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NSC 68 and the Soviet threat: a new perspective on Western threat perception and policy making*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Beatrice Heuser
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Extract

Late in the summer of 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, the US administration adopted a policy paper entitled NSC 68. This paper was drafted in February and March and it paved the way for the most comprehensive re-armament programme the United States had ever undertaken in time of peace. US defence expenditure was increased from 6.9% of the US GNP in Fiscal 1951 to 12.7% in Fiscal 1952, rising to 13.8% in Fiscal 1953; NSC 68 thus ushered in the post-World War II peak of US defence spending as percentage of GNP. In his admirable work on US defence strategy, John Lewis Gaddis has called NSC 68 ‘a deeply flawed document’. He concludes his analysis of NSC 68 by saying that the US Administration adopted measures which

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1991 , pp. 17 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1991

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to acknowledge the financial support of St John's College, Oxford, the British Economics and Social Research Council, the North Atlantic Council, and the Harry S. Truman Library, which made her research possible. Also, the author wishes to thank Professor William Stueck and Dr Rosemary Foot for their constructive criticism and the helpful suggestions they have made with regard to this paper.

References

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8 See below.

9 Jervis, Robert, ‘The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 24 no. 4 (December 1980);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gaddis, , Strategies of Containment, pp. 109–14Google Scholar; Wells, Samuel, ‘Sounding the Tocsin: NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat’, International Security, 4 no. 2 (Autumn 1979), p. 139, etc.Google Scholar

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11 At the time, it was expressed e.g. in NSC 7 (‘The Position of the United States with Respect to Soviet Directed World Communism’) FRUS 1948 1, pt 2, p. 546Google Scholar f.: FRUS 1948, IV, p. 1,076Google Scholar, PPS 35 Report to NSC of 30 June 1948, accepted as NSC 18: NSC 68, FRUS 1950, ;I, p. 237Google Scholar. The British shared this view: see the ‘Bastion Paper’ of the summer of 1948, PRO, FO 371/72196, R 10197/8476 G. For an analogous appreciation drawn up jointly by representatives of the Western Union (i.e. Brussels Pact of 1948; the Western Union was only called Western European Union in 1955) countries (Belgium, Britain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands) plus Canada and the United States, forwarded to the respective governments on 9 September 1948, see FRUS 1948, III, p. 237Google Scholar f.

12 FRUS 1950, I, p. 237.Google Scholar

13 FRUS 1948, III, p. 238Google Scholar f. But see FRUS 1948, I, pt 2, p. 667Google Scholar, NSC 20/4 of 23 November 1948, where it says: ‘Even though present estimates indicate that the Soviet leaders probably do not intend deliberately armed action involving the United States at this time, the possibility of such deliberate resort to war cannot be ruled out.’

14 E.g. Kennan's, PPS 13, ‘Resume of World Situation’, FRUS 1947, I, p. 772Google Scholar; Kennan's introductory statement at the 148th Meeting of the PPS, 11 October 1949, FRUS 1949, I, p. 399Google Scholar; Kennan's paper written when he was Counselor for Security Affairs, for Dean Acheson, Secretary of State, on 6 January 1950, FRUS 1950, I, pp. 127–38Google Scholar passim.

15 FRUS 1948, I, pt 2, NSC 20/4 of 23 November 1948, p. 667Google Scholar, point 16 b; III, p. 238 f., Washington exploratory talks of 9 September 1948, point 1.4.

16 FRUS 1948, III, p. 239, point 1.6, 9 September 1948Google Scholar.

17 FRUS 1948, I, pt 2, p. 663, NSC 20/4 of 23 November 1948Google Scholar; III, p. 284Google Scholar f., PPS 43 ‘Considerations Affecting the Conclusion of a North Atlantic Security Pact’, 23 November 1948.

18 See ‘Long Telegram’, p. 702Google Scholar.

19 NSC 7 of 30 March 1948, in FRUS 1948, I, pt 2, p. 546Google Scholar. In a draft memorandum of 17 February 1950, Kennan spoke more precisely of a ‘further extension of Soviet power by political means, i.e., by intimidation, deceit, infiltration and subversion.’ See FRUS 1950, I, p. 162Google Scholar.

