From Solarium to Strategy: Eisenhower’s Enduring Vision

Revisiting the 1953 Project That Offers a Playbook for Today’s Geopolitical Challenges

On May 8, 1953, in the third-floor sun room of the White House, where President Eisenhower would relax and often cook for guests, an intense debate ensued with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles concerning the inadequacy of our U.S. national security strategy in context to the Soviet threat in the post-Korean Conflict environment.

Born that afternoon in the solarium room of the White House was the President’s decision to address the problem head-on by gathering “teams of bright young fellows” to analyze and recommend a strategic concept. The result was a comprehensive national strategy codified and signed by President Eisenhower later that October in National Security Council directive 162/2. The Solarium Project commenced that summer. In less than three months, the team shaped and informed Eisenhower’s decision, resulting in what would be a successful U.S. Cold War strategy that endured for four decades until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

Some 70 years later, the Solarium Project remains a model approach for deriving a long-term national security strategy.

(L) The White House Solarium, where Project Solarium was first discussed in May 1953 (Library of Congress), (R) President Dwight D. Eisenhower set up his portable grill in the area on the balcony outside of the Solarium. Note the heavy stone balustrade that bands the Solarium, 1959. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-solarium