NSC 68 the United States Objectives and Programs for National Security was issued by U.S. President Truman’s National Security Council in April 1950.
Classified top secret until 1975, the document defined American foreign policy during the Truman presidency designed to “assure the integrity and vitality of our free society.”
NSC 68 stated the Soviet Union’s fundamental design was “the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the countries of the non-Soviet world.”
NSC 68 ruled out a pre-emptive U.S. nuclear strike against the USSR—but concluded that a rapid and sustained build-up of the political, economic and military strength of the free world was necessary to “frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will.“