1950 NSC Memorandum 68

1950 NSC Memorandum 68 (National Security Council Report 68), also known as NSC-68, written by the U.S. State Department's Paul H. Nitze (for then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson), "predicted [that] the Soviets could launch a nuclear attack on the United States by 1954 and recommended an increase in U.S. spending for nuclear and conventional arms."

Larry Chin, in his article November 7, 2002, "The deep politics of regime removal in Iraq: Overt conquest, covert operations: The US war lobby and the disciples of NSC-68", writes that the Memorandum served as the policy basis for the Cold War. He states that "Every successive US administration has implemented hard-line policies that can be directly traced to NSC-68, which calls for the destruction of the Soviet Union and unrivaled US military power."

Related SourceWatch Resources

• Bush doctrine
• CONPLAN 0400
• Eisenhower doctrine
• Iran-Contra affair
• National Security Strategy of September 2002
• National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
• nuclear weapons
• Operation Enduring Freedom
• Operation Iraqi Freedom
• PDD-39
• PDD-62
• preemptive war
• Proactive Preemptive Operations Group
• Reagan doctrine
• regime change
• Truman doctrine
• U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century / Hart-Rudman Commission
• war on terrorism
• weapons of mass destruction

External links

• NSC-68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security; Sections I-V; Sections VI-VII; Sections VIII-IX; Conclusions and Recommendations, April 14, 1950; or see NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security (April 14, 1950): A Report to the President Pursuant to the President's Directive of January 31, 1950; or Excerpts from NSC-68.
• The Soviet Threat according to NSC 68.
• Herman S. Wolk, The Blueprint for Cold War Defense, Air Force Magazine, March 2000: "NSC-68 recognized the massive changes in the postwar world and set the stage for a new kind of peacetime force."
• Mark Tran, The self-interest of national security, Guardian/UK, September 20, 2002: "A memorandum written in 1950 to outline the US policy on the cold war could almost be a blueprint for Bush's current doctrine."