OIL PROPERTIES
RANCHING
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

TOM SLICK
NATIONAL BANK OF COMMERCE BLDG.
SAN ANTONIO 5, TEXAS

Reply/to:
The Texstar Corporation
261 Madison Avenue
New York 16, N. Y.
April 25, 1960

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Center For International Affairs
Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Mass.

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

This is to invite you to meet with a group of leaders in business and the professions over the weekend of Thursday evening, June 2 to Sunday noon, June 5, at "A Conference to Plan a Strategy For Peace." The purpose of the Conference is to discuss fresh approaches in planning U.S. policies to attain a secure and just peace.

For the past several months a number of concerned individuals and I have been discussing the continuing unresolved world problems with persons in government, business, education and science.

There appears to be general agreement that a more adequate definition of U. S. goals is needed. There also seems to be agreement that a group combining practical business experience, the knowledge of the scholar, and experience in science and government can contribute outstandingly toward defining objectives and suggesting practical means of achieving them.

I am convinced that wise decisions and recommendations needed for long-range comprehensive planning can come from the concerted efforts of people from many fields of endeavor. This Conference could perform a useful function in outlining the specifics of a long-range plan. In fact, having such a plan would in itself be a significant step toward its achievement. Our discussions might also lead to a continuing study group whose work could well be a great contribution toward resolving the serious international problems facing us.

Prominent individuals in and out of the government have encouraged the holding of this Conference. President Eisenhower in the enclosed letter has given encouragement to such a meeting as well as to the coordination of our efforts with those of his recently appointed Commission on National Goals.

It is also my conviction that the thinking citizens of our country have an inescapable responsibility for helping our government to arrive at policies and plans which may well affect the future of all human beings.

I hope you can accept this invitation to be a guest and participant at the discussions to be held at Arden House, Harriman, New York, June 2nd to 5th, 1960. Details about transportation from New York, etc. will be sent to you later. I look forward to hearing from you at your early convenience.

The suggested agenda and schedule are enclosed.

JUL 16 1959

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

July 11, 1959

Dear Mr. Slick:

I was pleased to receive your letter of June twenty-fifth informing me of progress in the development of your idea to form a private group of prominent citizens to develop a long-range, basic peace plan.

I certainly think you are to be commended for the public spirit which prompted this proposal. While we in government continuously are wrestling with this problem, a group of eminent citizens outside of government certainly could develop ideas that would be of help to us in our continual search for ways to reduce world tensions.

I am particularly happy that you have arranged to coordinate your efforts with those of the Commission on National Goals, and am sure that your activities can be mutually beneficial. I hope that you will keep us informed of further progress in your most worthy and important endeavor.

Mr. Tom Slick
National Bank of Commerce Bldg.
San Antonio 5, Texas

Henry V. Klaasen

Sincerely yours,

Wishes for success.
Your ideas and that you have my best
want you to know that I think well of
the country at the time, but I do
early June. Unhappily, I will be out
the conference you are planning for
your kind invitation to participate in
Thank you very much for

Dear Mr. Slick:

New York 1d, New York
201 Madison Avenue
MetLifeCorporation
Mr. Tom Slick

May 3, 1960

STRATEGY for PEACE CONFERENCE

510 MADISON AVE., ROOM 701, NEW YORK 22, N. Y.

PLaza 3-3547

CO-CHAIRMEN

TOM SLICK

NATIONAL BANK OF COMMERCE BUILDING
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

C. MAXWELL STANLEY

STANLEY ENGINEERING COMPANY
MUSCATINE, IOWA

November 29, 1960

Dear Doctor Kissinger:

We were indeed sorry you could not attend the "Conference to Plan a Strategy for Peace" of leaders in business and the professions at Arden House, Harriman, New York, in June 1960. We were then and are still convinced that wise recommendations for long-range comprehensive planning can come from the concerted efforts of people from many fields of endeavor.

Because participants at the June Conference considered it of such great value, they have urged that another be held. We are therefore planning to meet at Arden House for the weekend of Thursday evening, January 12th, to Sunday noon, January 15th, 1961, to continue discussion of fresh approaches in planning U. S. policies for a secure and just peace. Many of those attending the first Conference will again be present.

There will be separate discussion groups in the following categories:

1. <u>Arms Control</u> - to explore in depth the requirements of a military posture which will permit negotiation of safeguarded arms control measures.