20 The example of Greece was used in discussions about the danger of communist subversion in France and Italy, and West Germany, e.g. PPS 23 of 24 February 1948, ‘Review of Current Trends, U.S. Foreign Policy’, FRUS 1948, I, pt 2, p. 518 f. and p. 522Google Scholar.

21 Gaddis, John Lewis, ‘Was the Truman Doctrine a Real Turning Point?’, Foreign Affairs, 52 (January 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see the exchange between Mark, Eduard and Lewis, John Gaddis in Foreign Affairs, 56 (January 1978), pp. 430Google Scholar ff. and Kennan's, response, pp. 643–5.Google Scholar

22 This is a possibility which the US ambassador to Britain outlined to the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, in August 1947; cf. Barker, Elisabeth. The British, p. 83.Google Scholar

23 For the origins of the Stalin-Tito split, see Heuser, Beatrice, ‘Western Diplomats’ Perceptions of the Tito-Stalin Split’, The South Slav Journal, 10 no. 3 (Autumn 1987), pp. 1–21.Google Scholar

24 For a more detailed account of the role of Yugoslavia in Western policies of the time, see Heuser, Beatrice, Western Containment Policies, chs. 2 and 3.Google Scholar

25 Cf. Barker, Elisabeth, Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics London, 1950), p. 103.Google Scholar

26 FRUS 1949, VI, p. 263Google Scholar, of 11 March 1949; Ministère des Affaires Etrangères [henceforth MAE] Z 542-1, 45, note of 22 March 1949; no 64 from Athens of 2 April 1949, no. 1,012 from London, 11 March 1949. See also, Barker, , Macedonia, from p. 106 onwards.Google Scholar

27 NSC 18/4 of 17 November 1949, in FRUS 1950, IV, pp. 1, 341–8Google Scholar, USNA, RG 319, Army Intelligence 1949–1950, Box 200, 350.09 Yugoslavia, P&O 091 Yugoslavia, of 15 March 1949 (date predicted here is the autumn of 1949); United States National Archives [henceforth USNA] RG 319, Army Intelligence Box 289, 350.05 Yugoslavia.

Memorandum for the Chief of the Army General Staff of 16 March 1949. There were also, however, a number of reports saying it was not likely (although it could not be excluded) that an attack, direct or indirect, would be launched, but these reports indicate that this possibility was taken very seriously both in Washington and in Belgrade: FRUS 1949, V, pp. 604–9 of 5 April 1949Google Scholar; Truman Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, Box 256, CIA Report ORE 44-49 of 20 June 1949; Declassified Documents Microfiche Series, (78) 41 G, CIA Memorandum from Hillenkoetter of 22 August 1949, and ibid. (78) 42 A of 29 August 1949.

28 Britain: statement of Hector McNeil (Minister of State) in Gurock, 28 August 1949Google Scholar, The Times, 29 August 1949; US: statement of Dean Acheson in press conference, 31 August 1949, cf. FRUS 1949, V, p. 932, note 2.

29 FRUS 1950, IV, p. 1,342Google Scholar. The Greek civil war had barely been brought to an endz, due mainly to the fact that the Yugoslav–Greek border had been closed at Tito’s orders in the spring of 1949. The danger of a considerable Communist success in elections in Italy in early 1948 had led the Western powers to fear a Prague-type coup in Italy, which of course would have been more likely still with Red Army troops standing in an adjacent country.

30 FRUS 1948, III, p. 239, point 1.6, 9 September 1948.Google Scholar

31 FRUS 1949, I, p. 272.Google Scholar

32 FRUS 1950, IV, p. 1,343Google Scholar.

33 This is not surprising in view of the fact that Yugoslavia was not a ‘friendly state’, unlike South Korea, for the liberation of which from Japanese occupation the United States had been responsible, as it had been for the setting up of the Western-style democracy. FRUS 1949, V, pp. 947–54Google Scholar, UMD–60a or NSC 18/3, the draft version of NSC 18/4, discussed at the Under Secretary of State’s Meeting on 16 September 1949.

