This is John Batchel, conversation with Nick Bunker, author of In the Shadow of Fear,

America and the World in 1950. Harry Truman is in the White House. The Korean War, never to end,

begins in June of 1950. Between the beginning of the year and June, the fear is everywhere.

The Soviets are understood to be ready to attack.

Here, Nick Bunker explains why that date, 1954, was seen as the end of the world.

Something must be done.

The Soviets are getting ready to attack.

They didn't know about Korea.

They didn't think of Korea.

But when it does happen,

that justifies the estimation

that the Soviets will attack in 1954 with atomic weapons.

Here's Nick Bunker in the shadow of fear explaining NSC 68.

Famous then, famous now, the Cold War.

More of this tonight.

So the revelation in the United States up that the Soviet Union had an atom bomb helped to trigger a great

of rethinking inside the State Department about what they were to do about the threat of the Soviets,

particularly the threat of the Soviets in Europe. They could also see the extent to which the Soviets

were continuing to build up their conventional military force as well. And so Aterson commissioned Paul Nisci to produce what became

NSC 68. And the core of this document was this really. First of all, although it was a top secret

document, it was marked top secret. It wasn't intended always to be secret. The intention was that

NSC 68 would become a public document.

...