AT a National Security Council meeting on 31 January 1950, President Truman met with Defense Secretary Louis A. Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) David Lilienthal to discuss continuing the thermonuclear project. The surprise of the Soviet atomic bomb tests three months earlier greatly concerned Truman. The President was disturbed, too, about the deteriorating relationship between America and Russia. The string of problems arising from the Czechoslovakian coup and Berlin Blockade of 1948 caused a heightening of tension that resulted in the President's increasing turn toward a policy of "containment." The Communist success in China the year before, too, seemed to Truman a deepening of the rift. He was now determined to make a thorough review not only of America's loss of atomic monopoly, but also of its existing political military strategy. The result of that effort was National Security Council paper 68, or NSC 68.1
Many historians consider NSC 68 to be a seminal think piece of American national security.2 Despite its vast historiography, however, no satisfactory attempt has been made to explain the connections between this important policy and the Army's revitalization in the early 1950s. The fact that historians have credited the Korean War for the build-up has only obfuscated the special connection that NSC 68 and the Army had and the contribution it made to the nature of the rearmament in the early 1950s. By examining those connections, this paper hopes to make clear what changes were affected by NSC 68 and which ones were affected by the Korean War.
NSC 68 was completed in April of 1950 and approved as a national security policy in September. For two months after the paper was completed, many top Washington officials debated NSC 68's call for an enormous military build-up, estimated at a whopping $40,000,000,000, more than three times the $13,000,000,000 appropriation for 1950. The main aim of those funds was to build the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military structure in Europe. Indeed, NATO had not made much progress toward this end by 28 October 1950, nearly a year and a half after it was formed, when retired General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower was approached by Truman to become the pact's first Supreme Allied Commander. Referring to French objections to the inclusion of West Germany in the alliance's defenses-objections which, if implemented, would weaken the alliance-Eisenhower adamantly stated that he would refuse any plan that would necessarily remain largely "a paper one." Clearly, the new Supreme Commander did not have much confidence in the military condition of NATO at that time.3
On its own merits, NSC 68 could not generate the funds to restore American conventional power or revitalize NATO's military structure. Historian Paul Hammond and others have argued that without the spark of the Korean War, the most that the supporters of NSC 68 could expect was only an additional $3,000,000,000.4 This was a negligible sum by NSC 68 standards. After the outbreak of the Korean War in June, however, virtually all debates were set aside. Truman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and the Army relied on NSC 68's arguments to guide its decisions on budget supplements while it was still unapproved as a formal policy. In early September, the JCS submitted and Congress approved the first supplement of $11,600,000,000. Within weeks, the JCS asked for a second supplement of $16,800,000,000 which the President signed into law on 6 January 1951. Truman finally approved NSC 68 as a national security policy on 30 September 1950. By 31 May 1951, the military budget swelled to $48,000,000,000, nearly quadrupling the prewar authorization.5
NSC 68 has thus been credited for the restoration of American military power and with providing the rationale for U.S. national security for much of the Cold War. Historian Melvyn Leffler labeled NSC 68 as one of the most significant studies of the entire Cold War. Ernest May, another eminent historian, credited the paper with providing the blueprint for militarization of the Cold War from 1950 to the collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s. Robert J. Donovan, one of President Truman's biographers, cited NSC 68 as one of the landmarks of the Truman administration.6
Coincidentally, the U.S. Army's view toward national military strategy in the opening years of the Cold War paralleled NSC 68's rationale perfectly. In fact, NSC 68, in conjunction with the Korean War, served as a crucial catalyst for the ultimate implementation of the Army's strategic plans in the early 1950s. NSC 68, therefore, had virtually no impact on Army strategy. What the paper did, instead, was to change the dominant national military policy, which was based primarily on strategic air power, to incorporate the Army's argument for a balanced-forces approach.
A properly proportioned force of all services, went the argument, deployed at key centers around the globe, would maximize available combat power and provide American political leaders the greatest flexibility to counter a host of political-military challenges posed by the Soviets.7 NSC 68 confirmed this view, and its authors successfully argued to remove the many political, economic, and psychological obstacles barring its realization.
This author's thesis, then, is that NSC 68's main impact on the Army was that it helped the Army serve its own institutional agenda for the Cold War, thereby revitalizing more than just its overall force structure, but providing much of the intellectual rationale for more men, more weapons, and more money. Its importance was particularly significant because NSC 68 argued for an extensive rearmament at a time when America was at peace. NSC 68's rationale had, therefore, to do more than just change national military strategy. The paper's logic somehow had to remove deep American psychological and historical prejudices against maintaining-and funding-a large ground force during peacetime.
This is exactly what NSC 68 did. And it did so, in part, for three reasons. First, because America was not operating in a period of total peace, but rather in a tense "cold war" with the Soviet Union, the paper was able to define the "nature" of the Soviet threat in ideological terms, not just military. "The risk we face," warned the authors of NSC 68, is "of a new order and magnitude." The paper declared that "It is quite clear from Soviet theory and practice that the Kremlin seeks to bring the free world under its domination by the methods of the cold war."8
The notion of the "free world" being threatened by "domination" by a "new order" of risk suggested that a serious decision now faced the only "free" nation powerful enough to resist: was America willing to defend freedom wherever it was threatened, or would it allow Communism to "dominate"? Americans would clearly choose to defend freedom. To emphasize the sense of urgency, moreover, the authors of NSC 68 declared that the clash between the two superpowers was "endemic"; the inevitable collision coming sooner rather than later.
But how exactly should America defend the "free world" or counter Soviet political and military moves? In other words, what means were best suited to protect U.S. vital national security interests abroad and at home? The Defense Department claimed that strategic air power alone was the best means. The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed that strategic strikes should have first priority to deter Soviet expansionism overseas as well as thwart any notions of bomber attacks against the North American continent. The combination of atomic weapons and America's postWorld War II global prominence had thus elevated the concept of strategic air power into a strategy of deterrence.
The authors of NSC 68 successfully argued against that strategy in favor of the Army's balanced-force approach. Deterrence under strategic air power was primarily aimed at preventing a general war. This left a hole in American political-military strategy, namely, limited war. NSC 68 identified this gap. The paper pointed out that "the U.S. and other free countries do not now have the forces in being and readily available to defeat local Soviet moves with local action." NSC 68's drafters warned government officials that the result of not having adequate conventional forces meant that the West was forced to "accept reverses or make these local moves the occasion for war-for which we are not prepared."9
NSC 68 presented arguments for a balanced military structure capable of various levels of response to Soviet aggression. The Soviets, it seemed, preferred to achieve their strategic objectives through a variety of means. Events such as the Greek insurgency of 1947, Soviet coercive demands for control of Iranian oil and the strategic Straits in Turkey in the same year, and the Kremlin-led Czechoslovakian coup of 1948 provided examples of Soviet tactics. These hot spots were local in nature, often pitted Soviet proxies against Western nations, and proved too limited in scope to warrant atomic retaliation. The Soviets were contented to employ whatever coercive power they could exert without taking the risk of using their own forces to undermine unstable governments along their periphery. Where Russian forces were committed, the Kremlin carefully avoided any direct "hot war" with American forces. Soviet tactics, in essence, were defining the military aspects of the Cold War.
The drafters argued for a new military structure that could address the various threats along a spectrum of war that now included subversion, limited war, as well as general war. "It is necessary to have a military power to deter, if possible, Soviet expansion," the authors declared, "and to defeat, if necessary, aggressive Soviet or Soviet-directed actions of limited or total character."10 They warned that over-reliance on nuclear weapons would increasingly weaken, not strengthen, American's ability to respond effectively where Soviet moves were most likely to occur, at the "local" level. Without a strong Army, they seemed to be saying, the nature of the existing military power would increasingly approach irrelevance.
Two years before NSC 68 was written, Army leaders had recognized the same pitfalls in the military's force structure under the air power strategy. They also recognized at that time that existing ground and air tactical forces were inadequate to deter war at the local level. By early 1948, plans emerged for the creation of an army capable of meeting this new challenge, a Cold War Army.
