1. Rossiter, Clinton L., “Constitutional Dictatorship in the Atomic Age,” Review of Politics 11 (October 1949): 395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee also my Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies (Princeton, 1948), pt. IV.Google Scholar

2. The literature of the cold war is voluminous. A good starting point for cold-war foreign policy is Dean Acheson's Present at the Creation (New York, 1977).Google ScholarFor the domestic impact, see Athan Theoharis, Seeds of Repression: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of AcCartkyism (Chicago, 1971)Google Scholar; Stanley I. Kutler, The American Inquisition: justice and Injustice in the Cold War (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; and Oshinsky, David, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of joe McCarthy (New York, 1983).Google Scholar

3. The influence of the World War I and II experiences was greatly limited in the judgment of experts due to the absence of a serious threat to the American homeland. See, for example, Cushman, Robert E., “Civil Liberties in the Atomic Age,”Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 249 (January 1947): 54–65;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Arthur W. Bromage, “Total War and the Preservation of Democracy,” ibid., esp. 72–74; Bernard Brodie, “War in the Atomic Age” and “Implications for Military Policy,” in Brodie, Bernard, ed., The Absolute Weapon (New York, 1946)Google Scholar; Baldwin, Hanson W., “Budget Arms Set-up Hit,” New York Times, 16 January 1949;Google Scholar and Brewer, Carey, Civil Defense in the United States: Federal, State, and Local, Library of Congress, Legislative Reference Service, Public Affairs Bulletin No. 92 (Washington, D.C., February 1951), 9.Google Scholar

4. Rossiter, “Constitutional Dictatorship,” 395.

5. An excellent discussion of both the domestic- and foreign-policy implications of the American nuclear monopoly is contained in Gregg Herken, The Winning Weapon (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

6. For NSC-68, see A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary on United States Objectives and Problems for National Security (Washington, D.C., 1975)Google Scholar, microfiche 83C. An excellent discussion of the circumstances leading up to its adoption is contained in Hammond, Paul Y., “NSC-68: Prologue to Rearmament,” in Warner Schilling et al., Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets (New York, 1962), 271–378.Google Scholar

7. Some military and civilian advisers, for example, General Leslie Groves of the Manhattan Project, believe that the navy's reports were either incorrect or evidence of an accident in the Soviet atomic program. See Lilienthal, David E., The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Vol. 11: The Atomic Energy Years 1945–1950 (New York, 1964), 571–75Google Scholar, and Strauss, Lewis L., Men and Decisions (New York, 1962), 206.Google Scholar

8. NewYorkTimes, 18 November 1949; Condit, Kenneth W., “The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, Vol. 2, 1947–1949” (Mimeo., National Archives and Records Service (NARS), Military Reference Branch, Washington, D.C, December 1948), 536.Google Scholar

9. For the assessment of the Soviet threat to the capital, see General Services Administration (GSA), “Statement of Basic Principles and Assumptions Governing Preparation of the Long-Range Plan for Security of the Nation's Capital,” 15 June 1950, esp. 3–4, 6–7, copy in Folder E4–12, Records of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, 1947— 1961, Record Group 304, National Archives and Records Service (NARS), Washington, D.C. (Subsequent references to this collection will cite only the folder number.)

10. Rossiter defined constitutional dictatorship as the enforced democratic use of autocratic powers and procedures in time of national emergency. The purpose of civil defense was to restore the status quo: i.e., to preserve the independence of the state, maintain the existing constitutional order, and defend the political and social liberties of the people. He maintained that public vigilance was the best safeguard against the dangers of an emergency dictatorship, but he also advised taking specific precautions: e.g., making the Office of Emergency Management a permanent adjunct of the Executive Office of the President, clarifying lines of command, obedience, and cooperation between military and civilian authorities, codifying federal martial law, statutory creation of a joint interim committee of Congress empowered to recommend termination of martial law, and selecting candidates of the highest intellect and moral character for the offices of President and Vice-President. See Constitutional Dictatorship, esp. 302–14.

