19 December 1950: The View from Washington

This memorandum from Hume Wrong, the Canadian ambassador to the United States, discusses the international situation and the likelihood of a general war. Wrong writes that NATO planning has underestimated the pace of Soviet atomic development. As a result, says that the government “must now advance our estimate of the period of maximum danger, expand our targets in defence production and military manpower, and increase our capabilities to engage in war.” Wrong writes that “war is, of course, not inevitable,” but emphasizes that actions by the West “have not matched the surge of increased danger.”