The Cold War Army had to support strategic national policies that now covered the globe. It had to be prepared to challenge the massive Red Army on the European plains as well as deter potential limited wars on the periphery. But stringent budget constraints, the desire to rapidly demobilize, and the attractive cost effectiveness of strategic air power combined to defeat the Army's efforts. The compelling arguments contained in NSC 68, which were reinforced by the suddenness of the Korean War, helped turn the tide in the Army's favor. The second reason NSC 68 enabled a peacetime expansion of ground forces, then, was that its arguments for conventional forces were both persuasive and timely. Importantly, NSC 68 also strengthened these arguments by exposing the limitations of strategic air power.
The third reason was based on time, or more precisely, uncertainty over how much time would be required to fight and win the Cold War, the object of which was to change Soviet behavior toward political amity. NSC 68 therefore emphasized the need for America to assemble a military force that could endure a difficult struggle against communism over an indefinite period. "Our aim in applying force," the paper announced, "must be to compel the acceptance of terms consistent with our objectives." NSC 68 concluded that the application of force should, therefore, be "within the limits of what we can sustain over the long pull." No matter what the cost, then, the force assembled had to meet the challenge over the "long pull" of the Cold War.11
Militarily, NSC 68's "long pull" admonition denoted having a ready, modernized, and lethal force. Controlling the limited end of the war spectrum was the Army's mission. Credible nuclear capability would control the higher end of the war spectrum. Combined, American military power could meet any challenge along the total spectrum of war.
Institutionally, the "long pull" argument meant a continued vital role in the Cold War for the Army. "Our force limitations," the paper stated, "will be our policy limitations."12 NSC 68 thus called for a rapid build-up of conventional forces. It argued for adequate and steady budgets, even at the risk of higher taxes or decreased social benefits or both. The authors of NSC 68 recognized that this build-up would place heavy demands "on our courage and intelligence." "But half measures," they declared, "will be more costly and more dangerous, for they will be inadequate to prevent and may actually invite war."13
In carefully couched words, the authors of NSC 68 defined a crisis that America could not easily dismiss with its existing strategy of atomic superiority. More was needed, specifically more troops. NSC 68's message logically pointed to a change in the national military policy to account for the need for the military build-up.
Prelude to Korea
The dominance of the air-power strategy and parsimony in budget allocations served to isolate the Army institutionally, if not militarily. In fact, the relevance of having an Army at all, given the American atomic monopoly, was considered a very legitimate question by air supremacists and economy-minded political leaders. The budget ax followed suit. Going into 1950, the Army's 677,000 soldiers were organized into ten active-duty divisions. Budget cuts to take effect that summer shaved that number to 630,000. In order to keep its ten-division structure, the Army cut the authorized strength of its brigades, regiments, and battalions by a third. This was the origin of the contemporary notion of the "hollow Army."14
When the Korean War occurred, the Army supposedly seized its opportunity to conceive new plans for a build-up. In fact, Army leaders were not confused by the developments of the Cold War and, indeed recognized the problems of "local" war. Moreover, plans to create a new type of force structure to fight this new type of war, the Cold War, were developed well before Korea and the writing of NSC 68.
The Cold War Army force structure was first conceived in late 1947 and early 1948 in connection with the Finletter report. This report was compiled by a blue-ribbon civilian panel commissioned by President Truman in the summer of 1947 to examine, among a host of air-power policies, the viability of establishing a seventy-group Air Force structure. The panel strongly approved the measure thus significantly enhancing the Air Force's ability to ask for more funds at the expense of the Army and Navy.15 Army Chief of Staff General Dwight Eisenhower, meanwhile, had initiated plans to establish a minimum level of peacetime preparedness. Since Army planners had not developed any new conceptual framework to take into account the Cold War, they were forced to base their plans on the same assumptions used by the Special Plans Division, an Army think-tank organized by General George C. Marshall during World War II to plan for the postwar organization. Army planners targeted 1952 as the year to complete their minimum force. Intelligence estimates used by the Special Plans Division listed 1952 as the "most dangerous year," the same year that the Finletter Commission believed that the Soviets would likely acquire an atomic bomb.16
The Army also based its force structure requirements on the threats discussed in its general war plans, which projected military operations on a global scale. With no political guidance from the National Security Council, the JCS assumed the U.S. objectives to be to compel the Soviets to withdraw to their pre-World War II borders and to desist from further political and military aggression. A year in the making, the war plan was officially approved in February of 1949. In one plan, codenamed Offtackle, the JCS viewed the Soviets as the principal aggressor and assumed that Soviet superiority in ground forces meant an early capture of Western Europe. The Joint Chiefs further estimated that it would take a full year of mobilization to build sufficient forces to recapture any lost territory. Strategic air power was thus considered the only immediate military countermeasure that could blunt the Soviet advance. Bases in England, Okinawa, and Cairo-Suez were considered vital staging areas for planned air offenses and therefore essential to secure from Soviet attack. The mission to secure these areas with existing forces was given to the Army. Offtackle's provisions called for defensive operations in Western Europe while the U.S. assembled the necessary ground forces to reenter the theater.17
Army planners estimated that an Army of 1,500,000 soldiers, with a balanced force of twenty-five active divisions capable of being committed to operations in six months (D+6), was required to meet the conventional ground needs of Offtackle.18 This ground force would also complement the Air Force's strategic capability and the Navy's ability to control the sea lanes. Combined, this total military power was thought to be the minimum level sufficient to fight a war against the Soviets by 1952. Note that the term balanced forces here referred to the Army's internal (i.e., tactical) plan to design an optimum mix of infantry, armor, and airborne divisions.19
The concept underpinning the twenty-five-division structure was that it would be a mobile strike force available for deployment (within D+6 months) to meet various contingencies. This was a significant departure from previous Army strategy. The mobile-strike concept tied readiness to the notion of responsiveness. Universal Military Training and Selective Service were important long-term programs, but they were also slow-developing and, therefore, not immediately responsive to potentially urgent contingencies.20
One such contingency was the Palestinian uprising in the spring of 1948 against the new Jewish homeland that the President supported. Truman was surprised and perturbed to find out that sending anything more than a division to bolster peace in Palestine would require a partial mobilization.21 Equally important was that the "mobile strike force" concept was shrewdly tied to the Air Force's wartime plans. Linking the rationale for a larger ground force to strategic-strike missions added credibility to an otherwise all-Army program. Not surprisingly, General Omar Bradley testified at a House Armed Forces Committee that in addition to preparing for contingencies, the Army's "minimum" force of twenty-five divisions was required to protect key overseas bases in support of the Air Force's strategic war plans as outlined in Offtackle.22
Not all of the Joint Chiefs agreed with the Army's estimate at the beginning. But General Eisenhower supported the plan and his prestige gave momentum to continued planning. General Bradley continued to push for the twenty-five-division program after replacing Eisenhower as Army Chief of Staff on 7 February 1948. Further detailed logistical studies, however, showed that existing equipment and current industrial capacities could only support an eighteen-division structure of 960,000 soldiers instead of the full twenty-five-division force. No new equipment had been purchased since the end of World War II, causing both a crying need in the Army and a virtual shutdown in industrial capacity for military hardware.23
Lieutenant General J. Lawton Collins, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army and a World War II hero, had assumed control of the planning by mid-1948 and made several key changes. Truman greatly admired "Lightning Joe" Collins. The general's nickname sprang from his decisive style of leadership while commanding the 25th Infantry "Lightning" Division on Guadalcanal and from his aggressive attack through St. Lo, France, in late July 1944 that precipitated the breakout from the Normandy beachhead. Collins recognized that even an eighteen-division structure imposed too heavy a burden on the national economy. The fact that 1948 was also an election year did not go unnoticed by the Deputy. The strength of the domestic economy often determined who the next president would be, and the incumbent, Harry Truman, was determined to win.24
General Collins believed that Congress would not immediately fund the entire twenty-five-division structure. Moreover, industry could only logistically support eighteen divisions in fiscal year (FY) 1949, the start of the build-up. He thus proposed that of an eighteen-division army that could be supported by industry, only a twelve-division army would be funded as part of the Regular Army with a strength set at 837,000, down from the original estimate of 960,000. The other six divisions would be built up from the Reserves and activated simultaneously in fiscal year 1949. The remaining seven divisions (bringing the total to twenty-five divisions) would also come from the Reserves and be scheduled for activation over a four-year period. By 1952, all thirteen Reserve divisions would be fully equipped, trained, and capable of employment within six months. The twelve active-duty divisions formed the core of the quickaction, mobile strike force necessary for immediate contingencies.25
