included Eisenhower’s stated directives as well as elements from all three task forces. According to these guidelines, the new policy should maintain “at the lowest feasible cost” a U.S. military capable of both continental defense and nuclear retaliation; cultivate strong regional alliances; determine those areas into which an advance by Soviet forces would be considered an initiation of general war; allow for “selective aggressive actions … involving moderately increased risks of general war,” to eliminate Soviet domination of areas outside its own borders; and reduce or eliminate indigenous communism in nations of the “free world.”³¹

The Sequoia Report

On July 14, shortly before the planning board was given the task of drafting a new national security policy, Eisenhower met with his newly designated JCS. He told them that he wanted them to familiarize themselves with the entire military establishment. After doing so, he wanted them to “make a completely new, fresh survey of our military capabilities in light of our global commitments.” According to General Mathew Ridgway, “He stressed the fact that he did not want a long exhaustive staff study (like Solarium). He recognized our great collective experience … and what he wanted from us was our own individual views, honestly and forthrightly stated.”³² Among the things that Eisenhower asked the JCS to consider was the implication of nuclear weapons. After completing a tour of American military installations, the JCS spent August 6–8 aboard the Navy yacht U.S.S. Sequoia writing their report.

The Sequoia report made two significant recommendations. The first was that the administration should announce “a clear, positive policy with respect to the use of atomic weapons.” The second was that the United States “place in first priority the essential military protection of our continental U.S. vitals and the capability of delivering swift and powerful retaliatory blows. Military commitments overseas—that is to say, peripheral military commitments—would cease to have first claim on our resources.” By this, the JCS meant that American forces should be redeployed closer to home to prioritize the protection of U.S. vital interests. The report recognized that such a policy change could damage relations with U.S. allies and could cause difficulties with some members of Congress and the general public, but believed it was the only policy to offer a “reasonable promise of improving our general security position.”³³

The NSC discussed the Sequoia report on August 27 in the presence of the JCS. Eisenhower was in Denver, and this was one of the few NSC meetings that he missed. Vice President Nixon chaired the meeting. Nixon began the discussion by asking whether implementing the recommendations of the report would cost more than the current program. JCS chair Admiral Arthur Radford responded that on the contrary, once the corresponding redeployments of troops were made “it would be possible to effect substantial savings.” Secretary Dulles, noting that the greatest impact of the recommendations would be the reduction of American forces in Europe and East Asia, said that he presumed this meant greater reliance on air power and atomic weapons. JCS members were reluctant to answer directly. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Robert Carney stated that he did not believe that air and naval forces alone were a sufficient deterrent, and Admiral Radford said that U.S. allies would have to contribute more men for their own defense. But when Nixon asked whether he was correct in assuming that based on these recommendations, “in the event of a major conflict the United States would use atomic weapons in both the tactical and in the strategic realm,” Radford said that “this was indeed the case.” He added that “as he saw it, we had been spending vast sums on the manufacture of these weapons and at the same time we were holding back on their use because of our concern for public opinion. It was high time that we clarified our position on the use of such weapons if indeed we proposed to use them.”

Over the course of the meeting, it became clear that the JCS was unanimous in its belief that the U.S. military was overextended and that the nation’s “vitals” were at risk. It was this consideration, not budgetary concerns, that had led them to recommend that U.S. forces be reoriented to continental defense. When asked if their recommendation would be the same if money were no object, the majority answered yes. This reorientation of U.S. military forces was not comparable to pre–World War II advocacy of a “Fortress America,” however. Despite their reluctance to give a direct answer to Dulles’s question, it was clear that the JCS believed that the nuclear deterrent was more important than a conventional one. “Admiral Radford stated that after the outbreak of the Korean war in June 1950, we really did not know the enemy’s ultimate intentions, so all we could do was build up our forces in all categories. This was sound… . The atomic factor, however, now looms much larger, and the problem of continental defense is now much more important than it seemed in the summer of 1950.” As for the impact of such a reorientation on our allies, Dulles said they would have to change their thinking as well. The citizens of New York do not consider themselves vulnerable to attack because our troops are quartered in some other state, he argued, because they can quickly be dispatched to the danger zone. “We can defend all vital parts of the free world by applying the principle of concentration of forces,” Nixon insisted. “This … was not the Fortress America of the past.”

Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, no doubt seizing on the cost-saving aspects of the plan, said that the JCS report was “terrific … the most important thing that had happened in this country since January 20.” He suggested that the planning board’s study of the Solarium reports be suspended. While the other council members were impressed as well, they were not ready to move as quickly as Humphrey. Dulles suggested that the State Department study the impact of such a military reorientation on American allies. The other council members agreed, subject to the president’s approval.³⁴

On September 2, Cutler briefed Eisenhower in Denver. Eisenhower was enthusiastic about the Sequoia report, calling it a “crystalized and clarified statement of this Administration’s understanding of our national security objectives since World War II.” Warming to the idea, he instructed Cutler to take dictation as he paced the room: “From the beginning, people who really studied foreign and military problems have considered that the stationing of American troops abroad was a temporary expedient. It was a stop-gap operation to bring confidence and security to our friends overseas.” The objective was always to produce among them “the morale, confidence, economic and military strength” to develop indigenous forces that could hold until U.S. troops arrived. “Any thinking individual,” he said, “always understood that.” He approved the State Department study that the NSC had recommended and requested that Dulles come to Denver to discuss it with him. He also said that the planning board should incorporate the Sequoia report into their synthesis of the Operation Solarium presentations. He reiterated several times to Cutler that the JCS report must not be presented as a new idea. It was instead, a “reaffirmation and clarification of what he had always understood.”³⁵

NSC 162

The NSC met on October 7 and October 29 to discuss the planning board’s drafts of a new “Basic National Security Policy” statement. The document was laid out in two columns to show the areas of disagreement among the planning board staff. It was these “splits” that the council focused on in its discussion. The first of these disagreements concerned the nature of the Soviet threat, which was articulated on page one of the statement. On side A were those who saw a singular threat to the existence of the United States: Soviet hostility. Although they acknowledged the importance of a sound economy, they believed this threat must be met without regard to cost. On side B were those who saw a dual threat to the United States: Soviet hostility, and the long-term damage that countering this threat would do to the American economy and way of life. If the United States spent too much over a sustained period to contain the Soviet threat, then it would destroy the very thing it was fighting to defend.

This fundamental question—how much liberty should be given up in exchange for security—is as old as the republic itself, and the council’s discussion of it was long and rather heated. At one point, “Cutler expressed concern that the meeting of the National Security Council was degenerating into a debating society.” As the discussion went on, however, it became clear that the two sides were not as far apart as they seemed. Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson said that “if we ever go to the American people and tell them that we are putting a balanced budget ahead of national defense it would be a terrible day.” He added, however, that “what we are really trying to do is ascertain and reach a reasonable posture of defense over a long period. If we can do this within a balanced budget, fine. If not, we will simply have to postpone balancing the budget.” Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, in an equally conciliatory statement, said: “While we did not propose to balance the budget by sacrificing our security, we are nevertheless, making every effort to revise and perfect our defense establishment and to get it within the limits of the means available to us.” Eisenhower, sensing an opening for compromise, suggested using language that appeared later in the document. The basic problem of national security policy, it said, was to “meet the Soviet threat to United States security” and “in doing so to avoid seriously weakening the United States economy or undermining our fundamental values and institutions.” There was no objection to this wording. While the debate over the nature of the threat may seem semantic, the problem of balancing the demands of security with the need to preserve American values—a problem Eisenhower referred to as the “Great Equation”—informed the remaining disagreements.

