UNITED STATES

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

WASHINGTON 25, D. C.

January 5, 1959

Dear Mr. Kissinger:

This letter is inexcusably late in expressing my gratification and congratulations for your perceptive and articulate writing in the October issue of Foreign Affairs on nuclear testing. I have been trying to say the same things in far less articulate fashion for years. Yours is by far the best expression of the situation that I have ever seen. Unfortunately sanity and logic on this subject must await further disastrous events before acceptance. It seems to me that Nuclear Munich is already here.

It was surprising in reading your article to note how greatly it differs from the opinions of your Director, Dr. Bowie. On the Planning Board I have admired him in some respects and clashed vigorously on other matters, particularly over nuclear testing and clean weapons. I am confident that your logic has not changed his views.

After publication of your article I am more eager than ever to join forces with you. Colonel Kintner tells me that you have found it necessary to concentrate your efforts in a few key areas, such as the Rockefeller interests. I also have begun lately to realize that it is impossible to cover all the ground one should in such matters.

Perhaps you might like to know of the areas where I am well known (occasionally favorably) and slightly effective. My assignment as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, responsible to him for his National Security Council, Cabinet, Space Agency, and Operations Coordinating Board duties gives me a rather unique entree into many governmental areas and departments. I am persona-non-grata in parts of the State Department, and welcome in others, due to the fact that I speak bluntly and along lines advocated by you and Dr. Edward Teller, who is a close friend. I know the Defense Department from top to bottom, including most of the inter-service machinations which come to me in detail from friends in all services there. I am not welcome in Dr. Killian's group and ineffective there as

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you might well imagine. I have friends throughout the NSC, OCB, Cabinet and White House staffs, some of high stature and influence.

Some of my effectiveness has declined as I have unavoidably assumed the role of extremist and zealot, which tag as you know was long ago applied to Edward Teller. I am constitutionally unable to restrain my strong feelings and my tongue, for which I must pay until further and more obvious disaster opens deaf ears and blind eyes to unpleasant facts. I should not forget to add that all of the Commissioners have confidence in my ability and judgment.

With that thumbnail sketch you may decide whether I can help you here. Having read most of your material and talked with many mutual friends I am sure we have no basic differences of view. I am remaining with the Commission after retirement (bad eyes) on January 1 only because of the faint hope that I can help some way in averting the disaster which seems so inevitable. I should be delighted to join forces with you in that effort. Certainly I could provide nuclear facts that might be helpful from time to time. I would be most appreciative of any opportunity you might arrange for a meeting when next you are in Washington. My schedule is full but flexible, and I can probably fit my time to yours.

Hope to have the pleasure of meeting you soon.

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
Associate Director
Harvard Center for International Affairs
Cambridge, Mass.

P.S. If you wish to check you might ask Dr. Bowie or Professor William Elliot about me. The latter I still see often. Upon reading this letter it may sound as if I am looking for a job. I did not have that in mind. Edward Teller has a standing and tempting offer at Livermore which I may accept if I become much more frustrated here.

UNITED STATES

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

WASHINGTON 25, D. C.

March 20, 1959

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

May I express my unbounded admiration for the clarity
of vision and the articulate expression of your March 8
article in the New York Times, inserted in the March 9
Congressional Record by Mr. Smith of Mississippi.

You have expressed in exemplary fashion the warnings
and analyses which I have unsuccessfully tried to in-
ject into governmental circles over the last year. In
view of the support provided by your article I am
going to call it to the attention of as many people
as possible in the National Security Council, and other
influential circles.

This latest evidence of our community of views increases
my pleasure in anticipating a meeting some day and an
opportunity to discuss such problems with you.

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Associate Director
Harvard Center for International Affairs
Cambridge, Mass.

[Y]

March 27, 1959

Mr. J. H. Morse, Jr.
Atomic Energy Commission
Washington 25, D.C.

Dear Mr. Morse:

Thank you for your letter of
March 20th, and for your very kind
comments about the Reporter article.

My visits to Washington have
become fewer, but I will certainly try
to arrange a meeting during one of my
next visits.

With kind regards.

[L.C]

November 24, 1959

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Associate Director
Harvard Center for International Affairs
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

I am glad to learn from your November 17 letter that you found my material useful. I am sure you had something more specific in mind for me to write. I shall be glad to send you what becomes available from time to time as it develops, and could perhaps work in more specific areas if it would help.

I have recently decided not to continue my present Civil Service status where dual compensation laws prevent my drawing full disability retired pay, I am therefore letting it be known among my friends that I am interested in opportunities wherein my capabilities might be of use. By both experience and interest I believe myself best qualified for research, planning, or presentation work, particularly but not exclusively in nuclear areas. If you should hear of any opportunities you think might use what I can offer, I should appreciate being notified, and also any initiative you might take in making known my possible availability.