Ever mindful of budget limitations, Collins initiated a "phased buildup strategy" to keep within reasonable funding levels. Costs for the program were to be spread over four years culminating in 1952, the year of "greatest danger." The phasing schedule was logistically tied to an industrial base being warmed up to support the program. As all twenty-five divisions would be in place by 1952, the program came to be known as the "18-25 Division Program." The following timelines were therefore set:
FY 1949 6 National Guard divisions (plus 12 Regular Army divisions for an 18-division total force structure in the first year) FY 1950 8 National Guard divisions (i.e., 2 more National Guard divisions, a total of 20 divisions) FY 1951 10 National Guard divisions (22 division total) FY 1952 13 National Guard divisions (25 division force)26
Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal asked the Joint Chiefs to provide strategic guidance to the Munitions Board, responsible for industrial mobilization, to determine the requirements for the eighteendivision structure programmed for FY 49 as well as the eventual activation for all twenty-five divisions. The thirteen Reserve divisions were to be supported for a D+6 deployment. The two-year timeline below, expressed in months, was eventually approved as a JCS war plan (JCS 1725/22):27
From this twenty-five-division force, the Army could expand upwards to an eighty-division structure within two years. Based on the Special Plans Division's (SPD) assumption of a year's advanced warning, Army planners felt confident it could meet the challenges of the "next war" as laid out by SPD. The Army Mobilization Plan (AMP-1), which outlined the schedule for mobilization, grew from the 18-25 Division concept. AMP-1 became a formal planning document that reflected the Army's strategic approach to expanding the regular Army into whatever force structure was required to meet potential contingencies ranging from the Berlin and Palestinian crisis to an all-out ground war in Europe.29
As noted earlier, budget limitations set for the summer of 1950 upset all of "Lightning Joe's" plans. The budget cut the Army's strength to 630,000 men, down from Collins's "low-side" estimates for a 837,000soldier army that included twelve divisions. After being promoted to Army Chief of Staff in the summer of 1949, General Collins was further beset by having to decide between two equally distasteful options: cut the Army to nine divisions and retain near-full manning for most of its subordinate organizations; or maintain the current ten-division structure, but "thin out" each division by reducing its strength by a third.
Political considerations forced Collins to adopt the latter option. In the face of Communist ascendancy on mainland China, Collins could not easily draw down one of the four U.S divisions from Japan without provoking an adverse psychological effect on the Japanese; namely that the U.S. was withdrawing from the region. For the same reason the 1st Infantry Division in Germany, the lone U.S. division in that country, had to stay. The remaining stateside units were already operating at reduced strength. Collins's decision precipitated the "hollow Army" mentioned above.30 Thus the eighteen-division goal set for FY 1949 now appeared impossible even by FY 1950. Moreover, new JCS estimates now showed that 1952 might not be the beginning of the danger period, though no other exact dates were offered.31
Despite budget setbacks, Army leaders were committed to the goal of a balanced force structure of twenty-five divisions (twelve Regular Army divisions and a thirteen-division National Guard force that were to be equipped, trained, and deployable by D+6). When AMP-1 was reevaluated to see if total numbers could be decreased, Lieutenant Colonel Warren H. Hoover, Acting Chief of the Army War Plans Branch, argued that AMP-1 "generates forces adequate to support any probable war effort". Unless a major change in concept occurred, Hoover could see no justification for revision of AMP-1. More importantly, the War Plans chief pointed out that any unnecessary revisions could hamper the revitalization of the industrial support base.32
The American occupation Army in Germany, meanwhile, amounted to little more than a low hurdle for the Red Army. In a 1949 briefing to Army Secretary Gordon Gray, the Plans and Operations division under Major General Charles Bolte warned that the best they could hope for was "to interpose [a] brief delaying action."33 The prospects for improvement, as pointed out in the briefing, seemed poor given low budget appropriations and equally low readiness ratings. America's strategic reserves consisted of only two-thirds of the 82d Airborne Division. Put strictly in terms of credible military capabilities, NATO, in 1949, was essentially a "paper" treaty.34
A telling indication of the poor state of readiness of American ground forces came in an 18 February 1948 briefing for President Truman at the White House. Army General Alfred M. Gruenther laid out the available military strength balanced against "present and possible commitments."35 According to Gruenther's estimates, total Army shortages,36 including those in the requisite support units, would amount to 165,000 soldiers by the end of 1948. Gruenther closed the briefing by emphasizing that the deployment of anything more than a division in any area would require partial mobilization.37 Few improvements were made since Gruenther's 1948 briefing and the outbreak of the Korean War two years later.
General Omar Bradley warned in a 1949 Saturday Evening Post article that the peacetime Army could not afford to be just a base for mobilization in times of peril. "Our way towards security," the General stated, "lies not in any sudden burst of activity, but in a steady, unwavering, purposeful application of energy over a long period of years."38 The Cold War portended immediate dangers of conflict in Greece, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Berlin. Given Soviet military moves, many of the potential conflicts promised to be conventional in nature. If by political miscalculation the Kremlin decided to overrun Western Europe and precipitate another global war, vital overseas air bases had to be immediately protected for strategic strikes, not to mention the huge task of recapturing any lost territory. The air-power strategy only masked the mismatch of the forces-in-being.
Service rivalries over the air-power strategy, too, clouded any unified strategic military thinking. The row between the Army and Air Force over strategic-tactical forces exposed the difficulty in establishing a unified strategy. To compensate for the aggregate drop in the FY 1949 and FY 1950 budgets, Air Force planners proceeded to "transfer" their bombers from tactical units assigned to the various Unified Commanders into their Strategic Air Command (SAC) organization. These "redeployments," as they labeled them, came at the expense of major Army ground commanders, prompting Bradley to send an angry memo to the Joint War Plans Branch to investigate the matter.39
Attached to Bradley's memo was a Plans and Operations study of the "redeployments." The study showed that, based on the proposed FY 1950 budget, the Air Force would be reduced to forty-eight groups (from fifty-seven groups). To compensate, some eight and one-third groups were scheduled to be "redeployed" from the Unified Commands into the Air Force's Strategic Air Command (SAC). To ensure that the letter was clear, Plans and Operations wrote that "the deployments as recommended by the Air Force indicate clearly that SAC is being built up at the expense of the unified commanders."40
General Bradley clarified, in the same Saturday Evening Post article, what was needed from the country to support the new military strategy. "War is not impossible," wrote the Chairman, "but I believe it can be made increasingly unlikely by our behavior." Bradley admitted that what he was proposing would not be easy or cheap. "We are in for a long pull," cautioned Bradley, "maintaining the necessary forces to prevent war will always be a distasteful burden, a nagging drain on our money, effort, and will power." In this regard, the general warned that "our greatest danger will be from ourselves." Bradley was referring to a long American tradition of cutting defense spending in times of peace and generally maintaining a small, ill-equipped, poorly trained active force. It was against that tradition that Bradley's article was aimed.41
In peacetime, America showed a tendency to relax. The emphasis on the capability of strategic air power to maintain the peace, the Chairman believed, contributed to that notion. Bradley reaffirmed, in the same article, that the Joint Chiefs, including the Navy and Army, had agreed that the atom bomb and the planes to deliver it had first priority: "that the bomb was the principal initial offensive weapon in a future war." On the other hand, the general also made clear that the Joint Chiefs, including the Air Force, did not believe that the bomb was omnipotent. Their collective position on the bomb's value was that "it cannot win a war by itself." What the bomb gave America was preponderance, which "in connection to all other arms," wrote Bradley, "would in time subdue the aggressor."42
The forces that Bradley had in mind needed to be affordable but of such strength as to force a potential enemy to recognize that an attack against America or its allies was foolhardy. General Collins made specific changes to the original twenty-five-division plan in order to reach that optimum strength. Strategic air power, too, was put in its proper military context. The message was that only balanced forces could maximize combat effectiveness and win wars. Bradley also cautioned that too large a force would unnecessarily drain the economy while overtly heightening tensions with the Soviets, a prospect that could lead to nuclear war through miscalculation. Conventional forces thus had to be strengthened and then maintained for the long pull of the Cold War.
