Date

Nov 20, 1958

Description

This NESC report was presented to Eisenhower and the National Security Council. Eisenhower was concerned about the level of destruction, seeing it as too much to strike every city with a population of over 25,000 people, and that it would be better to determine those targets whose destruction would “most economically paralyze the Russian nation.” He did not see any point to adding to the destructiveness of an attack that could produce “a 100 per cent pulverization of the Soviet Union." "There was obviously a limit – a human limit – to the devastation which human beings could endure." These considerations led Eisenhower to request a study on what types of retaliatory attacks would best deter the Soviet Union from future attacks: an attack on a military-target system or an "optimum mix" of military and urban-industrial targets. The request was NSC Action 2009, and the resulting studies would lead to the first Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP).

Source

DDEL, Ann Whitman File. NSC Series. Box 10, 387th Meeting of the National Security Council

Document published in following posting(s):

Long-Classified U.S. Estimates of Nuclear War Casualties During the Cold War Regularly Underestimated Deaths and Destruction

Jul 14, 2022

Memorandum by NSC Executive Secretary S. Everett Gleason, "Discussion at the 387th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, November 20, 1958," 20 November 1958, Top Secret; Excised version published in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume 3, document 38