S8 Ep1118: NSC-68: The Blueprint for Cold War Rearmament GUEST: Nick Bunker Following the 1949 Soviet atomic test, Paul Nitze and Dean Aches

The John Batchelor Show · Jul 12, 2026 · 11m

NSC-68: The Blueprint for Cold War Rearmament GUEST: Nick Bunker Following the 1949 Soviet atomic test, Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson drafted NSC-68, a top-secret strategic document that defined the Cold War struggle. The document portrayed the Soviet threat in the "starkest, grimmest possible terms," identifying 1954 as the "year of maximum danger." To counter Soviet military spending — estimated at 15% of their national output — NSC-68 proposed trebling the U.S. defense budget from $13 billion to $40 billion. Simultaneously, McCarthy targeted Owen Lattimore, an Asia expert, as a "master…