2. <u>Short-Range Specifics and Components of a Strategy for Peace</u> - economic development, cold war tactics, psychological warfare, United Nations, etc.

3. <u>Long-Range Specifics and Components of a Strategy for Peace</u> - world law, disarmament, economic development, United Nations, etc.

Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, as co-host, joins us in hoping you can accept this invitation to be a participant in the second Conference. We look forward to hearing from you at your early convenience. Will you indicate the discussion group in which you wish to participate. Working papers, details about transportation from New York, etc., will be sent to you later.

The story of the first Conference as it appeared in BUSINESS WEEK and the schedule for the January Conference are enclosed. Under separate cover you will receive the Final Report of the first Conference including a list of the participants.

Since we will meet on the eve of the inauguration of a new administration, the timing of the second Conference, we believe, is of great significance.

# Experts Tackle Riddle Of Strategy for Peace

Economists, businessmen, defense planners find common approach to world's danger, and some agreement on steps to take for greater stability.

For four days last week 130 of the smarter people in America holed up at Arden House, Harriman, N. Y., to discuss what is, beyond doubt, the most important—and the most difficult—problem facing the world: how to attain a secure and just peace.

The conference—the brainchild of Tom Slick, of the Texstar Corp.—was no academic bull session; it brought together some of the people who “created” the Twentieth Century’s greatest problem—living with the atom bomb—and many of the people who have been playing key roles in U.S. national security policy and planning.

Among the conferees, for instance, was Leo Szilard, the physicist who first urged Einstein to write the famous letter to Pres. Roosevelt about the feasibility of building an atom bomb. On the military side were Gen. J. Lawton Collins, outstanding World War II leader who played a critical role in planning postwar defensive strategy around the smaller and cleaner nuclear bombs (Collins is now vice-chairman of the board of Pfizer International Inc.); Lt. Gen. James Gavin, former chief of Army Research & Development (now president of Arthur D. Little, Inc.); and Gen. William H. Draper, who played a top role in putting Germany together after the war, in building NATO, and in many other assignments.

The Arden House meetings brought such people into face-to-face discussion with some of the country's top defense researchers, international relations experts, businessmen, psychologists, economists, lawyers, and—in the self-deprecating phrase of one of them—“peacemongers” from foundations such as the Institute for International Order and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

*   **Wide Agreement**—The conference thus represented an assemblage of hard military planners, idealists, businessmen, and scholars. The remarkable result of this intermingling was that it did not result in chaos, or in a brawl between peace-mongers and preparers for war—as many of the conferees them-

selves, during the early hours of the meeting, assumed it would.

On the contrary, it achieved a high degree of agreement on over-all U. S. strategy for peace. In fact, by the time the conference was over, it was clear that, as they faced the technological and political realities and dangers of our time, there was no sharp line between war and peace mongers. Everyone was driven to recognize that the world is now up against, as Leo Szilard put it, “a wholly novel problem.”

*   **What the Problem Is**—That novel problem is this:

A state of conflict exists between the great powers: The Communists, led by the U.S.S.R., have declared their intention to make a world revolution; the non-Communist powers, led by the U.S., have declared their determination to prevent this. In the past, force—and the threat of force—played a major role in resolving or freezing such national conflicts. And at present there is no substitute for the threat of force in sight for this end.

But the forces that each side can use as a threat today—or, possibly tomorrow, when the stage of invulnerable long-range rockets with H-bomb warheads is fully reached—are so terrible that no power that goes to war could hope to survive that war.

Szilard, who left a hospital to come to the meeting, laid particular stress on the virtual certainty that any major war between the great powers would become a nuclear war—even if you first got rid of all existing nuclear bombs.

That would be true because the world can no longer rid itself of the knowledge of how to make nuclear bombs; and nations, threatened with destruction, would put that knowledge to use once more if the stake was winning or losing a war. No one at the conference argued that this was improbable.

## I. World's Dilemma

Yet the roots of conflict between the Communists and the Free World exist, and there is no way, the conferees agreed, to resolve that conflict overnight. Hence, the threat of force must be used to safeguard the peace for a while longer—no one could say how much longer.

That leaves the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and the world facing this dilemma: In the years ahead the threat of force will continue to be indispensable. War be-

ITEK'S Richard Leghorn got wide support for over-all plan for U. S. peace strategy.

RAND CORP.'S Herman Kahn proposed scheme to check growth of nuclear powers.

ORIGINATOR of meeting, Tom Slick of Texstar Corp. (left), with Roger Hilsman.

