One more point, further back:
It depends. In theory the US has the bombs and the planes to knock out the entire Soviet strategic force on the ground. In practice, I strongly suspect our recon wasn't good enough to actually do that in 1952, especially if the USSR had dispersed and readied their forces beforehand.
In 1952, certainly not. LeMay only began covert overflights through the graces of the RAF, whom he supplied with B-45 medium jet bombers, in March 1952. So SAC would only have the beginnings of good intel picture of Soviet installations in a hypothetical 1952 war.
By 1954-55, however, it would be a different story. LeMay would be doing his own overflights, thanks to Ike's authorization, and lots of them.
So, the question becomes, how many bombs do the Soviets have left, and what do they do with them? Most would likely be ear-marked for western Europe, to destroy ports and SAC staging bases to hinder followup strikes.
Certainly that would be the prudent use of the Soviets' arsenal. Knocking out those targets was not only reasonably feasible, but would actually serve the purposes of a Soviet campaign in Germany. Especially if Stalin's plan was to gradually escalate to cause western leaders to blink first.
Which raises the question of a preemptive Soviet strike:
And, of course, that assumes the US strikes first. If the Soviets go first, some bombs are definitely getting through.
I would agree. The difficulty is that it's hard to imagine the Soviets, under Stalin or not, trying such a thing, given the vast disparity of forces they knew existed. Such a disparity did urge a "use it or lose it mentality," but more powerfully argued against any nuclear war at all, since the USSR would be a radioactive slag heap at the end no matter what.
More importantly, once LeMay is in charge at SAC, the chances of a Soviet preemptive strike are pretty minimal. LeMay was running regular reconnaissance, and the record indicates that he simply would have sent in the bombers at the first sign of Soviet preparations, even without presidential authorization. Indeed, by the mid-50's, he was trying to provoke the Soviets into doing just that. Or as LeMay put it to Robert Sprague in 1957, "If I see that the Russians are amassing their planes for an attack, I'm going to knock the shit out of them before they take off the ground."