Truman and Molotov, 1945

Truman and Molotov, 1945 Eleven days after Roosevelt’s death, Harry S Truman met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, passing through Washington on his way to San Francisco for the first United Nations conference. Between two meetings with Molotov, the new president canvassed cabinet and military leaders for advice. These minutes were recorded by Charles Bohlen. MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE, APRIL 23, 1945. 2 PM. THE SECRETARY OF STATE [Edward Stettinius] told the meeting that Mr. Molotov had arrived in good spirits yesterday and had had a good talk with the President yesterday evening but that at the Foreign Ministers meeting later great difficulties had developed over the Polish question. The continuance of the meeting this morning had produced no improvement and a complete deadlock had been reached on the subject of the carrying out of the Yalta agreement on Poland. The Secretary said that the truth of the matter was the Lublin or Warsaw Government was not representative of the Polish people and that it was now clear that the Soviet Government intended to try to enforce upon the United States and British Governments this puppet government of Poland and obtain its acceptance as the legal government of Poland. He said that as they all recalled at Yalta an agreement had been reached regarding the formation of a new Polish Government representative of the people by means of the reorganization of the present provisional government in consultation with other Polish democratic leaders. He said it had been made plain to Mr. Molotov how seriously the United States Government regarded this matter and how much public confidence would be shaken by our failure to carry out the Crimean decision. THE PRESIDENT said that he had told Mr. Molotov last night that he intended fully to carry out all the agreements reached by President Roosevelt at the Crimea. He added that he felt our agreements with the Soviet Union so far had been a one way street and that could not continue; it was now or never. He intended to go on with the plans for San Francisco∗ and if the Russians did not wish to join us they could go to hell. The President then asked in rotation the officials present for their view. MR. STIMSON [Secretary of War, the senior member of Roosevelt’s cabinet] said that this whole difficulty with the Russians over Poland was new to him and he felt it was important to find out what the Russians were driving at. He said in the big military matters the Soviet Government had kept their word and that the military authorities of the United States had come to count on it. In fact he said that they had often been better than their promise. He said it was important to find out what motives they had in mind in regard to these border countries and that their ideas of independence and democracy in areas that they regarded as vital to the Soviet Union are different from ours. … In this case he said that without fully understanding how seriously the Russians took this Polish question we might be heading into very dangerous water. He remarked that 25 years ago virtually all of Poland had been Russian. MR. FORRESTAL [Secretary of the Navy] said that he felt that this difficulty over Poland could not be treated as an isolated incident, that there had been many evidences of the Soviet desire to dominate adjacent countries and to disregard the wishes of her allies. He said he had felt that for some time the Russians had considered that we would not object if they took over all of Eastern Europe into their power. He said it was his profound ∗
ie, the creation of the United Nations.
conviction that if the Russians were to be rigid in their attitude we had better have a show down with them now than later. AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN … remarked that the real issue was whether we were to be a party to a program of Soviet domination of Poland. He said obviously we were faced with a possibility of a real break with the Russians but he felt that if properly handled it might be avoided. The President said that he had no intention of delivering an ultimatum to Mr. Molotov but merely to make clear the position of this Government. MR. STIMSON observed that he would like to know how far the Russian reaction to a strong position on Poland would go. He said he thought that the Russians perhaps were being more realistic than we were in regard to their own security. ADMIRAL LEAHY said that he had left Yalta with the impression that the Soviet Government had no intention of permitting a free government to operate in Poland and that he would have been surprised had the Soviet Government behaved any differently than it had. In his opinion the Yalta agreement was susceptible to two interpretations. He added that he felt that it was a serious matter to break with the Russians but that we should tell them that we stood for a free and independent Poland. THE SECRETARY OF STATE then read the part of the Yalta decision relating to the formation of the new Government and the holding of free elections and said he felt that this was susceptible of only one interpretation. GENERAL MARSHALL said he was not familiar with the Polish issue and its political aspects. He said from the military point of view the situation in Europe was secure but that they hoped for Soviet participation in the war against Japan at a time when it would be useful to us. The Russians had it within their, power to delay their entry into the Far Eastern war until we had done all the dirty work. He said the difficulties with the Russians … usually straightened out. He was inclined to agree with Mr. Stimson that possibility of a break with Russia was very serious. Mr. STIMSON observed that he agreed with General Marshall and that he felt that the Russians would not yield on the Polish question. He said we must understand that outside the United States with the exception of Great Britain there was no country that understood free elections; that the party in power always ran the election as he well knew from his experience in Nicaragua. AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN then remarked that while it was true that the Soviet Union had kept its big agreements on military matters that those were decisions which it had already reached by itself but that on other military matters it was impossible to say they had lived up to their commitments. He said for example over a year ago they had agreed to start on preparations for collaboration in the Far Eastern war but that none of these had been carried out. He asked General Deane to express his opinion. GENERAL DEANE said that he felt that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific war as soon as it was able irrespective of what happened in other fields. He felt that the Russians must do this because they could not afford too long a period of let down for their people who were tired, there was only a short season in which offensive action against Manchuria was possible and that they would not dare attempt a Bulgarian gambit in the Far East. He said he was convinced after his experiences in Moscow that if we were afraid of the Russians we would get nowhere and he felt that we should be firm when we were right. … THE PRESIDENT then said that he was satisfied that from a military point of view there was no reason why we should fail to stand up to our understanding of the Crimean agreements. TRUMAN‐MOLOTOV MEETING, APRIL 23, 1945. 