8 December 1950: Initial Drafts

Reid drafted two memoranda on defeat in Korea and the worldwide anti-communist struggle. In “The International Crisis,” Reid reviews challenges that have faced the “democratic world,” writing that all of the Western responses thus far have been “inadequate.” In Reid's estimation, they have “proved to be either too little or to have come too late.” Reid is fearful that “a third world war may be upon us in a few weeks or a few months,” and advocates for “a global strategy for a global war, which is no longer cold, not yet hot, but which is warm.” Reid also emphasizes that “warm war” is only a means to an end, the end being “not peace without friction but peace without the threat of war.”

In “The Defeat in Korea,” Reid offers “some suggestions on how the democracies might respond in time to the challenge.” He writes that “time is of the essence” and calls for swift mobilization, recommending that the target date for the NATO medium-term plan be moved up from 1954 to 1952. Reid also sets out a diplomatic plan of action, proposing meetings of the North Atlantic Council, all of the Commonwealth prime ministers, the Organization of American States, and the Council of Europe. Finally, Reid reiterates that the aim of a warm war is “not the subjugation of the Cominform empire or its unconditional surrender but the creation of world in which the Cominform empire and the free democracies can live side by side in peace.”