The next disagreement concerned the redeployment of U.S. overseas forces recommended by the JCS’s Sequoia report. Side A argued that “a major redeployment of U.S. forces from Europe and the Far East at the present time would seriously undermine the strength of the coalition.” Side B argued that because American and Allied security was “weakened by the present over-extended deployment of U.S. forces, an early determination should be made whether, with the understanding of our allies, the redeployment toward the United States of the bulk of our land and other forces should soon be initiated.” Dulles, to whom the Sequoia report had been referred for further study, said that he believed it to be “sound,” but that breaking the news to American allies would have to be handled “with the greatest delicacy.” Eisenhower repeated his view that “the stationing of U.S. divisions in Europe had been … an emergency measure not intended to last indefinitely.” Humphrey remained enthusiastic about the proposed redeployment. Rather than emphasizing the potential cost savings that would accrue, however, he focused on the Sequoia report’s notion of correcting the overextension of U.S. forces. Ironically, it was now Wilson and Radford who expressed reservations about the JCS redeployment plan, believing that, perhaps, the idea had caught on too quickly. In the end, the NSC favored side B but retained some language from side A to emphasize the need to prepare American allies for the change.

The NSC also discussed a planning board disagreement over “rollback.” Although Andrew Goodpaster believed that Eisenhower’s summary comments on Solarium on July 16 had eliminated this option, rollback still enjoyed strong support in the Department of Defense and the JCS. Both Defense and the JCS recommended deleting the following three sentences from the policy draft: “The United States should not, however, initiate aggressive actions involving force against Soviet bloc territory. Limited actions within our capabilities would not materially reduce the Soviet threat even if successful. Moreover, they are likely to increase the risk of general war, would place strains on the coalition, and might well destroy the chances of agreement with the USSR on the more fundamental aspects of the Soviet threat.” Eisenhower agreed, but not because he advocated that the United States engage in such actions. Rather, he said, that it was because “any proposal involving the use of force against such territory, whether overt or covert, would require a prior council decision.” The matter of rollback was far from settled, however, as Defense and the JCS interpreted the deletion of the paragraph prohibiting the initiation of aggressive acts as acceptance of them.

The final NSC decision on planning board splits concerned U.S. policy regarding the use of “special weapons,” meaning both atomic bombs, such as the fission bombs used against Japan in August 1945, and hydrogen bombs, the fusion bombs under development at this time and first tested by the United States in 1952. As ballistic missiles were still in the development stage, the United States relied on conventional long-range bombers as its primary delivery vehicle for nuclear weapons. Many of these bombers were on bases located outside the United States, making allied cooperation critical to their use. Eisenhower therefore suggested that the document should specify that the “approval and understanding” of American allies should precede the use of special weapons. Defense Secretary Wilson argued that the military needed to know whether “we intend to use weapons on which we are spending such great sums, or do we not?” The president insisted: “If the use of them was dictated by the interests of U.S. security, he would certainly decide to use them.” This, however, was not enough for the JCS. “Can we,” Radford asked, “use these weapons from bases where the permission of no foreign government is required?” Eisenhower replied that “so far … as war plans were concerned … he thought that the JCS should count on making use of special weapons in the event of general war. They should not, however, plan to make use of these weapons in minor affairs.” Dulles expressed dissatisfaction stating, “Somehow or other we must manage to remove the taboo from the use of these weapons.” Eisenhower remarked that “there were certain places where you would not be able to use these weapons because if you did it would look as though the U.S. were initiating global war. If, however, we actually got into a global war, we would certainly use the weapons.”³⁶ The final NSC wording reflected both sides of this discussion: “In the event of hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weapons to be as available for use as other munitions. Where the consent of an ally is required for the use of these weapons from U.S. bases on the territory of such an ally, the United States should promptly obtain the advance consent of such ally for such use.”³⁷

The National Security Council approved NSC 162, “Basic National Security Policy,” on October 29, 1953. Despite Eisenhower’s previous admonition to Cutler, NSC 162 quickly became known as the New Look. Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the JCS, speaking to the National Press Club on December 14, said that “a New Look is a reassessment of our strategic and logistic capabilities in the light of foreseeable developments.” The objective of this reassessment, he explained, was to achieve “the maximum military strength and security of our country that can be obtained by the intelligent expenditure of the funds the people of our country … are able and willing to make available.” It would be impossible, he said, to place combat-ready troops everywhere that Soviet aggression might occur. “If we tried to do this, we could insure economic collapse.” Instead, the United States would improve its combat effectiveness with “new weapons and new techniques.” These included an emphasis on “modern air power” and a reliance on atomic weapons, which he said, “have virtually achieved conventional status within our Armed Forces.”³⁸

