:NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY


nominal cause which would bring war in the latest of the three periods
is not now foreseeable.
Addendum:
   If war with the USSR need not even so be regarded as "inevitable",
 it must in the present circumstances be deemed "probable", and
in the
 near rather than distant future. Because our time-table is set for 1952
 at the earliest, it would patently be desirable to cause a retarding of
 the Communist time-table if possible. We seem hardly to dispose of
 military or economic factors, in addition to those now effective, which
 could be brought fruitfully to bear within the indicated time-limit.
 Whether the introduction into the equation of a new factor in the
 form of political negotiations would act as a brake in a situation where
 neither side gives evidence of being ready to cede substantially, is
 an open question. It could perhaps be said that a political conference,
 even if it achieved nothing, would probably not hasten the present
 trend toward war, and that it would be well to meet war having
 explored all avenues that might offer themselves for the achievement
 of a measure of immediate understanding and at least temporary
 toleration. At worst, we might still gain a short measure of precious
 time-assuming that while the two sides were talking they would not
 at any rate be shooting. Under existing conditions, however, by the
 present estimate, for our defense moves we have left to us only days
 and hours, not months and years.


 601.0o/12-1950
 Memorandum of Conversation, by the Ambassador in the Soviet Union
                              (Kirk)

SECRET                           [WASHINGTON,] December 19, 1950.
Subject: Report to the President
  I saw the President today between 10 minutes of 12 and 10 minutes
after. A brief summary of the conversation follows:
  After the usual greetings, I made the following initial point: the
situation with the Soviet Union is ticklish and while I did not believe
the Soviets would march immediately, yet there are certain
possibilities which might cause them to move; such as:
     (a) Action on the part of the Western world which would force
the Soviets to go to war. As an example, let us say, declaration of war
against Red China with bombing of Chinese cities. Such an eventu-
ality, I thought, would cause the Russians to implement their treaty
with the Peiping government, signed last February.1

  'See footnote 4, p. 160.


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