5:30 PM. Truman met again with Molotov that evening and pressed him on the Polish question. In Truman’s later recollection of the meeting, he said, “I explained to him [Molotov] in words of one syllable … that cooperation is not a one way street.” According to Truman, Molotov said, “I have never been talked to like that in my life,” to which Truman replied, “Carry out your agreements and you won't be talked to like that.” Walking out of the meeting, Truman recalls saying to an aide, “I just gave him a straight one‐two to the jaw. Do you think I did right?” Bohlen’s minutes of the meeting (below) do not specifically include either exchange. After greeting Mr. Molotov, the President said that he had been sorry to learn that no progress had been made towards a solution of the Polish question. Mr. Molotov said that he also regretted that. The President then stated that the proposals contained in the joint message from himself and the Prime Minister were eminently fair and reasonable and that we go as far as we can to meet the desires of the Soviet Government … He emphasized that the United States Government could not agree to be a party to the formation of a Polish Government which was not representative of all Polish democratic elements. … Mr. Molotov asked if he could make a few observations. Mr. Molotov said that he hoped he expressed the views of the Soviet Government in stating that they wished to cooperate with the United States and Great Britain as before. The President said he agreed; otherwise, they would not be talking today. Mr. Molotov continued that he had been authorized to set forth the point of view of the Soviet Government. The basis of collaboration had been established and that although inevitable difficulties had arisen, the three Governments had been able to find a common language and that on this basis they had been settling these differences. He said the three Governments had dealt as equal parties and there had been no case where one or two of the three had attempted to impose their will on another. He said this was the basis of cooperation and the only one acceptable to the Soviet Government. The President agreed and said that all we were asking was that the Soviet Government carry out the Crimean decision on Poland. Mr. Molotov said that … the Soviet Government was convinced that all difficulties could be overcome. He added that surely the Polish question involving a neighboring country was of very great interest to the Soviet Government. The President replied with great firmness that an agreement had been reached on Poland and that it only remained for Marshal Stalin to carry it out in accordance with his word. Mr. Molotov replied that Marshal Stalin … had given his views on the agreement and he personally could not understand why if the three Governments could reach an agreement on the question of the composition of the Yugoslav Government the same formula could not be applied in the case of Poland. The President replied sharply that an agreement had been reached on Poland and that it only required carrying out by the Soviet Government. … The President repeated that as he had said last night the United States Government was prepared to carry out loyally all the agreements reached at the Crimea and he only asked that the Soviet Government do the same. The President said that he desired the friendship of the Soviet Government, but that he felt it could only be on the basis of mutual observation of agreements and not on the basis of a one way street. In conclusion he arose and handed to Mr. Molotov the press release which he stated he intended to release to the press this evening. Mr. Molotov read the release and thanked the President for the information. Winston Churchill, “Iron Curtain” Speech, 1946 No longer Prime Minister, Churchill visited the United States in early 1946. Concerned over Soviet behavior, he confided his fears in President Truman. The two men decided that Churchill should issue a major address to alert the world to the threat of Soviet expansion. Churchill gave this address in Truman’s home state of Missouri with Truman on the dais beside him. The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe inspiring accountability to the future. … Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after‐time. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and rule the conduct of the English‐speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement. … A world organization has already been erected for the prime purpose of preventing war. The United Nations Organization, the successor of the League of Nations, with the decisive addition of the United States and all that that means, is already at work. We must make sure that its work is fruitful, that it is a reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action, and not merely a frothing of words, that it is a true temple of peace in which the shields of many nations can some day be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a Tower of Babel. Before we cast away the solid assurances of national armaments for self‐preservation we must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or quagmires, but upon the rock. Anyone can see with his eyes open that our path will be difficult and also long, but if we persevere together as we did in the two world wars—though not, alas, in the interval between them—I cannot doubt that we shall achieve our common purpose in the end. … A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytising tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain‐and I doubt not here also—towards the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however … to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. … The Russian‐dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed‐of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre‐eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy. Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow Government. … Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts—and facts they are—this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace. … In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe are other causes for anxiety. … In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist centre. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States, where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization. These are somber facts for anyone to have to recite on the morrow of a victory gained by so much splendid comradeship in arms and in the cause of freedom and democracy; but we should be most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains. The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in Manchuria. The Agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely favourable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected to last for a further 18 months from the end of the German war. In this country you are all so well‐informed about the Far East, and such devoted friends of China, that I do not need to expatiate on the situation there. … On the other hand I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable; still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. … From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength. If the Western Democracies stand together in strict adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter, their influence for furthering those principles will be immense and no one is likely to molest them. If, however, they become divided or falter in their duty, and if these all‐important years are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all. Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow‐countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind. There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented in my belief without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honoured today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool. We surely must not let that happen again. Truman to Byrnes, 1946 In 1941, the British and Soviets jointly invaded Iran, which, while officially neutral, was a major provider of oil to Nazi Germany. During the war, Iran became an important transportation route for supplies and support from the western Allies to the Soviet Union. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, the Allies promised to restore Iranian sovereignty after the war. British and American troops were withdrawn in September 1945, but the Soviet troops did not leave. By March 1946, the Red Army had still not left. Truman wrote the following letter to Secretary of State James Byrnes in January 1946. My dear Jim, … For the first time I read the Etheridge letter this morning. It is full of information on Rumania & Bulgaria and confirms our previous information on those two police states. I am not going to agree to the recognition of those governments unless they are radically changed. I think we ought to protest with all the vigor of which we are capable the Russian program in Iran. There is no justification for it. It is a parallel to the program of Russia in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. It is also in line with the high handed and arbitrary manner in which Russia acted in Poland. At Potsdam we were faced with an accomplished fact and were, by circumstances, almost forced to agree to Russian occupation of Eastern Poland and the occupation of that part of Germany east of the Oder River by Poland. It was a high handed outrage. At the time we were anxious for Russian entry into the Japanese War. Of course we found later that we didn’t need Russia there and the Russians have been a head ache to us ever since. When you went to Moscow you were faced with another accomplished fact in Iran. Another outrage if ever I saw one. Iran was our ally in the war. Iran was Russia’s ally in the war. Iran agreed to the free passage of arms, ammunition and other supplies running into millions of tons across her territory from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. Without these supplies, furnished by the United States, Russia would have been ignominiously defeated. Yet now Russia stirs up rebellion and keeps troops on the soil of her friend and ally, Iran. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that Russia intends an invasion of Turkey and the seizure of the Black Sea Straits to the Mediterranean. Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language another war is in the making. Only one language do they understand: “How many divisions have you?” I do not think we should play compromise any longer. We should refuse to recognize Rumania and Bulgaria until they comply with our requirements; we should let our position on Iran be known in no uncertain terms and we should continue to insist on the internationalization of the Kiel Canal, the Rhine‐Danube waterway and the Black Sea Straits and we should maintain complete control of Japan and the Pacific. We should rehabilitate China and create a strong central government there. We should do the same for Korea. Then we should insist on the return of our ships from Russia and force a settlement of the Lend‐Lease Debt of Russia. I’m tired of babying the Soviets. George Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” 1947 George Kennan was a foreign service officer in the U.S. State Department and a highly regarded analyst of Russian affairs. In 1946, while serving at the American embassy in Moscow, he sent a lengthy telegram to Washington providing his analysis of Soviet behavior. He argued that the USSR could not be trusted or reasoned with, and must instead be treated with firm resistance and strength. Kennan counseled a middle path between war and appeasement to which he gave the name “containment.” The essence of Kennan’s telegram was later published in Foreign Affairs magazine under the title, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” The article was published anonymously, signed by “X,” and became known as “The X Article,” although Kennan’s identity was soon disclosed in the New York Times. Together, the Long Telegram and X Article offered the intellectual basis for American Cold War policy. The political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and circumstances …Tremendous emphasis has been placed on the original Communist thesis of a basic