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{
    "localId": "12022743",
    "label": "Washington Post News Clipping, \"Eisenhower Pushes Operation Candor\"",
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    "id": "12022743",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Washington Post News Clipping, \"Eisenhower Pushes Operation Candor\"",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12022743",
    "collections": [
        "Records of Charles F. Masterson, Special Assistant in the Executive Branch Liaison Office (Eisenhower Administration)",
        "Office Files"
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 21,
            "logicalDate": "1953-09-21",
            "month": 9,
            "year": 1953
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    "ocrText": "The series on \"The Safety of the Repub-\nEisenhower Pushes\nlic\" which has grown out of this presidential\ndecision is still strongly opposed by power-\nOperation Candor\nful quarters within the Administration. The\nThe\nopposition comes largely from the econo-\nmizers, who fear that there will be a bad\nBy Stewart Alsop\npolitical reaction if the Administration cuts\ndefense expenditures while the people are\nbeing told the truth. \"Operation Candor\"\nTHERE is a simple, deeply significant\nmay therefore be fudged in the end, or even\nreason why President Eisenhower has cou-\nabandoned. But the facts which so deeply\nrageously decided that it is time to trust\nimpressed the President remain.\nthe people with the hard facts of the na-\nMany people (including former President\ntional situation. The background story of\nTruman) have taken comfort from the\n\"Operation Candor\"-tl admirable plan\nthought that the intelligence services were\nfor a series of candid reports to the Nation\noverestimating Soviet capabilities. T h e\nby the President and Administration leaders\nPentagon particularly, these people argue,\n-goes back to midsummer.\ntend to inflate estimates of Soviet power,\nAt this time a speech on the threat to this\nin order to justify its own huge expendi-\ncountry of the growing Soviet air-atomic\ntures. Unfortunately, the facts have in every\npower had been prepared, on an experi-\ncase proven that the intelligence has greatly\nmental basis, for the President. Eisenhower\ninderestimated Soviet capabilities.\nhad been strongly urged to make a frank\non\nstatement on this subject by some of his\nadvisers-and he had been as strongly urged\nWHEN the first Soviet jet fighter appeared\nnot to by others. Without making up his\nin the Russian skies in the late forties, our\nmind one way or the other, the President\nair specialists comforted themselves with\nasked that such a speech be drafted for him,\nthe thought that this was probably only a\nso that he could see how it would look on\n\"propaganda prototype,\" and that at any\npaper.\nrate the Soviets could not achieve mass pro-\nHe took the draft with him on his vaca-\nduction of this type of aircraft. Their eyes\ntion, and began working it over in longhand,\nwere opened in Korea, where the Russians\nas is his custom, covering about a third of it\ngave the Chinese enough MIG 15s to out-\nwith revisions and interlineations. But he\nnumber our own jet fighter force by seven\nstill had not decided to go ahead with the\nto one, while maintaining a- crushing air\nspeech. Then, on August 12, came the news\nof the explosion of the Soviet hydrogen\nsuperiority in Europe.\nbomb.\nThe first Soviet atomic bomb, tested years\nThis event deeply moved and impressed\nbefore the intelligence experts had forecast,\nthe President. As detailed analyses of the\nwas another unpleasant eye-opener, and\nair samples of the Soviet hydrogen test be-\nthere have been others. Now comes the\ncame available, moreover, he became more\nSoviet hydrogen bomb, which was not only\nand more impressed by the terrible signifi-\ntested before the intelligence expected, but\ncance of the event. Here a certain caution\nwhich is also deeply disquieting for the\nis necessary, since certain secret technical\ntechnical reasons referred to above.\nmatters are involved.\nSurely it is now time to realize that we\non\nare in a race for simple survival, and that\nYET IT can be said that these analyses\nour competitors in the race are technically\nhad a simple, nontechnical meaning which\nour equals and in some respects perhaps\nwas all too clear to the President. For they\nour superiors. The race will surely be lost\ndispelled, once and for all, any lingering\nif we continue to entertain the elusion that\nnotion that the Soviet physicists and weap-\nour rivals are ignoramuses tied to \"an oxcart\nons specialists were inferior imitators. They\nalso exploded the hopeful theory that the\neconomy,\" and incapable of original experi-\nRussians would never have made progress\nments.\nin the nuclear art had it not been for Fuchs,\nEditor's note: Joseph Alsop is flying to the\nPontecorvo, and the little band of traitors.\nFar East, and will shortly be reporting on the\nThe Soviet hydrogen test proved, in short,\nim\nAsia\nthat the Soviet specialists are brilliant ex-\nperimenters in their own right.\nThe more he thought about these facts,\nthe more President Eisenhower became con-\nvinced that the people had a right to under-\nstand the danger which confronted the Na-\ntion, and that he had a duty to help them\nunderstand. He sent the speech he had\nbeen writing back to the White House, with\ninstructions to \"carry on from there.\" Sub-\nWashing ton Post\nsequently, he approved plans for extending\nSeptember 21, 1953\n\"Operation Candor\" into a whole series of\nreports on one aspect or another of the na-\ntional peril, by other Administration leaders\nas well as himself.\nElectrostatic reproduction mada\nby the Eisenhower Library for\npreservation purposes."
}