34 Lovett, Robert in a Department of State/Department of Defense meeting, discussing a draft of NSC 68 on 16 March 1950, FRUS 1950, I, p. 197.Google Scholar

35 Morgan, Kenneth, Labour in Power 1945–1951 (Oxford, 1984), p. 424 f.Google Scholar

36 FRUS 1950, I, p. 142Google Scholar f. In his memoirs, Charles Bohlen dates the State Department’s interpretation that ‘a new phase of Soviet foreign policy’ being ushered in to the outbreak of the Korean War (Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York, 1973), p. 292Google Scholar). I should argue, however, that Korea merely confirmed what were previously held, but vague, expectations; see below.

37 Hammond, Paul: ‘NSC-68’, pp. 267 ff.Google Scholar

38 FRUS 1950, I, p. 282Google Scholar: ‘It is necessary to have the military power to deter, if possible, Soviet expansion, and to defeat, if necessary, aggressive Soviet or Soviet-directed actions of a limited or total character,’ NSC 68 of 7 April 1950.

39 FRUS 1950, I, p. 145Google Scholar, report by Paul Nitze of 8 February 1950 talks about the ‘possibility of a quick Soviet decision to resort to military action, locally or generally.’ Thus Kennan's expectation of a ‘limited fracas’ was shared, in spite of his otherwise declining influence. Kennan did not share the PPS’s feeling that there was more reason to fear Soviet action in 1950 than in 1949 (cf. FRUS 1950, I, pp. 160–167Google Scholar), but he was also aware of the danger to Yugoslavia – see above.

40 E.g. PRO, DEFE 4/22. COS (49)97th Mtg., Minute 3, Appendix: JP(48)59 (Final-Second Revise), 6 July 1949; DEFE 4/29, JP(49)134(Final) of 1 March 1950, plan GALLOPER: South Korea is listed with Western Germany, Austria, Persia and Indochina.

41 King’s College, University of London, Liddell Hart Archives, Microfilm 64, JCS 1920/1 of 31 January 1949; cf. Cave Brown, Anthony (ed.), Operation World War III – The Secret American Plan ‘Dropshot’ for War with the Soviet Union, 1957 (London, 1979).Google Scholar

42 FRUS 1950, I, p. 146 f.Google Scholar

43 FRUS 1950, I, p. 157.Google Scholar

44 PRO, CAB 129/40, CP(50)l 14 of 19 May 1950, Annex B: MIN/UKUS/P/3 of 6 May 1950, and minutes of discussion between Acheson and Bevin.

45 PRO, FO 800/449, London Tripartite Conferences (USA, UK, France), 4th Meeting, 28 April 1950, Item III b. (British record); see also Agenda for the Bevin/Acheson/Schuman talks of 6 May 1950, PRO, FO 800/449, MIN/TRI/P/4 of 6 May 1950, and PREM 8/1202, summary of discussions of MIN/TRI/P/4, 11 May 1950.

46 Auriol, Vincent, Journal du Septennat, 1947–1954, vol. III 1949 (Paris, 1977), pp. 46 (21 January 1949) and 123 (19 February 1949)Google Scholar; Truman Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA 8–49, 17 August 1949; NSC Meetings, Box 205, CIA 10–49 of 19 October 1949; PRO, CAB 129/35, CP(49)212, Memorandum by the Foreign Secretary to the Cabinet, 21 October 1949.

47 Truman Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA 12–49 of 21 December 1949.

48 FRUS 1950, I, p. 129, italics in the original.Google Scholar

49 FRUS 1950, I, p. 130 of 6 January 1950.Google Scholar

50 PRO, FO 371/88239, RY 1023/3 of 27 January 1950 and minutes; ibid., RY 1023/9 of 15 February 1950; cf. also reports by the British Military Attache, Col. Dewhurst, in RY 1023/10 of 10 February 1950.

51 PRO, FO 800/449, London Tripartite Conferences (USA, UK, France), 4th Meeting, 28 April 1950, Item III b. (British record).

52 Truman Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA 3–50 of 15 March 1950. This estimate is consistent with a British estimate of 21 October 1949, PRO, CAB 129/35. CP(49)212, memorandum by the Foreign Secretary to the Cabinet.

