Many in the West also seriously discussed the idea of preventive and preemptive war. Truman rejected preventive war, stating that "tarting an atomic war is totally unthinkable for rational men", but Attlee stated in 1945 that "twice is he armed who gets in the first blow". JCS proposed in 1947 that the president be authorized to use atomic bombs to prevent a nuclear attack. NSC 68 of April 1950 opposed "a military attack not provoked by a military attack on us or on our allies", but acknowledged "if possible" the benefits of preemptively "landing the first blow" before the Soviet Union did so. In August 1950 Secretary of the Navy Francis Matthews publicly advocated a preventive war, but NSC 68 forecast that even after a massive preventive attack the USSR would likely not surrender and its forces could still "dominate most or all of Eurasia."