antagonism between the capitalist and Socialist worlds. It is clear, from many indications, that this emphasis is not founded in reality. … But there is ample evidence that the stress laid in Moscow on the menace confronting Soviet society from the world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign antagonism but in the necessity of explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home. … Belief is maintained in the basic badness of capitalism, in the inevitability of its destruction, in the obligation of the proletariat to assist in that destruction and to take power into its own hands. [This] has profound implications for Russia’s conduct as a member of international society. It means that there can never be on Moscow’s side a sincere assumption of a community of aims between the Soviet Union and powers which are regarded as capitalist. … The antagonism remains. It is postulated. And from it flow many of the phenomena which we find disturbing in the Kremlin’s conduct of foreign policy: the secretiveness, the lack of frankness, the duplicity, the wary suspiciousness, and the basic unfriendliness. These phenomena are there to stay, for the foreseeable future. There can be variations of degree and of emphasis. When there is something the Russians want from us, one or the other of these features of their policy may be thrust temporarily into the background; and when that happens there will always be Americans who will leap forward with gleeful announcements that “the Russians have changed,” and some who will even try to take credit for having brought about such “changes.” But we should not be misled by tactical maneuvers. These characteristics of Soviet policy, like the postulate from which they flow, are basic to the internal nature of Soviet power, and will be with us, whether in the foreground or the background, until the internal nature of Soviet power is changed. This means we are going to continue for long time to find the Russians difficult to deal with. It does not mean that they should be considered as embarked upon a do‐or‐die program to overthrow our society by a given date. The theory of the inevitability of the eventual fall of capitalism has the fortunate connotation that there is no hurry about it. The forces of progress can take their time in preparing the final coup de grâce. … These considerations make Soviet diplomacy at once easier and more difficult to deal with than the diplomacy of individual aggressive leaders like Napoleon and Hitler. On the one hand it is more sensitive to contrary force … and thus more rational in the logic and rhetoric of power. On the other hand it cannot be easily defeated or discouraged by a single victory on the part of its opponents. And the patient persistence by which it is animated means that it can be effectively countered not by sporadic acts which represent the momentary whims of democratic opinion but only by intelligent long‐range policies on the part of Russia’s adversaries—policies no less steady in their purpose … than those of the Soviet Union itself. In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long‐
term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. It is important to note, however, that such a policy has nothing to do with outward histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of outward “toughness.” … It is a sine qua non of successful dealing with Russia that the foreign government in question should remain at all times cool and collected and that its demands on Russian policy should be put forward in such a manner as to leave the way open for a compliance not too detrimental to Russian prestige. It would be an exaggeration to say that American behavior unassisted and alone could exercise a power of life and death over the Communist movement and bring about the early fall of Soviet power in Russia. But the United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate, to force upon the Kremlin a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection than it has had to observe in recent years, and in this way to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the breakup or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power. For no mystical, Messianic movement—and particularly not that of the Kremlin—can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs. Thus the decision will really fall in large measure in this country itself. The issue of Soviet‐American relations is in essence a test of the overall worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation. Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances, the thoughtful observer of Russian‐American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin’s challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear. NSC‐68 (National Security Council Report), 1950 By late 1949, it looked as if the United States might be losing the Cold War. That summer, the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb, much earlier than Americans had expected. A few months later, Mao Zedong’s Communists gained control of China. In April 1950, a group of U.S. officials drafted a top secret document known as NSC‐68. NSC‐68’s view of the Soviet threat differed from that of George Kennan. For Kennan, the Soviet threat was principally political in nature. He described a paranoid and defensive USSR, militarily weaker than the United States, but obsessed with defending itself against another invasion. NSC‐68 reversed this thinking: it said Moscow was stronger than Kennan thought and the threat it posed was military and immediate. NSC‐68 urged that America must rearm and stay armed to wage peace. It called for large expenditures and substantial sacrifices. Truman approved the document in principle later that year, following the outbreak of the Korean War.* [T]he Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world. Conflict has, therefore, become endemic and is waged, on the part of the Soviet Union, by violent or non‐violent methods in accordance with the dictates of expediency. With the development of increasingly terrifying weapons of mass destruction, every individual faces the ever‐present possibility of annihilation should the conflict enter the phase of total war. On the one hand, the people of the world yearn for relief from the anxiety arising from the risk of atomic war. On the other hand, any substantial further extension of the area under the domination of the Kremlin would raise the possibility that no coalition Adapted from Edward Judge and John Langdon, eds., The Cold War: A
History Through Documents (New York: Prentice Hall, 1999).