Army Chiefs Eisenhower, Bradley, and Collins believed that total military power, not simply ground or air or sea power, was the crux of sound military strategy. Together with superior atomic capabilities, a strong conventional force would provide the nation with a powerful deterrent to address a host of threats along a spectrum of various kinds of war. Their "mobile strike force" concept, embodied in the 18-25 Division force structure, provided the quick responsiveness missing in the existing structure.
Their designs were also formulated in a global context. Korea, NATO, Japan, and other areas where occupation forces were stationed were as much America's forward defensive lines as they were regional collective security arrangements. And the military's philosophy behind the strategy of forward defense was simple: "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them in San Francisco."43 The object also was to ensure that America would prevail if that war were fought. Twelve Regular divisions supported by thirteen ready National Guard divisions, in the Army's opinion, provided an optimum proposal for preparedness within reasonable financial boundaries. But as in all other peacetime eras, military considerations played a lesser role. The economy and other important domestic agendas dominated and Truman's defense budgets reflected this American tradition.
Tradition was not the only force working against the Army's restoration. In many ways, the Army seemed to be struggling against formidable psychological and historical obstacles. Americans wanted to stop Soviet aggression and the spread of communism, but not with American blood or a military budget that frustrated its economic goals. Though the U.S. was clearly the most powerful nation, she was not yet the world's "policeman." Though the rhetoric of the Truman Doctrine offered the promise of U.S. support, it entailed no formal agreement to commit American boys to fight on foreign soil, especially during peacetime. Instead, the opposite happened. Between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, Americans returned to their historical practice of isolationism: not a withdrawal from world affairs, but maintaining a maximum amount of freedom of action.44
Thus the Army and Marines seemed to have no chance for expansion. The Air Force's and Navy's aviation programs appeared cheaper and "bloodless" and, therefore, preferable. In short, machines, not men, would do the fighting. And these machines would do the fighting at less cost than a large standing Army. Americans did not fully grasp that they were living in a new and far more dangerous era. For the first time in its history, an enemy would soon have in its grasp the potential to attack the continent with weapons of mass destruction and do it with very little warning. America's monopoly in atomic weapons helped to calm such fears, but that calm did not last long. In September 1949, the Soviets successfully exploded their first atomic device.45
In the face of these obstacles, Army leaders pressed on. To meet existing national security warplans, they believed that the Cold War Army needed to be highly modern, well-trained, properly structured, and carefully deployed. These conditions required more technology, more equipment, more men, more money. It also required a clearer and more definitive national military strategy and a new national security policy that addressed important psychological and historical concerns as well as political and military interests.
Intersection: Korea, NSC 68, and the Cold War Army
The Korean War opened the Pandora's box of the Cold War. Here was exactly the danger that NSC 68 warned about. As if on cue, the neglect in Army preparedness led to an early drubbing by the North Koreans. Adding to the frustration was the unhappy realization that since the war took place on the "periphery" and was being fought for limited political gains, America's atomic superiority proved unable to deter the invasion and useless to recoup the lost territory. Only ground forces could do that.
The timing of the Korean War, coming as it did shortly after NSC 68 was written, greatly enhanced the paper's credibility and provided much of the impetus to actually fulfill its recommendations. By their very nature, these recommendations promoted an assertive attitude among official Washington toward any moves by the Soviet Union. The shock of Korea, in other words, was received by a host of top officials intellectually prepared to assume the worst of Soviet intentions. Washington officials thus viewed North Korea's unprovoked aggression as not just an attack against South Korea, but an attack against the fundamental principles of democracy and individual freedom everywhere in the "Free World." When Washington officials rushed to act on the paper's recommendations, they did so not only to fight the Korean War, but also to fight the Cold War, particularly in Europe.
Significantly, funds made available went mainly for the build-up of conventional forces. Equally significant, the best of these forces were sent to Europe to fight the Cold War against communism, and not to Korea where the actual shooting was taking place. Strategic air power still commanded the central role and continued to receive significant funding. But the nature of American military power was changing. Strategic air power no longer represented the only immediate means of American military power. The military-industrial complex was beginning to gear up to meet huge equipment and weapon demands for the Army. In time, policy makers would have a powerful balance of tactical air, sea, but especially ground forces, as well as a potent strategic capability, to deter Soviet moves either in limited or total war.
The Korean conflict began a unique situation in which the Army actually faced two wars: the Korean War and the Cold War. In response, the Army conducted its build-up with two force structures in mind. The first force structure, built around the Eighth Army, was assembled to meet the short-term crisis of the Korean War. For all practical purposes, the Eighth Army was designed, supported, and eventually demobilized in accordance with the Army's "temporary view" of the conflict.
The other force structure was centered on the Seventh Army, which was based in Germany and assigned to NATO. The Seventh Army, along with the strategic reserve forces in America, reflected the Army's commitment to the "long pull" premise of NSC 68. These forces were designed to meet the long-term crisis of the Cold War and, therefore, assembled under the Army's strategic long term plans independent of the fighting in Korea.46
The personnel rotation policy in the Korean theater provided an example of the short-run attitude undergirding the Eighth Army. To keep morale up, soldiers were allowed to rotate out of the Korean theater on a point system. A front-line soldier received four points for each month of duty in the combat lines. Three points were awarded for duty in the combat zone. Serving anywhere in the rear area of the theater netted a soldier two points per month. When a soldier earned thirty-six points, he could rotate out of Korea. Under the point system, then, a tour for a front-line soldier might technically last only nine months and no longer than eighteen months for soldiers serving in rear areas.47
Though the point system could be individually rewarding, it wrecked unit cohesion. The constant personnel shuttle greatly disrupted any sense of unit pride. By contrast, the forces that deployed to Germany did not operate under a point system, allowing for longer tours and thus less disruption. The chances of establishing long-term unit cohesion and esprit were far greater in Germany than in Korea.48 General Collins remarked in a 1953 Armed Forces Day speech in Texas that the exceptional achievement of the Eighth Army was the fact that the rotation patterns were so fluid that Eighth Army's personnel had turned over three times during the war; in effect, "three armies" were mobilized.49
In order to push more troops through the Eighth Army's revolving personnel doors, General Collins was forced to deploy thousands of individual replacements who were already assigned to Reserve and Guard units in the U.S. Few of these reservists received much training before being deployed. Collins's move was also controversial because it depleted units in the U.S. of their personnel, causing the same personnel destablization that was occurring in Korea.50
The impermanence of unit stability not only pointed to the emergency conditions of the war, but also to the secondary role the Eighth Army played in the Army's overall strategic thinking. Aside from the disruptive flurry of personnel rotation, whole divisions, too, were moved in and out of the fighting zone. Eighth Army consisted of eight divisions which rotated in and out of Korea from bases in Japan. Some of these divisions, in turn, were replaced by other U.S divisions during the war. A maximum of six divisions were actually engaged in the fighting in Korea at any one time while two divisions were kept in Japan to rearm and refit.51
Tracing the development and deployment of the newly activated forces for Korea and Germany provided another example of the "long-" versus "short-"run intentions undergirding the two armies. The Army activated four National Guard infantry divisions in July 1950: the 40th (California), 45th (Oklahoma), 28th (Pennsylvania), and 43d (Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont). A fifth division, the 4th Infantry Division, was activated as a Regular Army division. The 40th and 45th received less than two months of training before deploying to Korea. The 28th and 43d, on the other hand, received six months of training before being shipped to Germany. The 4th Infantry, also earmarked for deployment to Germany, was perhaps the strongest of the newly activated divisions. Its ranks were filled with recent draftees, many of whom were college students and its officers and non-commissioned officers were selected cadre personnel from previously existing units. Though the 4th was regarded by many in the Army as a quick-developing unit, Army Field Forces Commander General Mark W. Clark insisted that the 4th receive at least fourteen weeks of unit training before being shipped. Not surprisingly, the 4th sailed to Germany on 19 May 1951 with an excellent readiness rating.52
