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AND DEVELOPHT BOARD I fully endorse the suggested procedure in Dr. %shrs letter cf December 20th to Secretary Forrestal, with the following additional I would suggest that Secretary Forrestai might wish to discuss this problem informally with Secretary Acheson and if he also concurs, that the two Secretaries present to the President the idea of a small, very high level committee to study th~isprobiem frorian informed but objective point of view and submit recommends.tier.s which, if approved by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State, would then go to the ?resid,entfor final approval. ‘Withreference to the Bikini report I would suggest that this high level comiitee consider in its proposed statement for the public not a publication of the Bikini report (with appropriate deletions), but rather that the statement be pr.~paredto irlcorporatea restatement of the essential releaseable features of the Bikini report with any corrections of conclusions or additional appropr’late to the Bikini study. This would avoid ths issue of releasing the Bikini report under pressure, but would acco@iskL the essential purposes which Mr. Dewey and the other members of the !3iki.ni Evaluation Board have had in mind in recommending that the appropriate aspects of this report be made available to the public. If this high level committee is set up, I believe that its appointment should not be announced publicly, since this could create pressures and might lead to a second embarrassing episode if its recomenaations for p~bl~c release were also vetoed. my useful public announcement coulcicome with ~ucki publication as may result from the new committee’s recommendation. In the meantime it sho’uldbe sufficient to say, ii anything has to be said publicly, that this whole broad question is in process a ‘ of restudy. Uq : 6. I personally have a conviction regarding the desirability under a “Epresent circumstances of publishing t~;oof the recommendations of g$:
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the Bikini report, one having to do with conditions ur.der.w~ficha attack on the United States, and the other having to do with a reconstitution of the Atomic Ensrgj Commission. I would be glad to discuss these two points a. . desirable, but they would properly be considered by the proposed high level committee if this be established. 70 I wholly agree with Dr. dushls suggestion that our p!mlic and the world be informed of o’m intmtion to use atomic weapons against military or war potential o’ojectiv~sin czse we are forced into war. It is technological superiority of ti,istype wiich is ow country’s greatest possibility of military strengtkiand is ou substitute for the far more burdensome and permanently d~structive 8. I also concur with Dr. Bush that methods like chemical, biological, and csn cause suffering indirectly related to quick military objectives, should be ~dvertised only to the extent necessary to ~~sme the p~pie that we are prepared with defensive ~’easures~nd are prepared to use them, if necessary, in retaliation, but that the initiation O: tkieiruse in war is not a factor in our war plans.