Insight Into 1949 U.S. Military Defense Policy Crisis

In Autumn of Our Discontent, John Curatola contends the Soviet creation of an atomic bomb was not the single determinant for the United State’s 1949 decision to establish a large defense structure. Rather, the almost simultaneous confluence of several events during Autumn of 1949 “sowed the seeds for a review of national security policy.”[1] A principal military historian at the National World War II Museum, Curatola highlights the key game changers as the implementation of George Kennan’s containment policy, the loss of mainland China to communism, the release of the China White Paper, arguments on the ethics of creating a thermonuclear bomb, and the very public rivalry between the U.S. military services. Because each occurred so closely in time, he skillfully asserts, the effect they had on the country’s perspective toward national security “was greater than the sum of their parts.”[2]