53 USNA, RG 59, 661.68. 5–32150, Memorandum by Fisher Howe, the Acting Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, on a briefing discussion with George Kennan, 31 May 1950Google Scholar.

54 PRO, CAB 129/40, CP(50)l 14 of 19 May 1950, Annex B: MIN/UKUS/P/3 of 6 May 1950, and minutes of discussion between Acheson and Bevin. PRO, FO 800/449, London Tripartite Conferences (USA, UK, France), 4th Meeting, 28 April 1950, Item III b. (British record); see also Agenda for the Bevin/Acheson/Schuman talks of 6 May 1950, PRO, FO 800/449, MIN/TRI/P/4 of 6 May 1950, and PREM 8/1202, summary of discussions of MIN/TRI/P/4, 11 May 1950.

55 FRUS 1950, I, pp. 239, 246 ff.Google Scholar

56 FRUS 1950, VII, p. 125 f. The last paragraph reads: ‘It would appear from nature of attack and manner in which it was launched that it constitutes all out offensive against R[epublic] O[f] K[orea].’Google Scholar

57 FRUS 1950, VII, p. 139, Moscow’s 1726 from Walworth Barbour, Counsellor of the Embassy, Charge in the absence of Ambassador Kirk, Moscow, 25 June 1950.Google Scholar

58 MAE, EU 31–9–1, Vol. 47, letter no. 47 from Chataigneau, Moscow, of 3 July 1950.Google Scholar

59 PRO, FO 371/86756, NS 1052/68 of 1 July 1950, ‘The Soviet Union and Korea’.

60 FRUS 1950, VII, p. 185, of 26 June 1950.Google Scholar

61 Dean Acheson: Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department (London, 1952), p. 405Google Scholar; see also Rosemary Foot: The Wrong War: American Policv and the Dimension of the Korean Conflict, 1950–1953 (Ithaca, 1985), p. 58Google Scholar f.

62 All of Korea is listed among the ‘countries aligned with the USSR’ in the following documents:

– King’s College, University of London, Liddell Hart Archives, Microfilm of American defence documents [henceforth KCMF] 67, JCS 1920/1 of 31 January 1949, ‘Long-Range Plans for War with the USSR—Development of a Joint Outline Plan for use in the Event of War in 1957’ (DROPSHOT) and KCMF 65, JCS 1920/5 of 19 December 1949, Report on DROPSHOT.

– PRO, DEFE 6/8, J.P.(49)7(Final), ‘Logistic Examination of Plan SPEEDWAY’ of 4 April 1949— ‘Assumptions about political situation at outbreak of war’.

South Korea is listed among the countries in a precarious situation but probably in favour of the Allies in:

– PRO, DEFE 4/22. COS(49)97th Mtg., 6 July 1949, Minute 3. ibid., J.P.(48)59(Final—Second Revise) ‘Overall Strategic Concept for War in 1957’.

– PRO, DEFE 4/29, J.P.(49)134(Final), Plan GALLOPER of 1 March 1950.

63 KCMF 62, J.I.C. 435/12 of 30 November 1948.

64 KCMF 64, JCS 1920/1 of 31 January 1949, ‘Long-Range Plans for War with the USSR—Development of a Joint Outline Plan for use in the Event of War in 1957’ (DROPSHOT), and KCMF 65, JCS 1920/5 of 19 December 1949, Report on DROPSHOT. See also Cave Brown, Anthony (ed.): Operation World War III — The Secret American Plan ‘Dropshot’ for War with the Soviet Union, 1957 (London, 1979), p. 47Google Scholar.

65 In Etzold, Thomas and Lewis Gaddis, John (eds.), Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York, 1978), p. 316Google Scholar, ‘Brief Short Range Emergency War Plan HALFMOON of 21 July 1948; and p. 325, ‘Brief of Joint Outline emergency War Plan OFFTACKLE of 26 May 1949.

