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    "localId": "213875861",
    "label": "Memorandum from Sidney Souers to President Harry S. Truman, with Attached National Security Council Report 20/1, A Report to the National Security Council by the Department of State on United States Objectives with Respect to Russia",
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    "id": "213875861",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Memorandum from Sidney Souers to President Harry S. Truman, with Attached National Security Council Report 20/1, A Report to the National Security Council by the Department of State on United States Objectives with Respect to Russia",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/213875861",
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    "productionDates": [
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            "logicalDate": "1948-08-18",
            "month": 8,
            "year": 1948
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    "seq": 13,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
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    "ocrText": "TOP SBOREI\nstandpoint of national interest, they are worth consciously for-\nmulating and pursuing in war as in peace. Objectives which come\ninto being as a consequence of wartime emotionalism are not apt\nto reflect a balanced concept of long-term national interest.\nFor this reason, every effort should be made in government plan-\nning now, in advance of any outbreak of hostilities, to define\nour present peacetime objectives and our hypothetical wartime\nobjectives with relation to Russia, and to reduce as far as pos-\nsible the gap between them.\nIII. Basic Objectives.\nOur basic objectives with respect to Russia are really only\ntwo:\n(a) To reduce the power and influence of Moscow to\nlimits in which they will no longer constitute a threat to the\npeace and stability of international society: and\n(b) To bring about a basic change in the theory and\npractice of international relations observed by the government\nin power in Russia.\nIf these two objectives could be achieved, the problem which\nthis country faces in its relations with Russia would be reduced\nto what might be considered normal dimensions.\nBefore discussing the manner in which these objectives could\nbe pursued in peace and in war, respectively, let us first exam-\nine them in somewhat greater detail.\nNSC 20/1\n- 5 -\nTOP SECRET"
}