BUSINESS WEEK • June 11, 1960

Economics

LEO CHERNE of Research Institute, said disarmament would be gradual and costly.

tween the great powers will have no payoff for any nation. But conflict between the two ideologies and between national blocs persists, and will not soon disappear, since neither side shows any intention of surrendering.

This is not a dilemma that makes for easy sleeping. It involves, in fact, terrifying instabilities. Herman Kahn, of the RAND Corp., which does strategic thinking and research for the Air Force, summed them up:

* Dangers of surprise attack. A nation, if it thought it could get away with an attack that would knock out most of another nation's retaliatory power, might take the gamble.

* Dangers of accidental war. It has been said that, under some circumstances, a flight of geese showing up on a radar screen might mean the end of the world. The technical experts from the military said at Arden House that this was nonsense; that there are adequate checks to prevent it. But there are real dangers, all agreed, of accidental war resulting from political events—from a miscalculated gamble on Berlin, say, or on Formosa.

* Dangers of provocation. Nation A might tempt Nation B to attack Nation C, so that Nation B would finally get into a war and could be knocked out, without danger to Nation A. Kahn noted that Pres. de Gaulle of France had spoken recently of the "melancholy circumstance" in which the U.S. might wipe out Eastern Europe, and the U.S.S.R. wipe out Western Europe. In strategic thinking, this would be a massive instance of the "tit-for-tat" threat.

* Multiplying the Danger—De Gaulle's solution to this problem, obviously, has been to get nuclear arms of his own to deter attacks on his own nation. But this leads to compounding the

instability, as other nations are driven to do the same thing.

This is what the specialists refer to as the "Nth-Country Problem." They mean that the U.S. was the first country to have the bomb, the Soviet Union the second, Britain the third ... and so on until a decade from now, the Nth country will have it.

The instabilities are great enough when only a few countries have these ultimate weapons, but when virtually all countries acquire them (and the economic costs of doing that, the experts say, will be quite modest for a nation in the decade ahead), the dangers of war from surprise attack, accident, or provocation—possibly anonymous provocation—will become enormous. When one of the possible N countries is Red China, it gives even the boldest planners nightmares.

* **Freezing Out All Others**—RAND'S Kahn, one of the last men in the world who could be suspected of wanting to appease the Russians, proposed to his seminar at the conference a solution to the "Nth country" problem. It was that the U.S. should immediately make a treaty with the Soviet Union, under which both would undertake to declare war on any other nation that aggressively used an atomic bomb against other countries. In effect, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would kick everybody else out of the nuclear club. Kahn thought this deal could be negotiated immediately.

Kahn's logic was that both the Russians and the U.S. have reasons for not letting other nations start nuclear wars which would be likely sooner or later to explode in their respective faces. This would also, he said, remove the incentive for "N" countries to acquire the bombs at all.

Other conferees thought Kahn's proposed "Pax Russo-Americana" was a "gimmick," which, for political reasons, made no sense. It would mean that the U.S. would make its NATO allies angry, and Russia would do the same to Communist bloc nations.

Yet there was a feeling among many that, whether Kahn's specific scheme was practical or not, there was strong reason for recognizing that the logic of events made it imperative to prevent the spread of nuclear bombs to other powers, and to keep them from using those bombs in a war. The Russians have consistently staved off Chinese demands for atomic bombs; they recently turned down a Chinese request for a big "peaceful" reactor.

## II. No Easy Road

The conference was far from concluding that it—or anybody else—yet had answers to all these problems, or even the means for finding the answers. In-

GEN. LAWTON COLLINS opposed gambling with Russians on total disarmament.

dced, in a series of resolutions, it suggested better means of working out the answers rather than proposing any ready-made answers itself.

It called for:

* Basic research and planning in the entire arms control field—including the military, political, diplomatic, legal, economic, and technological facets of the problem. This research, it declared, should devote equal attention to the short-range problem of next steps toward arms control and the long-range problem of the kind of world peace system toward which the U.S. should be working.

* Establishment of a permanent staff "at a high level" within the U.S. government to work on problems of arms control. This was a generally phrased endorsement of Adlai Stevenson's proposal that an agency be set up within the State Dept. to work on problems for achieving a secure peace. The group was not sure, however, where it wanted the permanent staff located—in the White House, at the State Dept., in the Pentagon, in the National Science Foundation, or elsewhere.