66 E.g. see Stueck, William, The Road to Confrontation: American Policy toward China and Korea, 1947–1950 (Chapel Hill, 1981), pt III: ‘China and Korea Policy on the Eve of War’, pp. 111–72.Google Scholar

67 Acheson at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings, Review of the World Situation, 1 May 1950:Google Scholar

The main center of our activity at the present time has got to be in Europe. We cannot scatter our shots equally all over the world. We just haven’t got enough shots to do that. . . If anything happens in Western Europe the whole business goes to pieces, and therefore our principal effort must be on building up the defenses, building up the economic strength of Western Europe, and so far as Asia is concerned, treating that as a holding operation. quoted in Gaddis, , Strategies of Containment, p. 114.Google Scholar

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69 This psychological effect was essentially the reason why Kennan’s strategy of a US commitment to defending only certain strong points could not have worked; already the Truman Doctrine and the commitment to the defence of areas like Greece and Turkey were implicit recognitions of this fact, see Gaddis, , Strategies of Containment, pp. 90–2.Google Scholar

70 The same could be said, it seems, about the Prague coup of February 1948, which shocked the Western world quite considerably, although it had been expected that the Soviet Union ‘Will probably have to clamp down completely on Czechoslovakia.’ cf. PPS 13 of 6 November 1947, FRUS 1947, I, p. 772.Google Scholar

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72 Truman, Harry S.: Memoirs, vol. 2: Years of Trial and Hope (London, 1956), p. 446.Google Scholar

73 FRUS 1950, I. p. 332.Google Scholar

74 FRUS 1950, I, pp. 358–60.Google Scholar

75 FRUS 1950, I, pp. 361–7.

76 Marc Trachtenberg: ‘A “Wasting Asset”: American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 1949–1954,’ International Security, 13 no. 3 (Winter 1988/89), pp. 5–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

77 FRUS 1950, VII, p. 177, of 26 June 1950.

78 FRUS 1950, I, p. 376, of 25 August 1950.

79 According to the American Ambassador in France, Bruce, Georges Bidault, former Foreign Minister and Foreign Minister-to-be, compared the situation of mid-1950 ‘to Hitler tactics in 1938 and 1939 and the plucking of the leaves of an artichoke.’ FRUS 1950, VII, p. 175 f. of 26 June 1950Google Scholar. See also Secretary of State James Byrnes’s address to the United Nations, in United Nations, Official records of the General Assembly, First Session, Second Part, Plenary Meetings (13 December 1946), p. 1,289Google Scholar, in the context of defending US military expenditure in 1946: ‘It was our military weakness, not our military strength, that encouraged Axis aggression.’

80 Quoted in O’Neill, Robert, Australia in the Korean War, Vol. 1: Strategy and Diplomacy (Canberra, 1981), pp. 48–9.Google Scholar

81 There was a short period prior to the outbreak of the Korean War when the possibility of Chinese ‘Titoism’ was discussed. Nevertheless, the Korean War resulted in a return to a monolithic view of Communism; for example in a memorandum by the Secretaries of Army, Navy, and Air Force to the Secretary of Defence of 1 August 1950, FRUS 1950, I, p. 354Google Scholar, the ‘Soviet movement,’ was called ‘monolithic. Satellite troops are just as much Soviet in this sense as if they were members of the Red Army.’ See also Foot, Wrong War, p. 27 f., Jervis, , ‘Impact of the Korean War’ pp. 574–6 and 582–4Google Scholar, and James Tang’s discussion of the US position in the question of the recognition of Communist China, Britain’s Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949–1954’ (London, forthcoming 1991Google Scholar). US opinion changed again after the period considered in this paper, see e.g. Gaddis, , Strategies of Containment, pp. 142–4.Google Scholar

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84 FRUS 1950, I, pp. 376–389, NSC 73/4 of 25 August 1950.Google Scholar

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86 PRO, DEFE 7/743. document 39, French aide-memoire of 18 July 1950.

