Eisenhower and Emboldening the Nuclear Option

Abstract

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s accession to the presidency in January 1953 confirmed the American Cold War consensus. Through six years of continuous conflict with the U.S.S.R., the nation’s Cold War elite had effectively conditioned the country’s citizenry to acclaim any anti-Soviet maneuver emanating from Washington. Still, under the Truman leadership containment had emerged as a highly conservative program designed to sustain, not undo, the world that the power revolution of the previous decade had created. The administration had long accepted the reality of a divided Europe. Within the national consensus was also broad support for national efforts to prevent any Soviet expansion into Western Europe or regions of Asia regarded vulnerable to Communist exploitation. As this chapter will argue, the nuclear plank of the Eisenhower administration became evident when the president approved NSC 149/1; providing for a review of the size and structure of the military. During subsequent weeks the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) agreed that the country was overextended and lacked the manpower to maintain its global defenses. To avoid abandoning Europe and other strategic areas, Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the JCS, recommended that the U.S. place greater reliance on its growing nuclear arsenal. Eisenhower added another dimension to the emphasis on nuclear weapons, and the expanding retaliatory striking force, when he observed that the challenge to strategy lay in deterring, not winning, a war with the Soviet Union. But he noted in a memorandum to Dulles, on September 8, that hydrogen weapons could serve as a deterrent only if the U.S. was prepared to initiate a nuclear war. In early October, the president endorsed NSC 162 with its emphasis on nuclear strategy. At the end of October, the New Look assumed final form in NSC 162/2; nuclear weapons and the effective means for their delivery had become the foundation of national strategy.