* U.S. support for a United Nations corps of experts to develop methods and techniques of arms control.

* A greatly expanded and coordinated research effort by universities and other research centers on strategy for peace.

* **Central Problem**—But the group did not stop with an endorsement of research—which some conferees thought was like endorsing "motherhood."

It did reach substantive agreement on one of the biggest issues: whether to "live with the bomb" or to live without it in the period immediately ahead. In effect, this is the question posed by Khrushchev's proposals for total disarmament, the latest version of which

BUSINESS WEEK • June 11, 1960

JEROME WIESNER of MIT called for all-out R&D push on arms control.

came out while the conference was in session.

On this issue, the conference reached overwhelming agreement that it was necessary to go on living with the bomb, and in effect to use the bomb as the only sure means of preserving peace in the short run. At the same time, it plumped squarely for checking and reversing the arms race. In carefully measured language, the conference declared:

> "We look upon arms control measures as an essential means of enhancing national security and international peace. Their efficacy must be measured in terms of the degree to which they contribute to these goals. From this view, arms control and armament are not contradictory, but rather complementary aspects of a responsible national security policy."

### III. Three-Way Plan

Although the conference did not formally spell out in detail just what this over-all position implied—it was clearly impossible to get agreement on detailed plans in a four-day meeting—there was nevertheless widespread support for what came to be called the Leghorn Plan—proposed by Richard S. Leghorn, president of Itek Corp. (BW-Jul.18'59, p78), a scientist, businessman, ex-Air Force Pilot, and surveillance expert. Leghorn has been serving as chairman of the Special Project Committee on Security through Arms Control of the National Planning Association.

Leghorn said there are three basic approaches to peace. The U. S. should pursue all at the same time but was likely to achieve them only in series.

First, the U. S. would have to enforce international order through its deterrent power. This means that the U. S. must

ARTHUR LARSON, Eisenhower adviser, saw international rule of law evolving.

acquire an invulnerable "second-strike" power, in the language of the experts: a family of long-range missiles invulnerable to an enemy's first strike—because they are either under the sea in submarines in unknown locations, or on railroad cars touring the country, or in "hardened" underground bases. Then any nation that struck the U. S.—no matter what it did to this nation—would be certain to die itself.

U. S. efforts would be required to make it continuously clear to the Russians that we have no intention of striking first, but that we would certainly strike back against a nuclear attack with devastating effect.

The number of missiles needed for doing this job would not be enormously large—it might run in the hundreds or the low thousands. But it would have to be large enough so that no nation would be tempted into a first strike.

The least stable situation at present, Leghorn and others argued, would be for the U. S. to have no H-bombs and missiles; this would impose enormous temptations on a hostile nation to cheat and acquire a large enough atomic striking force that could be used for blackmail. Particularly if war broke out, both nations would try to get the jump on the other with nuclear arms.

A ready second-strike nuclear force would thus, in the present world, make for more, not less, stability than a zero level of nuclear arms.

Second, the U. S. should push for the development of institutions of international law. The conference, in support of Leghorn's second plan, passed a resolution urging the development of a "working system of international law, without which a permanent and just peace cannot be achieved." This implied, the group added, that the U. S. and other nations repeal "national, self-

... our immediate goal is "metastability"—the stability of a sailboat ...

(STORY on page 108)

judging reservations to the optional clause of the statute of the International Court of Justice."

Third, the U. S. should—in the long run—work for arms reduction by individual nations, and the transfer of control over arms to the United Nations.

But Leghorn and the other conferences recognized that steps two and three would be long and difficult to achieve—if they could be achieved at all—and that only the first step could be counted on immediately as a guarantee of peace. "National arms," said Leghorn, "are not an unmitigated evil; they are a precondition to world law and order, and a precondition of reduction of national armaments."

* **Cost**—Leghorn's plan was described by one RAND man, Amrom Katz, as an approach that represents the position of "at least 80% of the people doing advanced thinking on the arms control problem." This plan would mean that, in years immediately ahead, arms control will "cost more before it costs less."

The reason for this, as Leghorn sees it, is that invulnerable retaliatory systems cost a great deal, and so do their necessary components, information and intelligence systems. Information systems and R&D work to forestall enemy surprises in operations or in technology will be needed if the U. S. is to negotiate and carry out arms control.