87 PRO, DEFE 5/22 COS(50)277 of 27 July 1950.

88 Truman Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, Intelligence File, Box 253, NIE 3 of 15 November 1950.

89 FRUS 1951, I, p. 5, NIE 15 of 11 December 1950.Google Scholar

90 FRUS 1950, VII, p. 154, Intelligence Estimate No. 7 of 25 June 1950.

91 Wiggershaus, Norbert, ‘Deutschland 1950 – ein ‘Zweites Korea’? Bedrohungsvorstellungen Bundeskanzler Adenauers nach Ausbruch des Korea-Kriegas’, in Militaergeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 25 (1979), pp. 82Google Scholar and 87, and see also his ‘Von Berlin bis Berlin: Westdeutsche Bedrohungsperzeptionen im “Kalten Krieg”, 1948–1961’ Acta Tome, 1 no. 14 (Montreal, 16–19 Aug. 1988), pp. 97–101.Google Scholar

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94 Ministère des Affaires Etrangères de la République Populaire Fédérative de la Yougoslavie: Livre Blanc sur les Procédés Aggressifs des Gouvernements de I’URSS, de Pologne, de Techéchoslovaquie, de Hongrie, de Roumanie, de Bulgarie et de I’Albanie envers la Yougoslavie (Belgrade, 1951Google Scholar).

95 Cf. Truman Library, President’s Secretary’s Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA No. 34466, Situation Summary of 8 July 1950; Box 350, CIA 7–50 of 19 July 1950; Box 250, CIA Situation Summary of 20 July 1950; Box 250, CIA Intelligence Memorandum No. 323-SCR of 25 August 1950.

96 See the NSC 18 series, USNA, National Security Council Documents series; for economic aid, see Novak Jankovic, ‘The Changing Role of the United States in Financing Yugoslav Economic Development since 1945’, Paper presented at the Symposium ‘policy options of American governments’ at the Kennedy, John F. Institute of the Free University of Berlin, July 1987Google Scholar; Chase, Harry, ‘American-Yugoslav Relations, 1945–1956’, PhD thesis, University of Syracuse, 1957.Google Scholar

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98 USNA, RG 218 CCS 092 (9–14–49) Section 2, JCS 1924/50 of 26 February 1951. NIE 29 of 20 March 1951 concluded that it was unclear what Soviet intentions were, cf. FRUS 1951, V, p. 1,756Google Scholar f.; see also FRUS 1951, I, p. 197, CIA Special Estimate 13 of 24 September 1951.Google Scholar

99 FRUS 1952–54, II, p. 554, NIE 99 of 23 October 1953.

100 Jervis, : ‘The Impact’, pp. 564 and 589.Google Scholar

101 Jervis, : ‘The Impact’, passim.Google Scholar

102 Wells, Samuel, ‘Sounding the Tocsin: NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat’, International Security, 4 no. 2 (Autumn 1979), pp. 116–58.Google Scholar

103 Cf. the testimonies of Leonilde Jotti, Giorgio Amendola, Pietro Secchia, and Paolo Bufalini's analysis, L'Unita (26 March & 5 April 1970); Rinascita (3 April 1970); quoted with commentary in Osteuropa, 20 no. 10 (October 1970), pp. A 703 ff. and pp. 700 ff.

104 Cf. Kaplan, Karel, Dans les Archives du Comite Central: 30 ans de secrets du bloc sovietique (Paris, 1978), p. 164Google Scholar f. This story is given credence by Mastny, Vojtech: ‘Stalin and the Militarization of the Cold War’, International Security, 9 no. 3 (Winter 1984/85), p. 127.Google Scholar

One is led to wonder whether Stalin was not perhaps also conditioned by thinking in analogies between Hitler and his opponents in the Cold War: whatever may be true about Victor Suvorov's claim that Stalin had planned a preventive attack on Hitler in 1941 (Der Eisbrecher: Hitler in Stalins Kalkuel translated from the Russian by Hans Jaeger (Stuttgart, Klett-Cotta, 1989)), he must certainly have regretted in retrospect that he did not stage one. Moreover, his opponents in 1945–1953 were, in his eyes, ‘imperialists’, just as Hitler had been an ‘imperialist’.

