Dear
Monty: I have read your CPX address with the greatest interest. I was particularly intrigued by the way you approached the subject--looking back rather than forward to a conflict.1
I agree with much you have to say about the need for planning, for approaching our problems of today realistically.2 However, you have one thesis in your paper to which I take exception. It is that the Russians undertook this war knowing that they were going to lose, and that they did this in order to promote Communism. I think this is an unrealistic assumption. These Communists are not early Christian martyrs. The men in the Kremlin are avid for power and are ruthlessly ambitious. I cannot see them starting a war merely for the opportunity that such a conflict might offer their successors to spread their doctrine.3
Another point I raise about your study is that you made no attempt to visualize the true nature of the holocaust that would result from the exchange of "eight thousand nuclear weapons." Presumably the warheads on a good number of these would be hydrogen bombs, and I believe you have far underestimated the degree of destruction that would result.4 I think also that you give more credit than I do to the estimated accuracy with which guided missiles of an intercontinental variety will be operating in another ten years. I believe the main part of the blow in any such hypothetical war would be delivered by the manned airplane, supplemented by guided missiles, rather than the reverse. For our side, this would be almost mandatory because of the great difficulty in getting the exact locations of interior targets in the Soviet Union.
Now with respect to the degree of damage, entirely aside from the material destruction you visualize, I believe there would be literally millions of dead after any such nuclear attack. In such circumstances what does a nation do; what can it do? I realize that the side suffering the lesser damage--in this case the allies--could achieve some restored capacity for action earlier than would the other, and so I do not quarrel with your description of later events.
All of this of course is just by way of giving you some observations that occurred to me immediately after going through your document. I do applaud you for your imagination in tackling the problem and for bringing into focus some of the great needs of our times; that is, intelligence, scientific development, plans and, so far as we can achieve it, central control of some of our forces.
As for next May--please write to me about the turn of the year. It's impossible at this moment to say, on a scheduled basis, where we shall be or what we shall be doing at any given time. But, of course, we'll work something out; and we'll be truly glad to see you.5
With warm regard, As ever
