PER OUR CONVERSATION SATURDAY, HERE ARE THE FOUR O/RR CHARTS WHICH MIGHT BE HELPFUL IN YOUR CONGRESSIONAL APPEARANCE.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00268R000800080004-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2013
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 9, 1959
• Content Type: MEMO

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Office Memorandum ? UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO : DCI
Fmam :
R. .1. Komer
SUBJECT:
DATE: November 9, 1959
'O. MI :1-9
Per our conversation Saturday, here are the four 0/RR charts which
might be helpful in your Congressional appearance. The two which
compare US and Soviet GNP by sectors illustrate what to me is the
point of overriding importance - -that despite the still great gap
between overall US and Soviet GNP, this gap is highly misleading. While
we produce a lot more consumer goods, in the things that really cohnt
(defense, gross investment, R D, etc.) they have either caught up
to us or are very close. Thus, despite their much smaller GNP the
real threat to us is much greater than this would imply. If you use
such charts, 0/RR could bring them up to date.
Also attached is a memo I sent to you in August, which really
makes the same point.
Please return charts to Komer ,
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nElaiiilliDat DCI
13 August 1959
SUBJECT Who is Winning the Cold War?
1. Apropos the Draper Committee's query to you, no one can
disagree with Adenauerse remark to Mr. McCloyl that it is impossible
to keep a score card on such a nebulous and complex thing. Nonetheless,
there are two broad aspects of this question on which some reasonably
objective judgments can be made.
2. First, with respect to the ebb and flow of the East-Uost
conflict along the lime of demarcation between the two great power
blocs, we have not done badly at all. As you pointed out, the
Communists have actually taken very little territory they did not
alrea4y occupy at end of World War IIA They Ambled in Korea And
Berlin, they gave up Eastern Austria, they can even be said to have
largely lost rugoslavia; indeed their only significant territorial
gain in 1950-59 has really been North Vietnam. Even in terms of
penetration and influence we need not give the Soviets too much
credit. True, there has been increased Communist penetration in maw
areas; however, in such key countries as India, Indonesia and the UM,
not to mention Western Europe, this influence has if anything been
recedin: in the recent past.
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3. But the above is by no means the whale story. If we look
behind the skirmishing *long the Bast-West perimeter, the story
is quits different. My analogy, however imperfect, meld be to the
trench stalemate of World lar 3M; here the Germans for 3i years held
their perimeter against penetration but, eldle stabilising the
front, could not reverse the, much more rapid build-up of Entente
power behind it, especially after the BS entered the mar. Though
the cold war front as well way now be largely stabilised, we cannot/
ignore the relative buildup which is taking place behind.
I. On this score it is ieperative to count in the balance lot
potential but actual strength. There in no question that if the
US and Western Enrope chose to do so they could mobilise the power
necessary to decisively shift the balance against the Bloc. In
fact, however, they are not doing sot Despite a much smaller power
base, the Bloc is actually producing strengths comparable to ours.
Though Soviet steel production is only about half ours and their
capabitiy even less, for example, they are probably devoting at least
as such steel to cold and hot war purposes as the BB. The same holds'
roughly true for industrial investment, military expenditures, education,
and the crucial field of science and technOlogy. 114 may still ,have
more scientiets and better ones, but in rocketry, for example, would
anyone question that they are putting out at least as great an effort
as wel
eq. a
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5. If they are already roAlly up to us in key respects, the
comparative trend in allocations of resources is even more disturbing.
For they have made perfectly clear that they will continue to devote
a very high percentage of their much smaller GNP to missiles,
science, basic industrial growth, and other ways of winning the East-
West colvetition. Should they continue to do so, they may achieve a
dangerous superiority in the categories that really count, even though
their TIP remains much smaller and the curves never cross.
6. To counter this can wereally depend on our ability, as
in World Wars I and II, to mobilise our vastly greater potential? In
a nuclear mar post D-Day mobilisation would be impossible. Even
in cad war there is a major question of lead time. Despite the
much greater flexibility of our economy, inherent not only in our
system but in the fact that we hive "excess" resources which can
be diverted to cold or hot war purposes (while they are close to
capacity already), could we quickly convert OD billion in automobile
production to ballistic missiles? We may find ourselves in a position
where even though we decide to convert we cannot do so in time.
7. .at would this mean? Not so much that they would jump
us militarily (I share the view that they are just as afraid that
we, in growing desperation, might strike them?hence their growing
interest in nuclear arms controls). But from a position of demonstrable
power superiority (with missiles an the military backdrop), they could
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renew oold war preseures around the East-West periphery with greater
prospects of success. Peychaogicaily alone, the impact of much
superiority, on us and our allies as well as the uncommitted could
be disAstrous over time.
8. Bence, mhile we have stabilized the cold war front, are we
winning the cold war? If the underlying trends are, nob reversed,
might not Ehrushchev be correct in his overweening confidence that
they will in time develop sufficient actual power superiority to push
to the wall?
R. I/. KGIER
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