In their public comments following the adoption of NSC 162, Eisenhower and Dulles also emphasized the Great Equation. In his 1954 State of the Union address, Eisenhower said that the United States and its allies “have and will maintain a massive capability to strike back.” The new weapons that provided that capability, he said, had created “new relationships between men and materials. These new relationships permit economies in the use of men as we build forces suited to our situation in the world today.”³⁹ Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations five days later, Dulles said that the Eisenhower administration sought “maximum deterrent at bearable cost.” To achieve this goal, “local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power.” The “free community,” he said, must be “willing and able to respond vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing.” This would allow for “more security at less cost.”⁴⁰ Fearing that press coverage had made too much of his use of the phrase “massive retaliation,” Dulles quickly followed up with an article that appeared in the next issue of Foreign Affairs. He explained that the doctrine he had described did not mean “turning every local war into a world war.” Nor did it mean that “if there is a Communist attack somewhere in Asia, atom or hydrogen bombs will necessarily be dropped on … China or Russia.” What it did mean was that “the free world must maintain the collective means and be willing to use them in the way which most effectively makes aggression too risky and expensive to be tempting.”⁴¹

Eisenhower’s national security policy sought to balance the nation’s military and economic interests. Recognizing that the Cold War required a long-term commitment from the United States, he sought to make that commitment economically sustainable. There was a limit to how much the American people would sacrifice. Asking for more than this would eventually require the imposition of economic controls to promote military interests. Imposing a “garrison state,” as Eisenhower called it, would destroy the very freedoms the nation sought to preserve. “The problem in defense,” he said, “is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”⁴² Finding the proper balance between the nation’s military and economic interests was an attempt to solve what Eisenhower called the Great Equation.

Emphasis on the Great Equation led to the New Look being described as a national security policy that provided “more bang for the buck.” This characterization focuses on the New Look’s greater reliance on nuclear, as opposed to conventional, weapons. As we have seen, the national security policy laid out by NSC 162 was more complicated. It did call for the redeployment of overseas U.S. forces, but it did so rather tentatively due to belated Defense Department hesitancy and concern for the objections of American allies. The American commitment to NATO, which Eisenhower considered essential, was not undermined. NSC 162 also called for a greater reliance on nuclear weapons, which Eisenhower said he would not hesitate to use in the event of a global war. But their primary importance was as a deterrent to such a war, and he did not contemplate their use in a smaller conflict. This effectively ruled out the kind of deterrence proposed by Task Force B in the Solarium Project. Also ruled out was Task Force C’s “rollback” of communism in Eastern Europe, which had been advocated by the Republican Party since the onset of the Cold War. By eliminating these two high-risk strategies, Eisenhower, who recognized that winning a nuclear war was only marginally better than losing one, sought to balance risk and reward.

Creating a grand strategy is far more difficult now than it was in Eisenhower’s time. America’s determination to contain communism gave it an objective that transcended all other foreign policy concerns. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, American foreign policy lost that distinctive purpose. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. foreign policy once again had a transcendent purpose—fighting terrorism. Although terrorism remains a threat, countering it ceased to be the singular focus of U.S. foreign policy after its withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq. Since then, immigration, human rights, the environment, access to scarce resources, an expansionist Russia, and many other issues compete for attention in our increasingly global society.

The existence of competing, and sometimes contradictory, interests makes the creation of a grand strategy more important than it has ever been. As Bowie and Immerman argued, grand strategies do not provide answers to the specific questions that arise during a presidential administration; they establish long-term priorities that ensure consistency in how the United States answers those questions when they do arise. When prepared thoughtfully, they can also provide a blueprint for action by future presidents. As we have seen, after undertaking an extensive study, Eisenhower made some changes to the Cold War policies pursued by Truman. These changes, however, were adjustments to the approach, not the overall strategy. Eisenhower and every subsequent president, Republican or Democrat, remained committed to containment. This consistency helped to win the Cold War. For the United States to ensure its own security and maintain the credibility necessary to hold a leadership role in the world, our two political parties must define their common interests and work together to promote them abroad.