When a man knows he has a good chance to be A-bombed, nothing can stop him from wondering whether there isn't something he can do to prevent it. That is why talk of "preventive war" by the U.S. against the U.S.S.R. stays on the tongues of the American people, even after President Truman has effectively, and prudently, muffled official discussion of this and kindred subjects.
The statement of Secretary of the Navy Matthews that the U.S. should consider "instituting ... a war of aggression for peace" clings to the consciousness even of those who reject the idea with horror.
Even harder to forget is the proposal for which the Air Force's Major General Orvil A. Anderson was suspended: "Give me the order to do it and I can break up Russia's five A-bomb nests in a week."
Such statements are bound to get attention from Americans who (correctly) consider themselves possible victims of Russian A-bombs. Very few Americans now believe that the Kremlin can be conciliated or appeased or reasoned with. Very few are content to sit back and wait for the Communists to strike. They want to know what can be done. This is a summary of the pros & cons of the main paths open to U.S. policy.
"PREVENTIVE WAR" IN 1950
Pro. U.S. effective superiority over Russia in atomic weapons will never be greater than at present; as the months and years pass, it will almost certainly be less. This is true in spite of the fact that the U.S., in any given month, will probably continue to produce more atomic bombs than the U.S.S.R. As TIME said in August 1945, just after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima: "That the U.S. could always produce more bombs than any other country was meaningless when 500 bombs would have as decisive an effect as 50,000." Most military men are now convinced that the Russians may soon have a couple of hundred bombs. With such a supply they could destroy the centers of U.S. technical and industrial power, and thus take away, "for the duration," the one great and overriding U.S. asset. The preventive war argument runs: Why sit and wait for that?
Con. This argument would be hard to answer in purely military terms if the U.S., by striking first, could (as General Anderson seemed to suggest) really destroy Russia's atomic capabilities. But by "atomic nests" Anderson obviously meant Russian A-bomb factories. He could hardly hope to destroy the stockpile of Russian bombs already made and hidden. Nobody knows how large this stockpile is; probably it is more than 10 and less than 60—enough to give the Kremlin a means of dreadful retaliation.
While atomic blows were exchanged, the Red army would engulf Europe. There is nothing yet in Europe that could dam the Red flood. U.S. atomic damage to Russia would be strategically effective only if the Red army were forced by large-scale fighting to expend its hoarded oil, ammunition and other materials. Preventive war in 1950 would mean that the Russians 1) could wreak terrible damage on the U.S., and 2) could take and hold Western Europe, which would be worth more to them than all the targets in Russia that the U.S. could destroy by atomic bombing.