The Seventh Army, in contrast with Eighth Army, embodied the Army's vanguard of the Cold War. Unlike its counterpart in Northeast Asia, the Seventh Army was purposely constructed to fight a long, tough-and expensive-battle against the Soviets and their communist ideology. The divisions deploying to Europe were selectively assembled, received significantly more training than those deployed under emergency conditions to Korea, and were earmarked for the latest equipment. Consequently, the Seventh Army was able to establish better long-term unit cohesion, and ultimately became the Army's proving ground for a modern tactical war-fighting doctrine.53
Viewed in this light, the Eighth Army seemed out of step with the modern warfare of the Cold War. In one radio program, Army Chief of Staff Collins remarked that Korea had been "a throw-back to old time warfare more comparable to that of our frontier Indian days fighting than to modern war."54 The Eighth Army, in other words, seemed wholly unprepared psychologically to understand or accept the limited-war tactics of the Cold War. America no longer fought for total military victory, but rather sent its soldiers into battle to gain limited political objectives. This was a concept totally foreign to the World War II veterans who were whisked off to Korea, but one which would become increasingly familiar after the war to the new generation of soldiers now filling the ranks in Germany and America.55 In many ways, the point-system rotation policy, the limited-war tactics, and the impermanence of unit cohesion in the Eighth Army represented a sharp break in American military tradition. As Harvard political science professor Samuel P. Huntington accurately noted, the Korean War was the first war in American history (except for the Indian struggles) which was not a crusade. Eighth Army soldiers, for instance, were not "in for the duration" as evidenced by the rotation policy.56 The concept of limited war, moreover, totally frustrated the generals, particularly Douglas MacArthur, who were definitely "in for the duration."
Many World War II veterans, recalled to active duty, also felt frustrated and confused by the limited nature of the Korean War. A 1951 news article noted that many in the Volunteer Reserves thought that they were signing up as a patriotic duty for call-up in time of a "big war." They had no thought of being available for call-up for the kind of "small war" that was then raging in Korea.57 Indeed, many of these Reservists entered the Korean conflict with a firm belief in the traditional American ethos of war, and which had been confirmed in their recent experience in World War II: to fight only when provoked, to retaliate with total means with the aim of total victory, and once once war was over to revert back to total peace. Their traditional attitudes were being abruptly challenged by the new standards of warfare brought on by the Cold War.
The Seventh Army seemed well-suited to meet the rigors of a long Cold War struggle that Huntington had in mind. It was established as the mainstay in the NATO defense structure and was intended to remain there for as long as the Cold War continued. The Seventh Army physically represented America's long-term military commitment to Europe and served as a strong reminder to Russia, as well as to the free world, of American resolve against Communism.58 Moreover, Americans enlisting to fill the ranks of the Seventh Army and other units in the United States represented a new generation of soldiers; recruited not just to meet an immediate emergency, but to defend the principles of democracy in an era of uncertain peacetime. In effect, these new recruits were the Army's first "Cold War" warriors.
Lasting Impact
Once President Truman approved the paper as a national policy, the impact of NSC 68's reaffirming effect on the Army was profound. By 1955, five years later, the Army had expanded from 600,000 soldiers and ten divisions to 1,500,000 soldiers and twenty divisions. Army appropriations nearly tripled, from $6,000,000,000 before Korea to $17,000,000,000 by the end of the war. The Army did not drop much below 900,000 men during the Cold War and annual budget allocations fluctuated between $9,000,000,000 and $10,000,000,000. Equally important, the core of the Army's Cold War force structure, embodied in the Seventh Army, was adequately "sheltered" overseas in NATO and away from the budgeteers.59
There was one other very important opening that NSC 68 offered the Army: the chance to send ground forces to Europe in a combat role (despite the lack of a "hot war" with the Soviet Union). NSC 68's recommendations not only called for expansion of conventional forces, but essentially supported the Army's desire to convert a peacetime occupation mission into a wartime mission for the Army in NATO. While the former point addressed means, the latter was clearly centered on ends. Even if the 18-25 Division Program was funded without the assistance of NSC 68, the likelihood that an isolationist-prone Republican Congress would allow thousands of American troops to go overseas to defend Europe-in peacetime-was slim. Yet this was precisely the logical object of NSC 68.60
Sending ground forces to Europe inherently meant turning the defensive strategy of NATO to conventional means. The existing defense plan had relied primarily on strategic air power: SAC strikes launched from secured bases in England. Solely because of austere budget cuts did Army leaders reluctantly accept strategic air power as the primary line of defense of Europe.61
These basic concepts were not beyond the Army's strategic thinking at the time. Nor was the Army reconciled to waiting for a policy like NSC 68 to expand its role in Europe. Army leaders were, in fact, already testing the political and military tolerances within the Defense Department to effect such plans.
At about the same time as NSC 68 was being drafted, the Army was finishing its own study to improve Western Europe's defense forces without incurring any additional costs. The specific aim of the study was to see if Europe could be defended with conventional forces, given the overwhelming conventional superiority of the Red Army. Led by the Under Secretary of the Army, Tracy S. Vorhees, the study concluded that the West's superior weapons technology could offset Soviet strength of numbers long enough for the Western nations to mobilize sufficient ground forces. To pay for the upgrade, Vorhees suggested merging funds from the Mutual Defense Assistance Program and the European Recovery Program to build up Europe's defenses. Mired in the larger battles over roles and missions between the services, the Army's report received perfunctory support and went nowhere.62
The failure of the Army study provided a sense of what was sorely lacking in the Army's pursuits. Put simply, it lacked a wartime mission to fight a Cold War enemy. The Army had in the balanced forces approach what it believed to be the proper strategy for maximizing total military power which could respond to the Soviet challenge anywhere in the world. Yet without the support of an accompanying political strategy, operational missions, like those which were possible in NATO, appeared dim.
The 18-25 division force structure program also suffered from the same lack of clear purpose. For the most part, it was developed out of a set of arbitrary military requirements based on overseas "shortages" from occupation duties-not operational missions. Defense of the U.S. continent represented the only mission with a "clear" place to defend. And for that, even ten undermanned divisions could do the job.
NSC 68 offered a more persuasive rationale on which a new set of coherent requirements could be based. Operational missions would follow and logical force structures be established. The paper's unmistakable call to defend Europe with U.S troops coincided with Army designs to do just that, as the Vorhees Study indicated. "Unless the military strength of Western European nations is increased," warned the authors of NSC 68, "it is likely that those nations will not be able to oppose, even by 1960, the Soviet armed forces in war."63
In truth, the Army had few other real opportunities to recast its institutional role. NSC 68 was the only major security document up for consideration. Several government agencies had a stake in its rejection, or at least modification, such as the Budget Bureau, which preferred to keep costs down. Between 7 April, when Truman sent the paper back to the NSC for "further review," to the start of the Korean War, NSC 68 circulated through all the top agencies for coordination.
The Korean War explained much about why America felt compelled to rearm in the first place. NSC 68, for instance, could not on its own have stimulated the scale of build-up that occurred between 19501953.64 What the Korean War does not explain, however, is how and why America changed its views on the nature of military power or why Washington officials saw a greater danger beyond the mountains of Korea. The move to expand the Army beyond the fighting in Korea, for instance, fundamentally meant that America now had a different type of military power. It was a power more appropriate to the demands of the Cold War, capable of addressing both total and now limited warfare. In short, it was more useable. In this sense, America's overall national power, diplomatic and military, was greatly enhanced.
