The creation of Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe and the blockade of Berlin by the Soviet Union in 1948 led to a decision (NSC-20) by President Harry S. Truman to emphasize atomic strategic deterrence. The same events also led to the April 1949 formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Air Force, meanwhile, also reacted to European events. In October 1948, the Secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington, and the USAF Chief of Staff, Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, dispatched Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay to Offutt AFB, Neb. LeMay's mission: Revitalize Strategic Air Command and establish it as the major instrument of deterrence and a pillar of US foreign policy.

In 1949, two more stunning international developments convinced officials that the US had an urgent need to review its national security policy.

"Secretary of Economy"

In September 1949, the US discovered that the Soviet Union had in August exploded an atomic device; American scientific and military experts had predicted that the Soviets would not have this capability before 1952 and probably later. Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson for a while preferred to believe-despite confirming air samples-that the Soviets had not really tested an atomic device at all. He argued that perhaps an accidental laboratory explosion had occurred. (Johnson, known to many as "Secretary of Economy," had deeply slashed defense budgets.) Truman, however, accepted as fact that the Soviet Union now possessed an atomic capacity. The American monopoly was history. Publicly, the Administration's response was low key, but it realized that international politics would never be the same.

Secondly, in October 1949, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communists conquered the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and established the People's Republic of China on the Asian mainland. Suddenly, Communist forces were in control of the most populous nation on Earth, one that had until recently been an American ally.

These two events set off alarms throughout the American national security establishment, triggering a reassessment of security policy and military force structure. Symington, for his part, had become deeply concerned-not panicky but convinced that "business as usual" was not an option. He strongly pushed for a review of the nation's security posture, and he knew what policies should be changed.

The Administration's tight-fisted approach to defense funding had kept the Air Force's force structure at no more than 48 groups, well below the 70 groups Symington thought necessary. Moreover, the Soviet atomic explosion had convinced him of the necessity of increased defense spending. The Soviet possession of an atomic bomb, said Symington, resulted in "an entirely new and revolutionary factor in strategic planning, which has never before faced US military planners." That factor, according to the Air Force leader: "The US is no longer secure."

Symington argued that, in light of events, it had now become "fundamental" that the United States maintain superiority in strategic atomic forces. Should the balance shift in favor of the Soviet Union, "disaster could be imminent," he warned.

In late 1949, Symington told Johnson, "It was the judgment of everyone in the government that a reconsideration of military plans and programs should be the result of sober reflection" but that there was "an equal danger" that Washington "may assume a business-as-usual course of inaction." Symington made it clear that, in his view, the US buildup "will have to be accelerated," because the Soviets had demonstrated that their technical capacity "is much greater than our most pessimistic experts had previously believed."

The Air Force Secretary noted that, should Russia develop the "relatively simple and completely proven process of air refueling," Moscow would have the capacity "to launch atomic attacks against the United States." Thus, the current "increase in groups and modernization of equipment is inadequate in the light of Soviet capabilities," said Symington. The United States required a retaliatory force in a state of instant readiness that could survive an initial atomic attack. "These times," noted Symington, "demand the same resolute determination ... that this country displayed in war."

"Minimum ... Air Force Necessary"

Symington emphasized that, after World War II, Gens. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Carl A. "Tooey" Spaatz, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as the President's Air Policy Commission, had gone on record as saying that 70 air groups was "the minimum peacetime Air Force necessary for American security," and, on the basis of the present program, "we will have only 48 groups in 1955, and only 29 of these will be equipped with modern planes." Consequently, Symington argued that the new situation required a broad, comprehensive review by US planners of the implications of the Soviet possession of the atomic bomb.

Truman still wanted to hold down defense spending, reduce wartime debt, and strengthen the postwar economy. Nonetheless, these alarming events of late 1949, along with increasing Soviet intransigence in Europe, convinced Administration officials that US military power might now be able to protect American interests in Europe and elsewhere. Congress took action and passed the Mutual Defense Assistance Act basically in the form that Truman had requested. Moreover, the President asked for a review of national security policy.

Adm. Sidney W. Souers, executive secretary of the National Security Council, proposed that the NSC prepare a report to chart American security objectives in peacetime and in the event of war. On Jan. 5, 1950, the NSC directed preparation of a report "assessing and appraising the objectives, commitments, and risks of the United States ... in relation to our actual and potential military power."

Shortly before, Truman had established a so-called "special committee" of the NSC comprising Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman David E. Lilienthal. The panel was to examine whether or not the US should develop a hydrogen bomb. Although Johnson opposed a study centered solely on the H-bomb, he agreed to it on the insistence of Acheson and Lilienthal. The special committee recommended that the AEC should determine the technical feasibility of the thermonuclear weapon. On Jan. 31, 1950, Truman ordered development of the H-bomb and a study of its foreign policy and strategic implications.

