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    "localId": "213876070",
    "label": "Memorandum from Sidney Souers to President Harry S. Truman with Attached National Security Council Report 20/4, A Report to the President by the National Security Council on United States Objectives with Respect to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to Counter Soviet Threats to United States Security",
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    "title": "Memorandum from Sidney Souers to President Harry S. Truman with Attached National Security Council Report 20/4, A Report to the President by the National Security Council on United States Objectives with Respect to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to Counter Soviet Threats to United States Security",
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    "ocrText": "TOP SECRET\nd. The power to use the military might of Russia, and\nof other countries already captured, for purposes of intimida-\ntion or, where necessary, military action.\ne. The relatively high degree of political and social\ninstability prevailing at this time in other countries, parti- -\ncularly in the European countries affected by the recent war\nand in the colonial or backward areas on which these European\nareas are dependent for markets and raw materials.\nf. The ability to exploit the margin of tolerance ac- -\ncorded the communists and their dupes in democratic countries\nby virtue of the reluctance of such countries to restrict demo-\ncratic freedoms merely in order to inhibit the activities of a\nsingle faction and by the failure of those countries to expose\nthe fallacies and evils of communism.\n6. It is impossible to calculate with any degree of preci -\nsion the dimensions of the threat to U. S. security presented by\nthese Soviet measures short of war. The success of these measures\ndepends on a wide variety of currently unpredictable factors, in-\ncluding the degree of resistance encountered elsewhere, the effec -\ntiveness of U. S. policy, the development of relationships within\nthe Soviet structure of power, etc\nHad the United States not\ntaken vigorous measures during the past two years to stiffen the\nresistance of western European and Mediterranean countries to com-\nmunist pressures, most of western Europe would today have been po- -\nlitically captured by the communist movement. Today, barring some\nradical alteration of the underlying situation which would give new\npossibilities to the communists, the communists appear to have\nNSC 20/4\nTOP SECRET\n- 3 -"
}