NSC 68's authors portentously warned that the Soviets would threaten America's national security at the periphery and do it with "local" military actions. It presented arguments that outlined why an over-reliance on strategic air power would increasingly weaken America's diplomatic power. It argued that only an enlarged ground force could deter Soviet moves at the local level. The timing of the Korean War, coming just after the paper was widely circulated, gave the paper enormous credibility. The logic of NSC 68 provided official Washington with an intellectual lens through which to view North Korea's unprovoked aggression and Washington officials rushed to act on the paper's recommendations. Funds made available were well in excess of needs for the emergency in Korea. The vast sums allotted for the build-up, in fact, presaged the beginning of modern defense budgets.65 Throughout the buildup, the "long-pull" rationale of NSC 68 undergirded a commitment to permanent military power under a balanced strategy. The Army's deployment strategies to Germany versus Korea, moreover, reflected the paper's "long-pull" thesis, which, as it happened, coincided perfectly with the Army's own views.
Army tactical doctrine, too, began to reflect a more conceptual outlook towards national security. It no longer concentrated only on purely tactical considerations. The 1954 publication of Field Manual (FM), Field Service Regulations, Operations, 100-5, was the first Army doctrinal manual to incorporate openly a linkage between national aims and military purpose. It reflected many of the national political-military perspectives outlined in NSC 68. The term "limited war" and the aspects of "limited war" first appeared in the 1954 version.66
Predictably, the 1954 doctrinal manual proved to be controversial because it attacked the political viability of strategic air power. The New York Times criticized the Army for conspiring against the President and the interests of the other services. "The Army contends," said an article, "that it still has primacy over the Air Force as the nation's most effective, all-around military arm." The Times further noted that the manual "clearly implied criticism of the doctrine of massive retaliation" and that "its strictures on airpower are unmistakable and inquiry at the Pentagon disclosed that it was written with a conscious effort to state the Army's position in the continuing postwar debate on air power."67
And so it was. The 1954 FM 100 directly challenged Eisenhower's policy of "massive retaliation," observing that indiscriminate destruction (via strategic strikes) was unjustifiable in a military sense, since the Army "destroys the instruments of enemy political force but does not destroy the bases on which peace can be built when the conflict is over."68 The 1954 version further asserted that since war was a political act, its conduct had to conform to the achievement of policy. Thus military victory alone, as an aim of war, could not be justified since in itself, victory, ostensibly "won" by nuclear weapons, would not assure the realization of national objectives. The Army thus concluded that "Army forces most nearly conform to the requirements of national policy, since Army forces are designed to apply power directly against military power, with minimum damage to civilian populations and economies."69 Moreover:
Army Forces, as land forces, are the decisive component of the military structure by virtue of their unique ability to close with and destroy the organized and irregular forces of an enemy power or coalition of powers.... Army combat forces do not support the operations of any other component.70
The post-Korean War demobilization took nearly seven embattled years to accomplish. By 1960, the Army settled into a fourteen-division structure. Five well-balanced divisions continued to anchor the central defensive sector in Germany while two stood guard along the 38th parallel in Korea. One division settled in Hawaii and three more, located in the continental United States, constituted the Army's strategic reserve. The three continental U.S. divisions were training divisions and formed the base of an expandable force.71
For as much as it did, NSC 68's impact on the Army, as well as on the armed forces, was subtle. Its influence was behind the scenes, but always prominent among a handful of important policy makers. Its effect was also camouflaged behind the crisis of the Korean War. A surface review of the period could lead one to give sole credit to the Korean War for the Army's restoration. But this viewpoint can only explain the initial spark to rearm, not the rationale to gear up for an all-out global effort to contain communism, nor the reason for the scope and nature of the rearmament. For these impacts, NSC 68 must be given credit. If Korea spurred Washington officials to quick action, then NSC 68 spurred those same officials to act globally in an effort to fight against the spread of communism and do it for as long as was necessary.
By war's end in 1953, the forces in Europe became not only a permanent entity in NATO, but also the most important portion of the Army's overall force structure and reflected what can rightfully be called the "Cold War Army." Indeed, never again did the Army drop to the poor state of readiness of the pre-Korean War years. And for the remaining years of the Cold War, NSC 68's rationale remained a central theme in the Army's arguments for continued political and financial support.
In the years after the Korean War until the large-scale U.S. force commitment in South Vietnam, the rationale of NSC 68 resonated within the Department of the Army. Despite his avowed priority to cut the Army in favor of supporting his economic agenda, President Eisenhower could not easily draw down the Seventh Army nor any of the other forces stationed overseas. These forces were too politically wedded to vital regional security pacts. Indeed, NSC 68 provided an invaluable tool for the Army as it prepared arguments for its institutional battle to survive under President Eisenhower's "New Look" policy.
* The author has profited much from the patient guidance of professors Joseph P. Hobbs, Joseph Caddell, and Robin Dorff of North Carolina State University; Alex Roland and Tami Biddle of Duke University; and especially Richard H. Kohn of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. To my wife, whose insights have many times sharpened my views, I owe a great debt. Whatever errors remain are mine alone.
1. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), esp. chaps. 29, 34, and 38; Harry S. Truman, Mem
oirs, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1955-56), 2: 309-12; also Steven L. Rearden, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense: The Formative Years, 1947-1950 (Washington: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1984), 522-32; and Walter S. Poole, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazer, 1980), 5-6.
2. Though there are several works on NSC 68, the following selections provide the most comprehensive examination of the paper: Paul Y Hammond, "NSC 68: Prologue to Rearmament," in Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962); Kenneth W. Thompson and Steven L. Rearden, Paul Nitze on National Security and Arms Control (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1990); see also John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Analysis of Postwar American Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Thomas H. Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis, Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy,
1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); Samuel F. Wells, "Sounding the Tocsin: NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat," International Security 4 (Spring 1980): 116-58. The latest and possibly most comprehensive assessment is Ernest R. May, American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68 (New York: Bedford Books, 1993).
3. John L. Gaddis and Paul Nitze, "NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat Reconsidered," International Security 4 (Spring 1980): 172-73; Hammond, "NSC 68: Prologue to Rearmament," 318-19; Acheson, Present at the Creation, 374; Robert H. Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 179; Robert E. Osgood, "Rearmament and Relaxation," in Lawrence S. Kaplan, ed., NATO and the Policy of Containment (Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1968), 52-61.
4. Robert Jervis, "The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War," Journal of Conflict Resolution 24 (December 1980): 585; Hammond, "NSC 68: Prologue to Rearmament," 318-19; Acheson, Present at the Creation, 374.
5. Doris M. Condit, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense: The Test of War, 195(1953 (Washington: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1988), 2: 228-32, 342; Hammond, "NSC 68: Prologue to Rearmament," 320-42, 355; Ernest R. May,
"The American Commitment to Germany, 1949-55," Diplomatic History 13 (Fall 1989): 440.
6. Melvyn LeMer, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992), 313-14, 355-60; May, American Cold War Strategy, 2-16; Robert J. Donovan, The Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949-1953 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982),158.
7. Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway, as told to Harold H. Martin (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956), 293. This concept was also held by Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal. See Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking Press, 1951), 402; and Rearden, The Formative Years, 315-16.
8. NSC 68, "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security," 14 April 1950, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, 7 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1976-78), 1: 263 (hereafter cited as NSC 68, FRUS, 1950, with page number.
9. Ibid., 282.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 244.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 285.
14. Semiannual Report of the Secretary of the Army, July 1-December 31, 1949 (Washington: GPO, 1950), 128, 134-35; Roy K. Flint, "Task Force Smith and the 24th Division: Delay and Withdrawal, 5-19 July 1950," in Charles E. Heller and William A. Stofft, eds., America's First Battles, 1776-1965 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986), 269-74.