At the suggestion of other friends, I am today writing General McCormack asking to see him on his next visit to Washington in order to learn more of his MITRE, IDA, or possibly similar work. I am suggesting he might check on me through you, Professor W. Y. Elliot, or General Cutler of Old Colony Trust as well as others here in Washington.

I should welcome an opportunity to talk with you in more detail on a number of matters when you are next in Washington. In the meantime I shall send you whatever material I think might be of use. I enclose herewith a brief summary of my interests and qualifications for your own use in knowing more about me. It is not a resume, but an extract from another letter.

Atomic Energy Commission
Office of the Chairman
Washington 25, D.C.

February 7, 1960

Dr. Henry Kissinger
6 Divinity Lane
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

Thank you for your time last Friday, and the information that you gave me, as well as your offers and notations to speak to others in my behalf.

My visit with you had an unexpected effect upon my thinking. I had come to Boston desultorily, and more because General McCormick thought I should than for any other reason. Mentally I had decided tentatively to accept a California offer.

My visit with you, in conjunction with the Gavin, Halligan, Getting, McCormick and other conversations made me realize rather suddenly that there in Boston is a potentially powerful group of eminent, intelligent men, with generally similar beliefs and motivations. It would be a privilege to work with such a group. The suggestion by Bob Bowie and by you that I work with your Institute opened another possibility that I had not considered.

A major factor that I have sought for any future move is some kind of platform or stature by which I could retain my access to vital information and possibly exert some influence either directly by my own ideas, or through others. Hence I was seriously considering RAND, or a commercial company whose officers might have some influence.

As for any influence I might have directly, some personal stature would be essential. Military stature is out, with retirement already in effect. Time is late for financial or business stature, particularly with no impressive military rank to start. That leaves only writing, or participation in important studies that have some impact. Here your Institute might provide a channel, or perhaps I might use magazines. Look wants me to write an article once out from under AEC.

Hence I am interested in the Boston prospects. MITRE, I believe, will make a specific offer soon. Raytheon in the person of Dr. Getting seemed interested, at least preliminarily. And so did General Gavin, perhaps even more than Dr. Getting.

I impose this amount of detail upon you because of your apparent interest in my future movements, and because you seemed to have intentions of talking to others about the prospects. I have written both Generals Gavin and McCormick in somewhat similar vein, and have suggested to Gavin that he might want to discuss the question with you and Jim McCormick.

I am sure you understand my motivations and general objectives. Of course you realize that I would expect to be worth my salt to any firm I join, in addition to my personal interests in the things that worry both you and me. I am seeking both, and both at a rather substantial salary, at least by Navy standards. It is time I earned the money to send three children through college, and bought my wife the kind of home she has always envied others through many years of exciting but hectic service life. I know the money would be adequate in any of several different places. Hence the problem is to get as many as possible of the factors I really want in one position. It looks as if Boston might well have that package, by association if not in a single firm.

I would appreciate your speaking to CONVAIR, I think you said it was, where you have friends. I would also appreciate your personal views either by conversation or in writing, on the potentials I might find in Boston to join your thinking group. I assume from what I picked up generally, that you and Gavin and McCormick and a number of others are working generally together in this area.

If you have ideas but no time to write, why not telephone me collect some evening at my home. The number is Emerson 2-9248. You might put in the call station to station collect, and my family will not accept a collect call from Boston unless I am home.

Thanks also for the offer of payment for a paper. After our conversation I shall get busy as soon as possible on several of the subjects in which you showed interest.

September 27, 1960

Mr. John H. Morse, Jr.
Corporate Long Range Planning Division
Aerojet-General Corporation
P.O. Box 527, Monterey, California

Dear Mr. Morse:

I was very glad to have your letter
of the 23rd and to learn that you have taken
a position with Aerojet. I will almost cer-
tainly be here on October 6th, and look for-
ward to seeing you then. I would suggest
10:00 a.m., and perhaps you could call when
you arrive to let me know whether this is
convenient for you.

Kind regards.

September 27, 1960

Mr. John H. Morse, Jr.
Corporate Long Range Planning Division
P.O. Box 257, Monterey, California
Verojet-General Corporation

Dear Mr. Morse:

convenient for you.
you arrive to let me know whether this is
10:00 a.m., and perhaps you could call when
ward to see if you then. I would appreciate
to be here on October 6th, and look for-
a position with Aerojet. I will almost cer-
rect the 33rd and to learn that you have taken
I was very glad to have your letter

Henry V. Klaasen

Kind regards.

Aerojet-General®

CORPORATION

A SUBSIDIARY OF THE GENERAL TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY

CORPORATE LONG RANGE PLANNING DIVISION

POST OFFICE BOX 527

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

FRONTIER 3-3381

THE
GENERAL
TIRE

8 March 1961

Dr. Henry Kissinger, Associate Director
Harvard Center for International Affairs
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

Congratulations upon your appointment as a Kennedy advisor. I didn't know that miracles still happen. I couldn't think of a better appointment. Best wishes.