*
adequate to confront the Kremlin with greater strength could be assembled. It is in this context that this Republic and its citizens in the ascendancy of their strength stand in their deepest peril. The issues that face us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself. … The Soviet Union is developing the military capacity to support its design for world domination. The Soviet Union actually possesses armed forces far in excess of those necessary to defend its national territory. … This excessive strength, coupled now with an atomic capability, provides the Soviet Union with great coercive power for use in time of peace in furtherance of its objectives and serves as a deterrent to the victims of its aggression from taking any action in opposition to its tactics which would risk war. Should a major war occur in 1950, the Soviet Union and its satellites are considered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be in a sufficiently advanced state of preparation immediately to undertake and carry out the following campaigns: a. To overrun Western Europe; to drive toward the oil‐
bearing areas of the Near and Middle East; and to consolidate Communist gains in the Far East; b. To launch air attacks against the British Isles and air and sea attacks against the lines of communications of the Western Powers in the Atlantic and the Pacific; c. To attack selected targets with atomic weapons, now including the likelihood of such attacks against targets in Alaska, Canada, and the United States. … It is estimated that, within the next four years, the USSR will attain the capacity of seriously damaging vital centers of the United States. … It is clear that a substantial and rapid building up of strength in the free world is necessary to check and to roll back the Kremlinʹs drive for world domination. … A program for rapidly building up strength and improving political and economic conditions will place heavy demands on our courage and intelligence; it will be costly; it will be dangerous. But half‐
measures will be more costly and more dangerous, for they will be inadequate to prevent and may actually invite war. Budgetary considerations will need to be subordinated to the stark fact that our very independence as a nation may be at stake. A comprehensive and decisive program to win the peace and frustrate the Kremlin design should be so designed that it can be sustained for as long as necessary to achieve our national objectives. It would probably involve: 1. The development of an adequate political and economic framework for the achievement of our long‐range objectives. 2. A substantial increase in expenditures for military purposes … 3. A substantial increase in military assistance programs … 4. Some increase in economic assistance programs … 5. A concerted attack on the problem of the United States balance of payments, along the lines already approved by the President. 6. Development of programs designed to build and maintain confidence among other peoples in our strength and resolution, and to wage overt psychological warfare calculated to encourage mass defections from Soviet allegiance and to frustrate the Kremlin design in other ways. 7. Intensification of … operations by covert means in the fields of economic warfare and political and psychological warfare with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest and revolt in selected strategic satellite countries. 8. Development of internal security and civilian defense programs. 9. Improvement and intensification of intelligence activities. 10. Reduction of federal expenditures for purposes other than defense and foreign assistance. 11. Increased taxes. In summary, we must, by means of a rapid and sustained build‐up of the political, economic, and military strength of the free world, and by means of an affirmative program intended to wrest the initiative from the Soviet Union, confront it with convincing evidence of the determination and ability of the free world to frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will. Such evidence is the only means short of war which eventually may force the Kremlin to abandon its present course of action … The whole success of the proposed program hangs ultimately on recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free peoples, that the Cold War is in fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake.