Harry Truman addresses media in 1945 in Washington, D.C. | AFP/Getty Images this day in politics Truman receives secret plan to contain communism, April 14, 1950

In the early 1950s, the goal of curbing Soviet influence in a ravaged Europe and in developing countries became a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy. To that end, on this day in 1950, President Harry S. Truman received a top-secret document prepared by the State Department‘s policy planning staff which outlined what the United States needed to do to keep Soviet and Chinese communism from spreading.

The report, known in government circles as NSC-68, called for the emergence of a “new world order” anchored in American values. It envisioned the decline of communism, although it took another four decades before that prediction came true.


The authors of the 58-page memorandum, which was declassified in 1975, advocated a massive U.S. military buildup to counter the deployment of nuclear weapons in the Soviet arsenal. They concluded that the decline of Western European powers and Japan in the aftermath of World War II had left the United States and the Soviet Union as the world’s dominant powers. The Soviets, the memo said, were “animated by a new fanatic faith” antithetical to that of the United States and were driven “to impose … absolute authority over the rest of the world.”

Guided by Dean Acheson, Truman’s secretary of State, the authors outlined several strategic choices, including a return to prewar isolationism; continued diplomatic efforts to negotiate with the Soviets; or “the rapid building up of the political, economic, and military strength of the free world.” Only the final approach, they concluded, would allow the United States to attain enough strength to deter Soviet aggression; if an armed conflict with the Communist bloc should arise, the United States would then be able to defend its territory and overseas interests.

The authors argued against a return to isolationism, fearing that this would lead to the Soviet domination of Eurasia, and leave the United States cut off from the allies and the resources it needed to fend off further Soviet encroachments. They also ruled out a preventive strike, reckoning that the United States lacked the ability to totally knock out Soviet offensive weapons and thus wind up inviting devastating retaliatory strikes. Moreover, U.S. experts did not believe that American public opinion would support measures that might lead to a protracted war.

The document did not rule out the prospect of negotiating with the Soviet Union when it suited the American objectives and those of its allies; however, the authors argued that such an approach would succeed only if the United States could create “political and economic conditions in the free world” sufficient to deter the Soviet Union from pursuing a military solution to the Cold War rivalry between the two sides.

After the report was issued, the Truman administration nearly tripled defense spending from 1950 to 1953 as a percentage of the gross domestic product, from 5 percent to 14.2 percent.

SOURCE: history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68

