National Security Said It Was A War

From a 1950 report by the National Security Counsel prepared for President Truman. A portion
of the report NSC 68 of 1950

But NSC 68 does not stop at American domination over the Soviet Union in a bipolar world, the free world and the communist world. NSC 68 declares that this Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union is, in fact, a "real war":

"The whole success of the proposed program hangs ultimately on the recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free peoples, that the cold war is is fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake."

Describing the Cold War as a real war, NSC 68 now lays out aggressive political and military actions that the United States can take to win this war. It calls for to wage "overt psychological warfare calculated to encourage mass defections from Soviet allegiance and to frustrate the Kremlin designs in other ways." NSC 68 also calls for the United States to use covert means to wage "economic warfare and political and psychological warfare with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest and revolt in selected strategic satellite countries." Finally, NSC 68 calls for the development of "internal security and civilian defense programs" in order to prepare the American people to accept the Cold War and the need to be prepared to fight and win global nuclear wars.

Jerald Terwilliger, Acting Chairman

American Cold War Veterans