11. The establishment of the SAC and progress of the strategic bombing doctrine may be followed in U.S. Congress, House, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Hearings, Military Establishment Appropriation Bill for 1947, 79th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C, 1946), 18Google Scholar, 26, 401–2; U.S. President's Air Policy Commission, Survival in the Air Age (Washington, D.C, 1948), 14–25ff.Google Scholar; U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 81st Cong., lstsess. (Washington, D.C., 12 April 1949)Google Scholar, v. 95, pt. 4, pp. 4429–30; David A. Anderton, Strategic Air Command: Two-thirds of the Triad (New York, 1975) 31–32, 38–39.Google Scholar The navy was the first to question the air force's strategic mission as part of a campaign to expand naval air power and to retain parity with it and the army. See U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings, The National Defense Program: Unification and Strategy, 81st Cong., lst sess. (Washington, D.C., 1949), 39–189.Google Scholar

12. On 25 November 1946, eighteen months after the World War II Office of Civil Defense had been abolished, the Secretary of War established a Civil Defense Board within the War Department under the direction of Major-General Harold R. Bull. The Bull Report of 15 February 1948 based its findings primarily on civil defense experiences in the United States and other countries during World War II, although it recognized this was an inadequate model for an atomic war. It called for an agency within the War Department to initiate coordinated plans. Acting upon this recommendation, Secretary James V. Forrestal of the new Defense Department set up the Office of Civil Defense Planning on 22 March 1984, under the direction of Major-General Russell J. Hopley. See National Military Establishment, Office of the Secretary, A Study of Civil Defense (Washington, D.C., February 1948) and Presley Lancaster, Jr., to Vice-Chairman, NSRB, 6 February 1953, Folder E4–12.Google Scholar

13. The Hopley Report advocated putting the new office under military auspices on the ground that civil defense required continuous coordination with agencies responsible to the Secretary of Defense. This immediately raised serious questions of martial law and civil liberties that were not resolved and that continued to be the focus of heated debate during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. See U.S. Office of Civil Defense Planning, Civil Defense for National Security (Washington, D.C., October 1948), 1–2Google Scholar, and the arguments of Charles Fairman in The Problem of Maintaining Governmental Authority Under Conditions of Nuclear Attack( Industrial College of the Armed Forces, No. L57–146, Washington, D.C., 1956–1957).Google Scholar

14. The Board's function was to advise the President concerning all aspects of the coordination of military, industrial, and civilian mobilization in the event of war. Its composition consisted of a civilian chairman plus the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor. The first acting chairman was Dr. John Steelman, who assigned civil defense planning and programs to nine departments and agencies, probably as a consequence of beind-the-scenes political and bureaucratic struggles centering upon budgetary and defense matters. See 13 Federal Register 1189 (1947) and New York Times, 5 March and 26 June 1949.

15. Public Law 253, 80th Cong., 1st sess., 61 Stat. 495.

16. See the Staff Report and NSRB Doc. No. 81, A Recommendation to the President by the National Security Resources Board on Security for the Nation's Capital (Washington, D.C., 27 October 1948), copy in Folder E4–12.Google Scholar

17. Lilienthal, Atomic Energy Years, 474.

18. The “essential” agencies were identified as the White House staff, the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the FBI, the Mutual Security Agency, the Office of Defense Management, and the Federal Office of Civil Defense. See NSRB memos: “Standards and Policies Underlying Plan for Assuring Continuity of Government,” n.d., 4; “Continuity of Government in an Emergency,” 9 March 1953; GSA, “Statement of Basic Principles …,” p. 1; NSRB Doc. No. 81, 4; Tracy B. Augur to Lancaster, 3 October 1952; Edward T. Dickinson to Acting Director, Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM), 9 March 1953; and the Report of Senate Bill 218 (11 April 1951), 2–5, all in Folder E4–12.

19. Some of these concerns were addressed by Charles Fairman in the Problem of Maintaining Governmental Authority cited elsewhere and in his testimony in U.S. Cong., House, Civil Defense for National Survival, Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, 84th cong., 2d sess. (7 parts, Washington, D.C, 1984)Google Scholar, pt. 2, 282–340. A good summary of the controversy over the same issues during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations is contained in Rankin, Robert S. and Dallmayr, Winfried R., Freedom and Emergency Powers in the Cold War (New York, 1964), 44–81.Google Scholar

20. Arthur M. Hill to the President, 27 October 1948, Folder E4–12. For Truman's relations with congressional Republicans, see Hartmann, Susan M., Truman and the 80th Congress (Columbia, Mo., 1971).Google Scholar

21. Whereas the scope and meaning of civil defense in the past had not been clearly delineated, the NSRB in 1950 had defined it to mean “those measures required to be undertaken by civilians and civil authority to avert an enemy attack; to minimize the effects of such attacks as may be successful; to alleviate, control and repair the damages from enemy attack; to maintain civilian morale; to provide the maximum civilian support of the war effort.” This definition not only established the role of civil defense in the national security program, but it also emphasized its nonmilitary character. See Augur to Lancaster, 28 May 1952, and “Progress Report on Civil Defense Planning under the NSRB,” 3 March 1949–3 March 1950, 2–3, in Folder E4–12.