15. Survival in the Air Age: A Report by the President's Air Policy Commission (Washington: GPO, 1 January 1948), 8-10 (the Finletter Report).
16. Ibid.; Major General Ray T. Maddocks to Army Directorates, 24 January 1949, Memorandum for Record: "18-25 Division Program," RG 319 (Army Staff), 1949-50, 370.01, Section 1-13. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington,
D.C. (hereafter cited as Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA); Rearden, The Formative Years, 315.
17. Lt. Col. Hoover to Gen. Schuyler, 8 November 1949, Memorandum for General Schuyler: AMP-1 [Army Mobilization Plan], RG 319, ACofS (G-3) 370.01, Sec. I, NARA (hereafter cited as Memo: AMP-1, NARA). All JCS war plans before NSC 68 stressed the supremacy of strategic air power. The first approved joint war plan after
the Key West Agreements, JCS war plan Halfmoon-approved for planning purposes on 19 May 1948-included the use of 50 atomic bombs on twenty key Soviet political-military centers. By August, the plan was changed to Fleetwood, mainly to incorporate budget considerations. The JCS war plans again changed in December to Trojan, this time to account for an increase in the number of bombs to 133 and Soviet targets to seventy cities. General Eisenhower then initiated the planning for Offtackle, which was approved in February 1949, because neither Halfmoon/Fleetwood nor Trojan included provisions for defense operations in Western Europe. The thrust of the two war plans, Halfmoon and Offtackle, were otherwise similar in that both were based fundamentally on the use of air power as the only immediate means to stop Soviet expansionism. See Rearden, The Formative Years, 337, 346, 364-69.
18. Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA.
19. Glen R Hawkins, United States Army Force Structure and Force Design Initiatives, 1939-1989 (forthcoming from the Center of Military History), 1-12. At the
time of this writing, Major Hawkins's manuscript was in the process of being published as an Army pamphlet by the Center of Military History.
20. Interestingly, historian John Michael Kendall viewed the significance of the Army's 1825 division program in terms of the support it could generate for passage of Universal Military Training (UMT). Viewed in this light, the 18-25 division program was more a "tactical" move to secure the greater strategic prize of UMT. This paper argues the reverse. The 18-25 division program was a major institutional move by the Army to adapt its overall strategy to the realities of the Cold War, within which UMT continued to play a significant, but decreasing, part. See Kendall, "An Inflexible Response: The United States Army Mobilization Policies, 1945-1957," 92-156; see also General Eisenhower's views on the matter in Lieutenant General John E. Hull, Operations Division, Memorandum for Colonel Roberts (S&P Group), 24 January 1946, Subject: The Regular Army without UMT, RG 317, Army Organization and Training, SG 113, A52-479/1 (S3), Box 19, NARA; also James E. Hewes, Jr., From Root
to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration, 1900-1963 (Washington: Center of Military History, 1975), 131, 135-62.
21. Millis, The Forrestal Diaries, 374-77.
22. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Selective Services. H.R. 6274, 6401. 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 1948, 6226 (hereafter cited as House Hearings, Selective Services. with page); see also U.S. Congress, Senate, Armed Services Com
mittee, Universal Military Training. 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 1948, 6201-14 (hereafter cited as Senate Hearings, Universal Military Training).
23. Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA. General Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff from 19 November 1945 to 6 February 1948. He was followed by General Bradley who served in that post from 7 February 1948 to 15 August 1949. See Hewes, From Root to McNamara, 384.
24. Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA.
25. Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA; Semiannual Report, 1 July-31 December 1949, 136-40; Millis, Forrestal Diaries, 400-401.The U.S. government fiscal year was then 1 July-30 June.
26. Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA; Semiannual Report, 1 July-31 December 1949, 9-10.
27. Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA.
28. Bradley and Collins estimated that the Army needed about 10 divisions to immediately secure the vital air bases overseas as outlined in JCS war plan Offtackle. Follow-on deployments were based on the recapture of West European and/or Middle Eastern territory captured by the Soviets. See House Hearings, Selective Service, 6226; and Senate Hearings, Universal Military Training, 6201-14.
29. Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA. It should be recalled that the Army was operating with 10 understrength divisions and virtually no modern equipment; see Memo: AMP-1, NARA.
30. Memorandum by the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army: "Authorization for a 10th Division in FY 1951," 21 November 1949. RG 218, JCS, CCS 370 (114-49), NARA.
31. The year 1956 was tentatively offered by the JCS as a possible "year of danger," though no explanation or comprehensive study was conducted to support that estimate. See Memo: 18-25 Division Program, NARA. A critical examination of Truman's defense budgets is Edward Kolodziej, The Uncommon Defense and Congress, 1945-63 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1966), esp. 33-107; Semiannual
Report, 1 July-31 December 1949, 4-9, 128-29.
32. Memo: AMP-1, NARA.
33. Presentation to the Army Secretary: "Army Readiness for Emergency Mobilization," 14 June 1949, RG 319 (Army Training and Organization), A52-479/1 (S4), Box 26, NARA (hereafter cited as SecArmy Presentation: Army Readiness for Emergency Mobilization, NARA).
34. Ibid. Ferrell, Eisenhower Diaries, 179; see also Robert E. Osgood, "Rearmament and Relaxation," in Lawrence S. Kaplan, ed., NATO and the Policy of Containment (Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1968), 52-61.
35. Millis, Forrestal Diaries, 374-77.
36. The Joint Chiefs were concerned that too many of the growing politicalmilitary commitments were mortgaged against America's "potential" to respond militarily. They preferred instead to have more forces-in-being, but could not agree on any set structure. Thus the "shortages" noted above were based purely on military considerations rather than as part of an overall coherent strategy. For the JCS's per
spective of Soviet intentions versus capabilities and American potential strength versus actual forces-in-being, see NSC 35, "Existing International Commitments Involving the Probable Use of Armed Forces," 17 November 1948, U.S., Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, 9 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1972-76), 1(pt. 2): 656-62 (hereafter cited as NSC 35, FRUS, 1948).
37. Millis, Forrestal Diaries, 374-77.
38. General Omar N. Bradley, "This Way Lies Peace," Saturday Evening Post 222 (15 October 1949): 133.
39. Memorandum for the Chief, Joint War Plans Branch, Subject: Redeployment of Air Force Units, RG 319 (Army Staff) 370.02, sec. I-A, Box 221 (TS), Book II (JCS 521/27: Redeployment of Air Force Units), NARA, Washington, D.C.; Kolodziej, The Uncommon Defense, 94-96.
40. Memorandum for General Maddocks, 1 February 1949, Subject: Redeployment of Air Force Units, RG 319 (Army Staff) 370.02, sec. I-A, Box 221 (TS), Book II (JCS 521/27: Redeployment of Air Force Units), NARA.
41. Bradley, "This Way Lies Peace," 33.
42. Ibid.
43. Stephen E. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, 6th rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), xii.
44. This particular view is from historian Walter LaFeber who argues plainly that Americans who have professed to believe in individualism at home not surprisingly have often professed the same abroad. Walter LaFeber, The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad since 1750 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), xx. Europeans, too, were cognizant of America's drift towards isolationism. Biographer Alan Bullock wrote of Britain's foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that Bevin believed that Truman's overall policy towards Europe (before 1950) was "to withdraw from Europe and in effect leave the British to get on with the Soviets as best they could." Alan Bullock, The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951 (London: Heinemann, 1983), 216.
45. Stephen Ambrose offers the best summary of these arguments in his intro
duction to Rise to Globalism, xi-xvii. Interestingly, the American public felt more inclined to use the nuclear bomb when the U.S. enjoyed an undisputed monopoly, than when the Soviets possessed the same capabilities. Secretary of State George C. Marshall recalled that John Foster Dulles once remarked to him that "the American people would execute you if you did not use the bomb in the event of war." Public attitudes changed significantly as the Soviets improved their nuclear capabilities, culminating in their 9 October 1957 successful launching of Sputnik I. Millis, Forrestal Diaries, 488-89; a critique of America's "technological gap" in missiles vis-a-vis the Soviet is James M. Gavin, War and Peace in the Space Age (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958).
