Originally Posted by cmac2012

http://vicpeace.ca/centre/readings/nukeuse.htm

This site states that we had 1200 warheads in '54 while the Soviet number of warheads was unknown. I think that's the statistic I had read years ago and I think I misinterpeted it to mean the Soviets had none.

Best I can tell from this site, we had 400 warheads when the Soviets developed their first one, still a pretty serious arsenal to have pointed at them, specially after all the sabers we'd been rattling. I'm not trying to apologize for the Soviets but this is another example for me of where we seem to disregard human nature. Russia had been bludgeoned by Germany twice in 30 years, losing roughly 20 million people in each war. Then, we had Patton and others lobbying for invading Russia. WTF did we expect them to do? Commit suicide and solve our problem for us? Agree that we should just put them out of their misery?

I read the story about Eisenhower and the joint chiefs years ago in Stephen Ambrose's biography (authorized) about Ike. I couldn't find a full account of it on the web but I did find Ike's semi-famous response, which is below. The joint chiefs were saying that we would never again have such a lead in nuclear firepower and we better take them (Russia) out while we can. Ike said that, in that case, we'd have to take out China also, being a strong ally of Russia's and perhaps having the bomb as well. The joint chiefs agreed. Some introduction from the site and the quote, the site being:

http://artsandscience.concordia.ca/poli419n/lectures/lecture19.html

The US military took advantage of Soviet shortcomings in command and control having to do with its reluctance to decentralize authority because of its mistrust of its own population, and prepared decapitation attack plans.

However, there was not universal support: President Eisenhower on the option of a preemptive nuclear attack option on the USSR in 1954:

“No matter how well prepared we may be, no matter how certain we are that within 24 hours we could destroy Kuibyshev and Moscow and Leningrad and Baku and all the other places that would allow the Soviets to carry on war, I want you to carry this question home with you: Gain such a victory, and what do you do with it? Here would be a great area from the Elbe to Vladivostok and down through Southeast Asia torn up and destroyed without government, without its communications, just an area of starvation and disaster. I ask you what would the civilized world do about it? I repeat there is no victory in any war except through our imaginations, through our dedication, and through our hard work to avoid it.”