g memorandum "The International Control of Atomic Energy," Kennen noted that "there could be no way in which weapons of mass destuction could be made to serve rational ends beyond simply deterring the outbreak of hostilities" (Kennen 39). Even at this early point, Kennen began to also recognize the potential of the bomb to completely wreck balance of power arrangments. Simply achieving higher potentials of destruction would not necessiarily lead to a better negotioating position with the Soviets. Truman had never considered not creating the hydrogen bomb, despite Kennen's objections. Truman's justified his adamant support of the super bomb for bargaining purposes with the Russians. Kennen's point, of course, had been that the very decision to build the hydrogen bomb would inhibit bargaining with the Russians on international control, since the Kremlin was unlikely to negotiate from a position of weakness. Most of the American national security structure viewed this as fallacious. Truman's preception was that the United States, as a technology rich but man power short nation, was operating from a position of weakness, since of necessity is relied more heavily than did the Soviet Union on weapons of mass destruction to maintain the balance of power. The Soviet atomic test in 1949 had upset that balance. Only by building the super bomb, it was thought, could equilibrium be regained. It would not be until the Kennedy administration that Kennen would be vindicated and an awareness would develop "of the basic unsoundness of a defense posture based primarily on weapons indiscriminately destructive and suicidal in their implications" (Kennen 365). The late mistakes of the Truman administration would be carryed over into the Eisenhower years. Nuclear deployment became the primary American security measure, naturally leading the Soviets to do the same. The problems of the Eisenhower years stemmed directly from the overconfidence in the U.S. nucle...