22. “Progress Report on Civil Defense Planning,” 8–11.

23. Also in progress were a joint U.S. –Canadian review of air-raid warning systems and equipment and a survey of resources and needs. See ibid.

24. Symington, while with the NSRB in 1951, authored NSC—100 as an alternative to NSC-68, the policy of containment that he believed had failed. Written at a time when the war in Korea was going badly for U.S. forces, it was essentially a nuclear ultimatum to Russia and a plan for a preventive war with China. The administration rejected it outright. For NSC–100, see Records of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (USJCS), “Recommended Policies and Actions in the Light of the Grave World Situation,” 11 January 1951, “NSC” Box, USJCS Records, Modern Military Branch, NARS, Washington, D.C.

25. Charles H. Kendall to Stuart Symington, 5 May 1950, Folder C3–6.

26. Ibid.

27. Rossiter had written with reference to civil liberties under martial law that, “where a temporary, calculated intrusion is necessary to save the whole structure of our freedom, we must permit the intrusion and concentrate our efforts upon making it as temporary and carefully guarded as possible.” He also noted, however, that their preservation depended in the first instance on the character of the military officers themselves rather than on any legal restrictions put upon them. He also urged that federal martial law be codified to eliminate any ambiguities. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, 5–13. See also Rossiter's article, “Constitutional Dictatorship,” 412, and the discussion in Fairman, “President as Commander-in-Chief,” Journal of Politics 11 (February 1949), esp. 162–68.Google Scholar

28. GSA, “Statement of Basic Principles …,” Folder E4–12.

29. Augur to Lancaster, 26 February 1952, in ibid.; Neiv York Times, 31 August, 27 October, 14, 17, and 20 December 1950.

30. See the copy of House J. Res. 419, 81st Cong., 2d sess. (20 February 1950), introduced by Rep. Chet Holifield; Symington to Rep. Emanuel Cellar, 6 September 1950; and Lancaster, “Legislation to Authorize Dispersal of Federal Agencies,” 26 May 1953, in Folder E4–12.

31. William F. Knowland to Symington, 25 May 1950, Folder C3–7.

32. See Fred Levi, Memorandum for the file, 7 June 1950, Folder C3–7; Symington to Cellar, 6 September 1950, Folder E4–12.

33. Augur to Lancaster, 28 May 1952, Folder E4–12.

34. It was not until 12 January 1951 that Congress enacted a Federal Civil Defense Act. Some rudimentary steps were taken to implement a civil defense program, but the lack of adequate funds and jurisdictional disputes between states and cities and between federal authorities and the states hampered the program. During the last years of Truman's presidency and through most of Eisenhower's term, civil defense remained an idea without a program. See Frederick J. Lawton to Head of the Executive Departments, 26 July 1950, Folder C3–6; U.S. Cong. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Civil Defense Against Atomic Attack, Hearings, 81st Cong., 2d sess. (6pts., Washington, D.C., 1950), pt. 6, 194–95Google Scholar; Mickel, Ernest, “Deep Crisis Centers Attention on Defense Planning,” Architectural Record 109 (January 1951): 15–16Google Scholar; “Mayors Assert Changes Needed in Civil Defense Program,” American City 66 (July 1951): 5Google Scholar; “Civil Defense Programs Need Thorough Reappraisal,” American City 67 (November 1952): 129Google Scholar; and Fund, Rockefeller Brothers, Internationa! Security, The Military Aspect, Special Studies Report II (New York, 1958), 46–48.Google Scholar

35. Raoul E. Desvernine, “Emergency and War Powers of the President and of the Executive Branch of the Government Since 1933, Specially Indicating Those Presently Utilizable,” 26 July 1950, Folder C3–6.

36. J. Howard McGrath to Symington, 18 December 1950, in ibid. See also Carlisle Bolton-Smith to Jefferson D. Burrus, Jr., 17 October and 12 December 1951; and Bolton- Smith to James L. Kunen, 6 December 1951, in ibid.

