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The Road to NSC 162/2

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Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy, 1953–61

Abstract

Despite Eisenhower’s victory in the presidential election of 1952, the 83rd Congress was only marginally controlled by the Republicans. During his first year as president, Eisenhower was more frustrated by the activities of Republican legislators than by the Democrats — for instance, Senator John Bricker’s amendment designed to reduce presidential authority over foreign affairs and the intrusion of Senator Joseph MacCarthy of Wisconsin (the chairman of the Senate sub-committee on government operations) into internal security matters.1

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Notes and References

  1. Duane A. Tananbaum, ‘The Bricker Amendment Controversy: Its origins and Eisenhower’s Role’, Diplomatic History 9 (winter 1985) pp. 73–93;

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  9. Paul Nitze served as the Director of the Policy Planning Staff until April 1953. On Dulles’s attitude towards Nitze, see Hughes, The Ordeal of Power, p. 121; Leonard Mosley, Dulles: A Biography of Eleanor, Allen, and John Foster Dulles and Their Family Network (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1978), pp. 307–8.

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  10. See my ‘Preface’. Apart from those cited in the preface, see also Anthony Clark Arend, Pursing a Just and Durable Peace — John Foster Dulles and International Organisation (New York and London: Greenwood Press, 1988).

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  11. ‘Activist’ quoted from Fred Greenstein, ‘Eisenhower as an Activist President: A Look at New Evidence’, Political Science Quarterly 94 (winter 1979–80), pp. 575–99.

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  33. Churchill, Washington to Eden, tel. 34, 8 January 1953, PREM 11/422, PRO; Churchill to Eisenhower (letter), 11 March 1953, FRUS 1952–4, vol. 8, pp. 1115–16; see also Gilbert, Never Despair pp. 790–1; Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951–56 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986), p. 74.

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  34. NSC 138th mtg, 25 March 1953, FRUS 1952–4, vol. 2, p. 261; see also John W. Sloan, Eisenhower and the Management of Prosperity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), pp. 75–6;

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  35. See also Martin Fergus, ‘Retaliation Doctrine: A Study in United States Military Policy Formation’ Public Policy 17 (1968), pp. 234–5.

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  36. For a recent study of this issue, see Robert A. Pollard, ‘The National Security State reconsidered: Truman and Economic containment, 1945–1950’ Lacey (ed.), The Truman Presidency, p. 233; W.W. Rostow, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Foreign Aid (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), pp. 75–83.

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  37. Burton I. Kaufman, Trade and Aid — Eisenhower’s Foreign Economic Policy 1953–1961 (Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), p. 3. See also ‘Republican Campaign Platform, 10 July 1952’ in DAFR 1952, pp. 80–4.

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  38. NSC special meeting, 31 March 1953, FRUS 1952–4, vol. 2, p. 269; see also Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower — The Inside Story (NY: Harper & Brothers publishers, 1956), pp. 57–8.

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  39. For the Solarium exercise, see Cutler minutes, 9, 15 May 1953, FRUS 1952–4 vol. 2, pp. 323–6, 327–8; Eisenhower to Dulles (letter), 20 May 1953, ibid., p. 349; ‘Paper prepared by the Directing of Project Solarium’ I June 1953, ibid., pp. 360–6; G. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950–1963, (NY: Pantheon Books, 1972), p. 182. See also ‘Project Solarium’ in Box 9, NSC Series, Subject sub series, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–61 [hereafter cited as WHO], DDEL; Immerman, ‘Confessions’, pp. 335–50;

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  40. H.W. Brands, ‘The Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower and the National Insecurity State’, The American Historical Review 94:4 (October 1989), pp. 963–89; Robert Cutler, No Time for Rest, pp. 308–10; Bowie, ‘The Executive Branch’ pp. 68–9.

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  43. For recent studies on the ending of the Korean war see: Rosemary Foot, The Wrong War esp. ch.7; idem, ‘Nuclear Coercion and the Ending of the Korean conflict’, International Security 13:3 (winter, 1988/9), pp. 92–112; Edward Keefer, ‘President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the End of the Korean war’ Diplomatic History 10:3 (summer 1986), pp. 267–89;

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  45. McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choice about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), pp. 238–45.

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  46. For intelligence activities before 1950, see Jeffreys-Jones, CIA, pp. 42–62; Gregory F. Treverton, Covert Action: The CIA and the Limits of American Intervention in the Postwar World (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988), ch. 1; For NSC 10/2 (18 June 1948) see Etzold and Gaddis, Containment, pp. 125–8; Wells, ‘The First Cold War Buildup’, p. 193.

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  47. Harry Howe Ranson, ‘Secret Intelligence in the United States 1947–1982: The CIA’s Search for legitimacy’ in C. Andrew and D. Dilks (eds), The Missing Dimension — Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 203; Garthoff, Assessing the Adversary, p. 16; Wells, ‘The First Cold War Buildup’ pp. 193–4; Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, p. 491.

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  48. Marc Trachtenberg, ‘“A Wasting Asset”: American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 1949–1954’ International Security 13:3 (winter 1988–89), p. 13; Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, pp. 98–9; Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War vol. 2, pp. 157–82 ff; Robert Bowie’s comments on NSC 68, see May (ed.) Interpreting NSC 68, pp. 112–13; Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, pp. 236–7.

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  1. King’s College, London, UK

    Saki Dockrill (Lecturer in War Studies)

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© 1996 Saki Dockrill

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Dockrill, S. (1996). The Road to NSC 162/2. In: Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy, 1953–61. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372337_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372337_3

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-39735-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37233-7

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