105 FRUS 1950, I, p. 262, NSC 68.Google Scholar

106 Dating back from George, Alexander L., ‘American policy-making and North Korean aggression; in World Politics, (January 1955), pp. 210–14Google Scholar. For the most recent work on this, see Lowe, Peter, The Origins of the Korean War (London, 1986Google Scholar); see also Cumings, , Child of ConflictGoogle Scholar, and Goulden, , Korea; see above, footnote 8.Google Scholar

107 Khrushchev, Nikita, Khrushchev Remembers (London, 1971), p. 332Google Scholar f; see also Gupta, Karunker, ‘How did the Korean War begin?’, China Quarterly, 8 (1972), pp. 699–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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109 Cf. Khrushchev, , Khrushchev Remembers, p. 333Google Scholar; Stueck, William, ‘The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Korean War’, p. 632.Google Scholar

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111 Wiggershaus, , ‘Deutschland 1950’, p. 96.Google Scholar

112 It was and probably still is Soviet military doctrine, that an attack could only take place if the attackers outnumber the other side by 3:1, as a Soviet-trained Yugoslav officer told the Americans in June 1952: cf. USNA, Suitland Branch, RG 319, Army Intelligence 1950–1952, Box 188, 350.05 Yugoslavia

113 Wiggershaus, , ‘Deutschland 1950’, pp. 89–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

114 Deutscher, Issac, Stalin, A Political Biography, 2nd edn (London, 1967), ch. 15 passim.Google Scholar

115 Cf. Mastny, Vojtech: ‘Stalin and the Militarization of the Cold War’ pp. 109–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

116 I.e. including army, security forces, navy and air force.

117 Estimates re Bulgarian force figures differed most widely, possibly because Bulgaria had the largest security and police force, numbering 120,000 according to a British military intelligence estimate of 1 March 1951, PRO, FO 371/95009, R 1193/16.

118 PRO, FO 371/95009, R 1193/14, Foreign Office brief for North Atlantic Council Deputy, early March 1951.

119 E.g. KCMF 42, JIC 607/3 of 21 November 1952, US estimate, new table 9(a) of pt III.

120 Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, SCR-5936, CIS Situation. Summary of 8 December 1950.

121 Basier Nachrichten, 4 September 1950; MAE, EU 31–4–2 vol. 15Google Scholar, Note de la Sous-Direction d’Europe Orientale of 27 January 1951 ‘Au sujet: Forces soviétiques stationnées au voisinage de la Yougoslavie’, and ibid., Note of the Sous-Direction d'Europe Orientale of 12 March 1952: cf. also calculations in Wiggershaus, ‘Deutschland 1950’, p. 92.

122 E.g. Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA Situation Summary SCR-4027 of 1 September 1950.Google Scholar

123 E.g. Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA Situation Summaries SCR-3528 of 3 August and SCR-3647 of 10 August 1950, Summary of 18 August 1950; MAE, EU 31–4–2, vol. 15Google Scholar, No. 2658 from Berne, 28 December 1950.

124 Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA Situation Summary SCR-4635 of 6 October 1950.Google Scholar

125 Reports by refugee ex-servicemen from the satellite countries, such as those recorded by the Yugoslavs in Testimonies Which Cannot Be Refuted: Statements by Refugee Solders of the Soviet Satellite Armies (n.d., 1951–2, published by the Yugoslav newspapermen's association), pp. 21–9.Google Scholar

126 Khrushchev, , Khrushchev Remembers, pp. 334, 336.Google Scholar

127 Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA Situation Summary of 27 October 1950.Google Scholar

128 Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Intelligence File, Box 250, CIA Situation Summary SRC-6093 of 15 December 1950Google Scholar; see also MAE, EU 31–4–2, vol. 15, Note de la Sous-Direction Orientale of 25 November 1950. It is important to note that the British Foreign Office's Russia Committee in its meeting of 18 July 1950 drew attention to the ‘two big build-ups of propaganda comparable to that, which preceded the Korean invasion’, namely concerning Indochina and Yugoslavia: PRO, FO 371/86762, RC/97/50.

