After listening to the reports, Eisenhower thanked the teams for their hard work but reflected that “the only thing worse than losing a global war was winning one.” The American people had no desire to wage a war of annihilation against the USSR and then find itself responsible for yet another long-term project of rehabilitation of a defeated enemy. The best policy for the nation must be one of strategic patience, resilience, and vigilance. Great Power war in the nuclear age was simply unthinkable. As one shrewd participant noted, Ike flatly contradicted the rhetorical fulminations of Dulles:
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