History of NSC68

The History of NSC68
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History of NSC68
The NSC68 was a confidential report that was done by the U.S Department of State’s Policy planning staff on the 7th of April, 1950. It is known to be among one of the most influential documents in the U.S during the cold war. It was just declassified in 1975 and thus made available to the public.
The author of the text is Paul Nitze who was working in the US State Department’s Policy planning office. It was presented to the then USA president, Harry Truman on the 14th of April, 1950.
NSC68 saw the goals and aims of the U.S as justifiable yet poorly implemented terming them as “dangerously inadequate.” It also recommended policies that advocated for military rather than diplomacy. Moreover, the author called for the allocation of more resources to the defense of the country by tripling the then budget of 13 billion dollars a year (Nitze, 1950). He thus saw the only way to overcome the Soviet Union was to invest in a massive overhaul of nuclear arms and military. His main aim was to convince the president of his claims on ramping up the military and nuclear power.
According to the author of the NSC68, the domination of the USSR was his greatest fears. He says that Soviets would dominate Eurasia and thus confine the US only to the western hemisphere, therefore losing many of its support and allies who would otherwise provide resources and support to overcome the Soviet Union (“President Truman receives NSC-68”, 2009). The author suggests that “the Soviet Union is developing its military capacity to support its design for world domination” (Nitze, 1950 pg.

17) proving how the Soviet Union plans to be dominant superpower.
The central thesis of the text is that the Soviet Union has dramatically invested in military activities and that the United States should allocate more budget to the military in order overcome them. The author supports his thesis with great facts especially those that had been obtained by the U.S intelligence. He, therefore, makes a convincing argument to the president that the U.S should allocate more annual resources to the military.

References
Nitze, Paul. (April 12, 1950).”A Report to the National Security Council – NSC 68″. President’s Secretary’s File, Truman Papers.
President Truman receives NSC-68. (2009). HISTORY.com. Retrieved 27 January 2018, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-truman-receives-nsc-68