37. Truman, Harry S., Public Papers of the President: Harry S. Truman, 1945–1953 (8 vols., Washington, D.C., 1961–1966), 6: 746–47; Lancaster, “Legislation to Authorize Dispersal of Federal Agencies,” Folder E4–12.Google Scholar

38. New York Times, 2 March, 7 and 11 April, land 11 May 1951. Ibid., 22 January, 30 June, and 16 July 1952.

39. Augur to Lancaster, 24 March 1952, Folder E4–12.

40. Ibid.

41. Frank Upman and Tracy B. Augur to Lancaster, 27 November 1951, Folder E4–11.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. See Lancaster to [NRSB] Chairman, 21 April 1952; to Elmer B. Staats, 5 June 1952; and D. P. Evans to Lancaster, 24 November 1952, Folder E4–12.

47. Jack Gorrie to Harry S. Truman, 17 March 1952; Lancaster to Gorrie, 27 May 1952, Folder E4–12.

48. Executive Order 10340, Federal Register, XVI, 3503. See also Westin, Alan F., The Anatomy of a Constitutional Law Case: Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer: The Steel Seizure Decision (New York, 1961).Google Scholar

49. New York Times, 30 April 1952. For editorial comment on Judge David A. Pine's decision, which was almost uniformly critical of President Truman's action, see U.S. Cong., Cong. Rec, 82d Cong., 2d sess. (1 May 1952), vol. 98, pt. 4, 4646–47.

50. Kunen to Gorrie, 30 April 1952, Folder C3–6.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. For Robert's opinion, see Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 743 U.S. 579 (1952).

54. Gorrie did not rule out the possibility of the President requesting Congress “to enact additional stand-by emergency powers legislation” that would enable him to take immediate action in a war crisis prior to the passage of specific legislation by Congress. See Gorrie to Kunen, 6 June 1952, Folder C3–6.

55. Augur, “Status of Full Mobilization Measures Under the Cognizance of the NSRB, as of Summer, 1952,” 25 June 1952, Folder E4–12.

56. Augur to Lancaster, 15 July 1952; and Augur's memorandum, “Plan for the Permanent Dispersal of Headquarters Federal Government Activities,” 15 July 1952, Folder E4- 12.

57. Auger memorandum, 15 July 1952. For the impact of a thermonuclear attack on the continuity of government at headquarters, see Augur to Lancaster, 3 September 1952, also in ibid.

58. See the draft letter of Jack Gorrie to the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, 10 September 1952, and the memorandum, “Continuity of Government—Next Steps in Emergency Relocation Plan for Essential Headquarters Units of the Federal Government,” Augur to Lancaster, 15 July 1952, ibid.

59. Lancaster to Vice-Chairman, 6 February 1953; Augur to Lancaster, 5 February 1953; Edward T. Dickinson to Acting Director, ODM, 9 March 1953, in ibid.

60. The instruments for reducing the peril to a capricious invasion of civil liberties in an atomic catastrophe, Rossiter ultimately concluded, were twofold: (1) to establish a welltrained civilian defense organization capable of relieving the military of as many tasks as possible; and (2) to maintain a vigilant public opinion. An alert citizenry ensured that “a democratic, constitutional government beset by a serious national emergency can be strong enough to maintain its own existence without at the same time being so strong as to subvert the liberties of the people it has been instituted to defend”; Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, 1, 3, 14.

61. The entire question of military budgets and the political and foreign policy consequences that flowed from certain budgetary decisions is treated exhaustively in Kolodziej, Edward A., The Uncommon Defense and Congress, 1945–1963 (Columbus, Ohio, 1966).Google Scholar

62. See “Implications of Soviet Possession of Atomic Weapons,” 21 February 1950, “U.S.” Series (5–23–46), sec. 4, USJCS Records.

63. New York Times, 16 July 1953; Kolodziej, The Uncommon Defense, 112, 155, 451.

64. Truman was not alone in this. It was not until 1957, in the aftermath of Sputnik and the Gaither Report, that official Washington took seriously the threat of a Soviet attack. Even then, President Eisenhower disapproved the civil defense plan proposed by the Gaither Commission because it was too costly ($25 billion over a five-year period for fallout shelters) and threatened the integrity of the NATO alliance. The report was not released until 1973. See Office of Defense Mobilization, Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age, Report to the President by the Security Resources Panel of the Science Advisory Committee, 7 November 1957, reprinted by the U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Defense Production, Joint Committee Print, 94th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C., 1967), 18- 19, 22, 29–31.

65. Truman's relations with the NSC are analyzed in Sander, Alfred D., “Truman and the National Security Council,” Journal of American History 59 (April 1972): 369–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66. New York Times, 22 April 1951.