Fritz Kraemer told me about it recently in Washington and the local papers carried a short announcement the other day.

About the same time I heard the disturbing news that you may have changed your views about the use of tactical nuclear weapons in local wars. Perhaps the insidious arguments of Halperin and Brennan have influenced you. If so, I should have commented to you on their sophisticated reasoning long ago. Here are a few comments now, based upon a rapid scanning several months ago.

I believe that despite their denials they start with the inner conviction that nuclear weapons are worse than Communists, and that the Soviets fear the weapons as much as we. I think both are wrong, and that reasoning based upon such premises will come out the same as the equally sophisticated reasoning which said Hitler had no reason or intent to start a major war, or the Japanese a capability or daring to fight us. I have reluctantly concluded that the human mind has no limit to its capacity for self-deception when sufficiently motivated.

As for specific flaws that I remember, perhaps they will appear in questions. The authors assume that the Soviets will reason the same as we that nuclear weapons would be to their disadvantage in limited wars. Is that a logical or safe assumption?

By lengthy reasoning they conclude that no new nuclear principles or devices to be discovered in the future can significantly affect a military balance. Is it logical to conclude that now for the first time in history a new scientific field has been exhausted after only fifteen years of desultory exploration?

AZUSA, CALIFORNIA • SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA • DOWNEY, CALIFORNIA • FREDERICK, MARYLAND

Dr. Henry Kissinger

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8 March 1961

What happens if the Soviets do not conclude that tactical nuclear weapons would be to their disadvantage? Suppose they perfect the fully discriminating type while we do not, and use them in a politically volatile area against our troops not so equipped? Who will benefit politically or militarily?

I should read their arguments again, but this is what I remember now and there is no time to go through it again right now.

Kennedy's problem, and ours, is simple to pose, impossible to answer. Thanks to the increasingly general conviction that nuclear weapons are worse than Communists, we cannot use such weapons on any scale (except in retaliation against all-out nuclear attack), and the Soviets know it. Premature disclosure of the Rusk memo to McNamara illustrates the point. The West refuses to match Soviet conventional power. Since the Soviets rely upon power and psychological offensives, and since we have neither power, nor skill in psychological warfare to match, and since our courage has largely disappeared, where is anything to defend us except moral rearment or its equivalent?

The dilemma is unsolvable until and unless we restore our courage, and then take action. Halperin and Brennan do not help.

I enclose a recent speech of mine.

Again, my congratulations!

JHM:gis
Enclosure

(For Release Midnight, Sunday, November 27th)

[L.C.]

Weekly Broadcast No. 322

CAPTAIN J. H. MORSE, Jr.

U.S. NAVY (Ret.), AND ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY

Sponsor: Manion Forum • South Bend, Indiana

November 27, 1960

OUR FEAR OF NUCLEAR WAR KREMLIN'S GREATEST ASSET

DEAN MANION: My distinguished guest at this microphone now, Captain J. H. Morse, Jr., has a message of great importance for all of us. He is a widely experienced, recently retired United States Naval Captain and an aeronautical engineer whose specialty is nuclear weapons planning.

For years, he was head of the nuclear planning section of our Supreme Allied Headquarters in Europe. He left that post to become Special Assistant to the Chairman of our Atomic Energy Commission, where he had a prominent part in the formulation of all draft papers on our national security.

When he left the Commission recently I invited him to address this audience and answer this question: Should we fear Soviet Russia? Captain Morse, welcome to the Manion Forum.

CAPTAIN MORSE: Thank you, Mr. Manion. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." These cogent words of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 state as well as any words can the situation as I see it today. They form the essence of the thought I shall express today in the few minutes at my disposal. I shall make the following basic points:

First: America today seems a fearful nation lacking in self-confidence and determination.

Second: The Communists are, to a large extent, responsible. They have fought for years to erode deliberately our individual and national courage, in recent years through nuclear lies and half-truths.

Third: They have done so in order to weaken their strongest opponent and achieve their goal of world domination through surrender by installment, won from irresolute and frightened opponents.

Fourth: We can thwart their aim by recognizing what they have done and what they mean to do, by reviving the individual and national courage required for life in the dangerous world today. We are physically stronger than the Soviets and can retain this lead. But, there is no substitute for courage as the indispensable supplement to physical strength.

The nature of today's crisis is clear, but our national response to this crisis is still in doubt. Neither we nor our anxiously watching allies can be sure how we will react. This doubt is natural under the circumstances.

There is good reason to believe that we as individuals, and hence our Government, are dangerously inhibited by fears that assume two basic forms:

First: We fear the possibility and the consequences of nuclear war if we take the kind of positive action and initiative which history and common sense call for today.

