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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": [
        {
            "day": 18,
            "logicalDate": "1948-08-18",
            "month": 8,
            "year": 1948
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    "seq": 21,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750596/750596-04-021.jpg",
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    "ocrText": "TOR SECRET\nwere seeking the adoption of these concepts in Moscow would be\nequivalent to saying that it was our objective to overthrow Soviet\npower. Proceeding from that point, it could be argued that this is\nin turn an objective unrealizable by means short of war, and that\nwe are therefore admitting that our objective with respect to the\nSoviet Union is eventual war and the violent overthrow of Soviet\npower.\nIt would be a dangerous error to accept this line of thought.\nIn the first place, there is no time limit for the achievement\nof our objectives under conditions of peace. We are faced here\nwith no rigid periodicity of war and peace which would enable U.S\nto conclude that we must achieve our peacetime objectives by a\ngiven date \"or else\". The objectives of national policy in times\nof peace should never be regarded in static terms. In so far a.s\nthey are basic objectives, and worthy ones, they are not apt to\nbe ones capable of complete and finite achievement, like specific.\nmilitary objectives in war. The peacetime objectives of national\npolicy should be thought of rather as lines of direction than a,s\nphysical goals.\nIn the second place, we are entirely within our own rights, and\nneed feel no sense of guilt, in working for the destruction of con-\ncepts inconsistent with world peace and stability and for their re-\nplacement by ones of tolerance and international collaboration. It\nis not our business to calculate the internel developments to which\nthe adoption of such concepts might lead in another country, nor\nNSC 20/1\n- 13 -\nTOP SECRET"
}