423


NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY


  I hope that we can discuss this question at an early meeting of the
Senior Staff.
                                                PHILIP C, JEsstrr

                         Editorial Note

  For documentation on the visit of British Prime Minister Clement ,R.
Attlee to Washington, December 4-8, 1950, see volume III, pages 1698
ff. The Anglo-American discussions which occurred during the visit of
the Prime Minister covered a wide range of issues of immediate rele-
vance to United States national security policy. For documentation on
those portions of the conversations which dealt with the Korean War
and the question of employment of atomic weapons in connection with
that conflict, see volume VII, pages 1352-1426, passim..

7I1.oo/12-550
Memwrandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs
   (Barrett) to the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State
   (W.ebb)

 SECRET                          [WASHINGTON,] December 5, 1950.
 Subject: *The Current Emergency
   From where, we sit, the Administration seems in danger of erring
 very badly in the direction of "Let's wait and see" and "Let'snot
do
 anything until we are absolutely sure of it".
   Public opinion in this country and abroad is in a very serious condi-
 tion. In the absence of strong,-positive leadership in Washington, the
 situation is ripe for mountebanks of various sorts to move in" and
fill
 the void.
   The American people are getting the impression that their Washing-
 ton leadership is utterly confused and sterile. They are saying, in
 effect: "Don't just sit there; do something".
   The people of Western Europe seem, on the one hand, to be fright-
 ened to death that we are going to bluster into a general war. On the
 other hand, we believe, they would welcome a firm U.S. position to the
 offect that "We are not going to be rushed into any foolish interna-
 tional action; we are going to husband our resources; but we are going
 into a gigantic mobilization in the belief that it is the one way of
 preserving the peace."