Second: We fear what other people, including our enemies would think or say if we took such positive action. The latter fear shows unhealthy lack of confidence in ourselves and in our country. Both fears are greatly inflated beyond justification by the facts. And this inflation has not come about by chance.

Several of our recent actions could give the impression of fear. For example, last year's triumphant American tour by Khrushchev crowned many years of intensive effort on his part. It was a symbol for America as well as all the world to see that he can extract concessions even from great America if he bluffs enough. The invitation for his visit did not come from a calm and self-confident

[LC]

nation, nor was it issued in the course of normal negotiations in order that he might come to know us better.

Did anyone really doubt that Khrushchev knows American strengths and weaknesses much better than most Americans? He certainly should in view of the long, intensive Soviet study of that very question, with access to information denied to most Americans.

Rather, our invitation to him had all the earmarks of uneasy response to blackmail when the Soviets threatened nuclear war over Berlin. It looked as if we were buying off the trouble-maker by offering him something that he wanted. Results were just what one should expect. It didn't work with Khrushchev any more than it did with Hitler.

Was anyone really surprised in either case? Has it ever worked? Most of us learned that it never works when we first encountered bullies in grammar school and quickly found out how to treat them, or what happened if we showed fear. There is no significant difference here.

Or take the recent abortive "summit conference" which Khrushchev blew to pieces before it had begun. Previously, we had stated time and again that there would be no "summit conference" without an agreed agenda and a significant promise of some progress.

Yet, shortly after the Soviet ultimatum on Berlin, we went to a "summit conference" with no agreed agenda and no promise of any progress, presumably to discuss whatever Khrushchev wanted to talk about. Why? Were we trying again to buy him off? How else could it appear to him and to others?

When he grabbed the limelight to scuttle that "summit" meeting and insult our President in unprecedented fashion, who called his hand or even tried to stop his propaganda tirades of carefully simulated anger?

Why did we promise with the whole world watching to stop the U-2 intelligence flights which were so essential in protecting the Free World against surprise attack?

The Iron Curtain can now hide surprise attacks up to the very last moment before their launching. Did we have the courage to continue what was right and in the Free World interest?

What would have happened to Khrushchev if we had promised nothing? He was showing signs of being in trouble back home. Why do we pass up such opportunities for initiative? Are we afraid of what the Soviets or our allies or the neutrals would say if we exercised the initiative? I think Khrushchev thinks so.

What vigorous and effective action have we taken to deal with Castro on our very doorstep with his open invitation to the Soviets? Are we afraid of him, or of Khrushchev, or of our friends, or of the neutrals if we took positive action in the interests of self-protection? If so, why are we afraid?

Many Americans may sincerely believe that such examples do not show fear. Of course, there are many plausible reasons why we took such action, as there always are good reasons. The arguments for them are, or were, most persuasive.

However, we must remember that what we think is far less important than what Khrushchev thinks. Even what our allies and the neutrals think about our actions is much less important at the present time than how Khrushchev analyzes our motives. We must never let him think that we are frightened, as he may now conclude.

There are many things to lose by showing fear and uncertainty. For one, our Free World leadership. Who follows a fearful, uncertain leader if there is a choice? Who respects a fearful, uncertain man no matter what he says? Does not the same principle apply to nations? This may account for growing questions about our leadership.

## OUR FEARS COULD CAUSE WORLD DISASTER

Even worse, Khrushchev could be misled as Hitler was. But, this time results will be far more catastrophic. Remember, Hitler thought we were afraid to fight, and that was one reason why he started World War II.

Who today believes that he could have been so foolish had he judged us correctly? The more fearful we appear to Khrushchev, the greater becomes the danger of his similar miscalculation. Our fears could therefore bring on the very situation we seek so frantically to avoid.

Lately Khrushchev has shown disturbing signs of overconfidence of the most dangerous kind, as Hitler showed before he struck. Can you imagine Khrushchev flaunting us as he has so often recently if he did not believe that he really has us buffaloed?

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[Y]

March 29, 1961

Captain H. J. Morse, Jr.
Corporate Long Range Planning Division
P.O. Box 527
Monterey, California

Dear Capt. Morse:

Thank you for your very nice letter of March 8th, which I found on my desk upon my return from several days out of town.

My views about the use of tactical nuclear weapons can be found in the attached reprint of an article I did for *Daedalus*. I think you will agree that they do not go nearly so far as you imply. For many reasons, I think there is more difficulty now in initiating the use of nuclear weapons, but I think you will notice that I have said explicitly that we cannot renounce their use. Of course, if the West does not match the Soviets in conventional manpower, and if it pursues its present policies with respect to nuclear weapons, we will be lost.

I have stated my views on the test ban in my book, but I am afraid it is down the drain.

When you come East, do let me know.

Kind regards.