Truman's decision, in effect, nullified the Jan. 5 NSC directive and gave the task of formulating a major strategic report to a 10-member ad hoc State­Defense Policy Review Group. Paul H. Nitze, successor to George F. Kennan as director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, played the leading part in developing the report, which was to become NSC-68.

Nitze had been a member of the US Strategic Bombing Survey at the end of World War II and was deeply concerned with the need to build up the American strategic deterrent force. Department of Defense representatives on the review group were retired Army Maj. Gen. James H. Burns, Johnson's military assistant, and Air Force Maj. Gen. Truman H. Landon of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Tricky Dealings With DoD

Acheson and Johnson had joint responsibility to carry out Truman's directive. The State­DoD review group experienced tough sledding in early 1950, primarily because Johnson thought that Acheson and the armed services were determined to bust his $13 billion defense budget. "Dealing with DoD in those days was tricky," Nitze explained. "Johnson had promised Truman that he would hold the defense budget to $13 billion, a figure that was becoming more unrealistic with each passing day."

Johnson went so far as to issue a directive that all contacts between the State Department and the military services had to go through his office, a practice that everyone knew to be totally unworkable. Roswell L. Gilpatric, undersecretary of the Air Force, 1951­53, noted in retrospect: "The manner in which Louis Johnson operated was not conducive to getting cooperation and support from the services. You don't accomplish much if you beat the services over the head and make a public spectacle of overruling them."

The report prepared by the State­Defense review group described the world as a place divided into free and totalitarian nations. It painted a grim picture, noting that, should a major war break out, the Soviet Union's forces could roll over most of Western Europe, charge toward the oil-producing lands of the Middle East, launch attacks against Britain, and unleash atomic strikes against targets in North America. The report noted that, according to the CIA, the Soviet Union by mid-1954 would have 200 atomic bombs available for combat. It recommended that the United States take steps "as rapidly as possible" to increase its conventional strength and also accelerate production of atomic weapons.

Overall, the NSC-68 document called for "a substantial and rapid" buildup "to support a firm policy intended to check and roll back the Kremlin's drive for world domination." However, from a "military point of view, the actual and potential capabilities of the United States, given a continuation of current and projected programs, will become less and less effective as a war deterrent," said NSC-68.

The NSC report deliberately avoided addressing the issue of cost, although the review group's best estimate indicated annual funding of about $40 billion (in 1950 dollars) was a proper goal. To have grappled with the funding issue, however, potentially would have damaged acceptance of the report. Acheson emphasized that the omission of the cost factor "was not an oversight" and that the objective of the paper was to "bludgeon the mass mind of top government."

The Five Major Tasks

The NSC-68 War Forecast, 1950 "Should a major war occur in 1950, the Soviet Union and its satellites are considered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be in a sufficiently advanced state of preparation immediately to undertake and carry out the following campaigns: a. To overrun Western Europe, with the possible exception of the Iberian and Scandinavian peninsulas; to drive toward the oil-bearing areas of the Near and Middle East; and to consolidate Communist gains in the Far East; b. To launch air attacks against the British Isles and air and sea attacks against the lines of communications of the Western powers in the Atlantic and Pacific; c. To attack selected targets with atomic weapons, now including the likelihood of such attacks against targets in Alaska, Canada, and the United States. ... "After the Soviet Union completed its initial campaigns and consolidated its positions in Western European area, it could simultaneously conduct: a. Full-scale air and limited sea operations against the British Isles; b. Invasions of the Iberian and Scandinavian peninsulas; c. Further operations in the Near and Middle East, continued air operations against the North American continent, and air and sea operations against Atlantic and Pacific lines of communication; and d. Diversionary attacks in other areas ... "If war should begin in 1950, the United States and its allies will have the military capability of conducting defensive operations to provide a reasonable measure of protection to the Western Hemisphere, bases in the Western Pacific, and essential military lines of communication; and an inadequate measure of protection to vital military bases in the United Kingdom and in the Near and Middle East. We will have the capability of conducting powerful offensive air operations against vital elements of the Soviet war-making capacity."

Estimating the Soviet Stockpile The authors of NSC-68 were greatly concerned at the prospect that the Kremlin would amass significant numbers of atomic weapons in an unexpectedly short period of time. The key portion of NSC-68 reads as follows: "Central Intelligence Agency intelligence estimates, concurred in by State, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Atomic Energy Commission, assign to the Soviet Union a production capability giving it a fission bomb stockpile within the following ranges: By mid-1950, 10­20 By mid-1951, 25­45 By mid-1952, 45­90 By mid-1953, 70­135 By mid-1954, 200"