* **Balanced Defense**—Leghorn also argued that the U. S. needs to build up highly mobile conventional forces, so that it will not have to rely on the massive-retaliation policy as a response to provocations that can be met without using atomic weapons. He and other military experts present at Arden House held that technological progress is taking us back to the World War I position, when defensive weapons had a vast edge over offensive weapons. If we aim at a more balanced defense to deter attack—one scaled to the size of the aggression—Leghorn thinks stability will be increased. Some disagree: They fear that if the U. S. suggests it's ready, willing, and able to fight conventional wars, it will soon have them.

But nobody looked for perfect stability. RAND's Katz—the star phrase-maker who thought up the "Nth-country" handle, says our goal immediately is "metastability".

This is a physicist's term which means stability like a sailboat's; a sailboat can tip to the wind and still bob up again—as long as the wind isn't strong enough to capsize it. END

BUSINESS WEEK • June 11, 1960

STRATEGY for PEACE CONFERENCE

PLaza 3-3547

CO-CHAIRMEN

TOM SLICK

C. MAXWELL STANLEY

September 8, 1961

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

This is a cordial invitation to you to meet with a group of leaders in business and the professions at a third Conference to plan a Strategy for Peace to be held Thursday afternoon, October 19, to Sunday noon, October 22, at AIRLIE, Warrenton, Virginia.

As you know, the first two conferences were held at Arden House in June 1960 and January 1961. Because participants agreed on the importance of further exploration of ways of achieving a more stable world situation with regard to both short-and long-range goals, we are holding this third Conference which we hope may go beyond the valuable interchange of ideas to the formulation of some suggested recommendations.

The discussion groups will consider many points raised but unresolved in the first two meetings, as well as new and detailed specifications for peace-keeping which the United States is expected to present in the forthcoming sessions of the United Nations General Assembly.

Mrs. Albert D. Lasker joins us as co-host in hoping that you will accept our invitation. We are looking forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. It would greatly assist our planning if you would return the enclosed postal card.

Information about AIRLIE, a pleasant new conference facility, about an hour's drive from Washington, D. C., is enclosed. Working papers and details about transportation from Washington, etc. will be sent to you shortly.

Many who came to the other conferences expressed their willingness to pay the cost of room and board at AIRLIE and plans have been made accordingly. However, we trust that those unable to attend on this basis will not hesitate to let us know because certain funds have been set aside for this purpose. If you have any special transportation problems with which you need help, also let us know.

Inasmuch as key individuals in and out of the Administration have expressed the belief that citizen understanding and activity in behalf of foreign policy planning have never been so essential, and in view of world developments, we feel that the timing of this third Strategy for Peace Conference in the Fall of 1961 is highly significant.

Enc. Tentative Agenda and Program

## Location and Transportation

Airlie House is located on Airlie Farm four miles West of Warrenton, Virginia, on Route 605. Airlie Farm is a 1,200 acre estate in the Bethel Valley at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There are three accessible airports, Friendship in Baltimore, the Washington National in Alexandria, and the Dulles International in Chantilly, Va.; the latter is approximately twenty miles from Airlie House. A private airstrip is being planned along with helicopter pads.

Chartered buses as well as private transportation may be made available from Washington on request. Buses from the Trailways Terminal in Washington are regularly scheduled at frequent intervals to Warrenton, Virginia.

Those wishing to use private automobile travel may plan on one hour's driving time from the Potomac River Bridges in Washington. Most of the forty mile trip is on a dual highway and travel time will be considerably reduced by the Route 66 Expressway.

For Further Information, Write or Call

AIRLIE FOUNDATION, WARRENTON, VA.
Telephone 347-1300

Washington Office: Telephone 273-6554

A I R L I E

WARRENTON, VIRGINIA

A I R L I E   H O U S E

Airlie House is operated by Airlie Foundation as an educational and research conference center. The facility is offered for use to groups who wish to study and work in privacy and informality. The primary purpose of The Center is to encourage the exchange of ideas and to provide a forum for the discussion of the problems within our society.

Airlie House is the first rural center of its type accessible to the Nation's Capital. Distinguished speakers are readily available from private life, The Congress, government agencies, research centers, universities, and industry without the problems of

excessive expense or time lost in travel. This Center, therefore offers distinct advantages for conferences in national and international affairs.

Airlie House is operated by Airlie Foundation, a non-profit corporation chartered by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The facility is not operated to produce a continuing profit. Airlie House is designed to provide a modern, functional conference center maintained in a rural setting. Charges for the use of the Center are contingent upon achieving these goals.