46. Memorandum for Record, 11 December 1950, Subject: Augmentation of the Army to 18 Divisions, Matthew B. Ridgway Papers, Historical Record, NovemberDecember 1950, Box 16, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. (hereafter USAMHI); see also interview by Mr. Elmer Davis of General J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff, USA, on Department of Defense Radio Program, "Time for Defense," American Broadcasting Company Network 10:00-10:30 p.m. (EST), 30 November 1950, Oral Histories, Speeches: J. Lawton Collins, HRC, 350.001, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C. (hereafter CMH).
47. New York Times, "Program Outlined on Troop Rotation: Services Testify Plans Provide for Return as Speedily as Replacements are Found," 11 October 1951.
Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 509-10.
48. The minimum enlistment for any draftee was twenty-one months (although the Defense Department was trying to raise that to twenty-seven months). Therefore, a normal tour for soldiers deployed to Germany ranged between fifteen and thirty-two months, but most served more than twenty months (a minimum of sixteen weeks were required for basic and individual training). See Hearings before the Preparedness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, Universal Military Training and Service Act of 1951, 82d Cong., 1st Sess., 623-39 [Statement of General J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff of the Army] (1951); and Seventh Army Monthly Statistical Report, Period Ending 31 December 1950, RG 338, 7th U.S. Army, 1950, Conferences and Statistical Reports (31 December 1950), NARA.
49. Remarks by General J. Lawton Collins, Armed Forces Day, Houston, Texas, 15 May 1953, Oral Histories, J. Lawton Collins, HRC 350.001, CMH.
50. Text of Allen Jackson, CBS News Account (Radio), 10 September 1951, J. Lawton Collins Papers, Press Clippings from Aug 1951 to July 1952, USAMHI; San Francisco Chronicle, "Rotation From Combat Gets Top Priority," 1; New York Times, "New Training Plans Set for Guard," 11 October 1951, 1.
51. James F. Schnabel, "The Brink of Disaster," in The Evolution of Modern Warfare: (CGSC) P671 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1989-90), 128-29; Hawkins, U.S. Army Force Structure and Force Design, 6; Roy K. Flint,
"Korea: From Victim to Victor," in Evolution of Modern Warfare, 75. At the outbreak of the war, the Army had ten divisions from which to support the Korean effort: in Japan were the 7th, 24th, and 25th Infantry plus the 1st Cavalry; in the U.S were the 2d Armored at Fort Hood, Texas, 2nd Infantry at Fort Lewis, Washington, llth Airborne at Fort Campbell, Kentucky (later renamed lst Airborne), 3rd Infantry at Fort Benning Georgia, and the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The last division, 1st Infantry, along with the Constabulary Army, were the two major units in Germany. See Semiannual Report, 1 July 1949 to 31 December 1949, 134-35.
52. Memorandum for Record, Subject: Augmentation of the Army to 18 Divisions, 11 December 1950, Matthew Ridgway Papers; Semiannual Report, 1 January 1951 to 30 June 1951, 10-14; Weigley, History of the United States Army, SOS-9.
53. Donald A. Carter, "Firepower and Mobility: The Development of U.S. Army Doctrine in Europe, 1950-1952" (M.A. Thesis: Ohio State University), 74-80; Robert A. Doughty, The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-76, Leavenworth
Papers, No. 1 (Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1979), 2-24.
54. Interview: Davis and Collins, "Time for Defense," 30 November 1950, CMH.
55. Not until 1 July 1951, about a year after the war started, were the initial inactive Reservists replaced by trained recruits. Over 310,000 Reservists and National Guardsmen were called to active duty, both as individuals and in units, as trainers and for immediate defense missions. Meanwhile, approximately 587,000 draftees and another 176,000 volunteers matriculated through induction centers and basic train
ing programs throughout the year. Semiannual Report, 1 January 1951 to 30 June 1951, 79-81; Weigley, History of the United States Army, 508-9.
56. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1957), 387-89.
57. Ibid.; "Third of Reservists Face Call: 350,000 More `Forgotten Men' Go in Soon," U.S. News and World Report 30 (9 February 1951): 14-15; see also "College, Volunteer or Draft?" U.S. News and World Report 30 (16 February 1951): 15-16.
58. The Chief, Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe, The Ameri
can Military Occupation of Germany (West Germany: Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe, 1 April 1953), esp. chap. 12 ("Organizing for Western Defense") and chap. 13 ("Attaining Combat Readiness"); "Statement by Gen. Alfred M. Gruenther, USA, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and United States Commander in Chief, Europe," in Hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, NATO and the Paris Accords Relating to West Germany, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 26 March 1956.
59. See Semiannual Reports, Chapters on "State of the Army," 1953 through 1960.
60. SecArmy Presentation: Army Readiness for Emergency Mobilization, 14 June 1949, NARA; Memorandum for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 11 April 1950, Subject: Review of Current World Situation and Ability of Forces to Meet Commitments (JCS 1888/2), Encl, RG 218, JCS, CCS 370 (5-25-48), Sec. 2, Box 31, NARA; Acheson, Present at the Creation, 309-13; Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), 502-18.
61. Acheson, Present at the Creation, 504-5; see also "Memorandum for the Secretary of War, Subject: Effect on U.S. Security of Locating Atomic Energy Plant in the United Kingdom," in Louis Galambos et al., eds. The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970- ), 8: 1524-25.
62. Memorandum from Vorhees for Secretary of Defense, 21 March 1950, RG 330, CD 16-1-20, MMD, National Archives, Washington, D.C., and in FRUS, 1950, 3: 43-48; Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, 350.
63. NSC 68, FRUS, 1950, 1: 250.
64. The arguments in this paper agree, though with some exceptions, with those of Robert Jervis, who has argued that the Korean War was the crucial turning point of the Cold War and that no other event or policy could have stimulated the U.S. to rearm. Jervis also argues, however, that without the war, the Truman administration would only have increased the $15,000,000,000 ceiling (FY 1950) budget by $3,500,000,000, an amount far less than the authors of NSC 68 desired. While this
may be true, it is perhaps irrelevant. The fact remains that the Korean War did occur and that NSC 68 was the primary national security policy which the JCS used to estimate its supplements, which resulted in a tripling of the FY 1950 budget. Jervis also claimed that NSC 68 was "not a policy in waiting"; a position that he disputes with Walter LaFeber. Again, this may be a moot point. NSC 68 was the only national security paper that was being used by the JCS to estimate their supplements before and ter the start of the Korean War, not just "after" as Jervis asserts. Jervis, "The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War," 585.
65. Semiannual Report, 1 January 1954 to 30 June 1954, 69-75; and Semiannual Report, 1 January 1955 to 30 June 1955, 83-84.
66. Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., September 1954, 4-8, 100-5 Field Service Regulations, Operations, August 1949, esp. v-4. Not until President Eisenhower was succeeded by John F. Kennedy, and the policy of "massive retaliation" was replaced with "flexible response," did the Army feel free to transform its primary doctrinal
manual, the FM 100-5 series, into a conceptual document that discussed linkages between national policy and military strategy. The 1962 version of FM 1005, therefore, is perhaps the first truly conceptual doctrinal manual that discussed the significance of maximizing total national power, not just military. See FM 100-5 Field Service Regulations, Operations, February 1962 (Washington: Headquarters, Department of the Army), 3-18.
67. Anthony Leviero, "Army is Top Military Force of U.S., It States in Manual," New York Times, 4 January 1954.
68. Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, September 1954, 5.
69. Ibid., 7.
70. Ibid., 4.
71. These divisions did not retain much combat readiness. Annual Report of the Secretary of Defense, 1 July 1958-30 June 1958 (Washington: GPO, 1960), 115-22; William Kaufmann, Planning Conventional Forces, 1950-1980 (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1982), 3; Hewes, From Root to McNamara, 216.
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