129 Ministère des Affaires Etrangeres de la République Populaire Fédérative de la Yougoslavie: Livre Blanc, Annex 16–19.

130 Belá Király, ‘The abortive plan for Soviet aggression against Yugoslavia’, in Kiraly, Lotze, Barbara and Dreisziger, Nandor (eds.), The First War Between Socialist States: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and its Impact (New York, 1984), pp. 8–22.Google Scholar

131 Testimonies which Cannot Be Refuted, pp. 12–14Google Scholar: statements by Hungarian soldiers: ‘At the lectures they talk about war and that Yugoslavia will attack us, because it is an imperialist country which has betrayed the camp of peace.’ or: ‘At the political lectures and various other occasions officers told us that Hungary must establish a strong army, because Yugoslavia, on the orders of the American imperialists, intends to attack Hungary in order to restore the old regime . . . The attack exercises are preponderant in the instruction. Defense is but rarely on the daily exercise program.’ Similar reports were received also from defected soldiers from the other satellite countries, pp. 18–20 e.g. a Rumanian soldier:

In our political courses, it is said that the Korean War was started by the Americans, also it is said that the Russians are carrying on a struggle for peace in the world, that Yugoslavia has gone over to imperialist camp, that Yugoslavia is preparing to attack Rumania, that the Yugoslav army is wearing American uniforms . . . that Yugoslavia is a bridge for imperialist war against the USSR.

132 PRO, FO 371/87693, RG 10392/13.

133 Kirély, : ‘The Abortive Plan’, p. 20.Google Scholar

134 Philip West: ‘Interpreting the Korean War,’ The American Historical Review, 94 no. 1 (February 1989), pp. 80–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

135 Dingman, Roger, ‘Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War’ International Security, 13 no. 3 (Winter 1988/89), p. 69, but see below.Google Scholar

136 Dingman, ‘Atomic Diplomacy’; Daniel Calingaert, ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 11 no. 2 (September 1988), pp. 177–202Google Scholar; Rosemary Foot: ‘Nuclear Coercion and the Ending of the Korean Conflict’, International Security, 13 no. 3 (Winter 1988/89), pp. 92–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

137 Panikkar, K. M., In Two Chinas: Memoirs of a Diplomat (London, 1955), p. 113.Google Scholar

138 FRUS 1950, I, p. 400.Google Scholar

139 House of Commons, Debates, 5s, Vol. 484, Col. 731 of 15 February 1951.Google Scholar

140 KCMF 18, JCS 2099/158 of 3 January 1952.

141 FRUS 1950, I, pp. 282–5.Google Scholar

142 FRUS 1859, I. p. 264 (NSC 68).Google Scholar

143 FRUS 1950, I, p. 259 (NSC 68).Google Scholar

144 FRUS 1950, I, p. 285 (NSC 68).Google Scholar

145 FRUS 1950, I, p. 240 (NSC 68).Google Scholar

146 This was probably the most important reason for the expulsion of the Yugoslavs from the Cominform in June 1948, cf. Gavriel Ra’anan, International Policy Formation in the USSR – Fractional ‘Debates’ during the Zhdanovshchina (Hamden, Ct., 1983); Kousoulas, D. George, ‘The Truman Doctrine and the Stalin-Tito Rift: A Reappraisal’, South Atlantic Quarterly 72 (Summer 1973), pp. 428–39Google Scholar; Heuser, Beatrice, ‘Western Diplomats’ Perceptions, pp. 1–20.Google Scholar

147 On 28 March 1950, i.e. on the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War, Pravda carried an article by A. Leontiev saying that the coexistence between the two great systems, Socialism and Capitalism, was inevitable for a certain period – quoted in Carrere d’Encausse: ‘Corée 1950–1952’, p. 1,192.

148 Trachtenberg: ‘Wasting Asset’, see particularly Truman's endearing comment on Stuart Symington's suggestion that the US should incur the risk of Soviet involvement in the Korean War and respond with ‘the atomic bombardment of Soviet Russia itself’, pp. 25Google Scholar f.; see also the similar conclusions of Dingman, ‘Atomic Diplomacy’; Calingaert, ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War’; Rosemary Foot, ‘Nuclear Coercion’.

149 FRUS 1950, I, p. 281 f.: ‘the idea of'preventive’ war—in the sense of a military attack not provoked by a military attack upon us or our allies—is generally unacceptable to Americans.’Google Scholar

150 FRUS 1950, I, p. 289 f.Google Scholar

151 Paragraph [20] a; see FRUS 1948, I, pt 2, p. 668.Google Scholar