ATOMIC ENERGY5


consideration: to what our position should now be with regard to
immediate development of the hydrogen bomb.
  They are of the opinion, with which I fully concur, that it is in-
cumbent upon the United States to proceed 'forthwith on an all-out
program of hydrogen bomb development if we are not to be placed
in a potentially disastrous posit-ion with respect to the comparative
potentialities of our most probable enemies and ourselves.
  I recommend therefore, most urgently that, within strict secrecy
limitations, you expand our atomic energy program so as to include
the immediate implementation of all-out development of hydrogen
bombs and means for their production and delivery.
  Very respectfully,                             Lou s JoHNSON

'PM Files
Metmorandum by the-Executive Secretary of the National Security
                  Council (Lay.) to the President

TOP SECRET                           WASHINGTON, March 1, 1950.
  At the time that the Special Committee. of the National Security
,Council, consisting of the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense,
and the then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission,: submitted
its recommendations on the development of thermonuclear weapons
to you for consideration and which you subsequently approved, the
Committee stated that it would submit in writing at a later date the
basis for these recommendations.
   Accordingly, the Committee submits herewith the enclosed report I
 prepared by the Department of State, with Appendices by the Atomic
 Energy Commission 'andl the Department of Defense, as a written
 record of the basis for the Committee's recoimendations on the above
 subject, which were submitted orally to you .on January 31, 1950. The
 'Chairmnan of the Atomic Energy Commission, however, approved the
 .enclosed report subject to the comments in the attached memorandum,
 dated February 15,1950.
                                              JAMES S. LAY, JR.

                             [Annex]
 Memorandum by the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy
   ComMi8sion (Lilienthal) to the Executive Secretary of the National
   Security Council (Lay)

 'TOP SECRET                    EWAsI-IINGTONI February 15, 1950.
   At the meeting of the members of the Special Committee on Janu-
ary 31, 1950, recommendations contained in Paragraph 11 of the
  1Ante, p. 513.


539