ABSTRACT
Although it was in the Far East that the US military first began fighting communist forces, it was in Western Europe that the Americans believed the real battle against communism would be fought. In November 1947 the Joint Intelligence Group at the Pentagon prepared a top secret study of Soviet military potential. It estimated that the new weapons produced by the Soviets would consist of upgraded rockets and missiles using technologies they had captured from the Gern1ans at the end of the war. The report estimated that the Soviets would acquire nuclear weapons by 1956. In April 1948 the NSC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded in a NSC document, entitled 'The Position of the United States with Respect to Soviet-Directed World Communism', that the Soviets need to be confronted:
The United States should therefore take the lead in organizing a world-wide counter-offensive aimed at mobilizing and strengthening our own and anticommunist forces in the non-Soviet world, and at undermining the strength of the communist forces in the Soviet world. I
The Americans grew more uneasy about Soviet expansionism after witnessing the creation of a communist government in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 and the beginning of the Berlin airlift in April 1948. The immediate reaction in the US was for the arrest and indictment of leaders of the American Communist Party in July 1948. James Forrestal, Secretary of Defense, considered that the 'round-up of subversive leaders' and the return of General Clay for urgent consultations with the administration over the Berlin situation, plus the fixing of 30 August as the date for draft registration, suggested that 'we are expecting war in the very near future'. 2
America and the European trade embargo 15
and that such individuals have kept the Soviets informed of US activities and exerted 'some influence on policy framers'. Communists were said to have infiltrated the national economy through the CIO-dominated trade unions in the mining, lumber, transport, manufacturing and professional industries. The large body of US citizens born overseas, 'or were native born of foreign or mixed parentage', then estimated to be thirty-five million, were considered to be susceptible to communist subversion, as were 'the 13 million Negroes living in the United States' who were judged to be 'extremely vulnerable to the Communist line of attack'. The report concluded that 'the Soviets are attempting to weaken nations outside their orbit by all means short of war with special emphasis on espionage, subversion, and sabotage'. 3
The American military planners looked for cooperation from the British at a conference between the Joint Intelligence Committee of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and the UK Joint Intelligence Committee held in London in December 1948. The meeting discussed a scenario of two wars occurring between the Anglo-American powers and the Soviet Union - one in 1949 and the other in 1956 to 1957. The revived and retrained Soviet army was seen as the major threat and the estimate of the Soviet's acquisition of nuclear weapons was brought forward to occur in the middle of 1953. This joint conference drew the startling conclusion that considering the 'Soviet political, economic, and military strength and weakness' the 'Soviets have the combat power to overrun key areas in Europe and Asia'. The qualification was quickly added with the experts' belief that the Soviet Union would be unable to 'hold and exploit these areas,.4
