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The release of Cold War-era Soviet and East
European documents on war plans and nuclear planning raises questions
about U.S. war planning during the same period. A central issue
is the degree to which U.S. and NATO planning posited early or
initial use of nuclear weapons like the 1964 Warsaw Pact plan
from the Czech archives.
Certainly, by the 1950s, NATO war plans assumed
early use of nuclear weapons, even immediate use under some circumstances.[1]
By the 1960s, however, the situation began to change as the Kennedy
and Johnson administrations began to push for contingency planning
for conventional and limited nuclear war. Moreover, U.S. presidents
would make final decisions on nuclear weapons use (unless the
president was out of action and predelegation arrangements kicked in). Nevertheless,
as shown by the documents that follow, high-level U.S. officials
assumed that a Warsaw Pact conventional or nuclear attack on
NATO Europe would invite a U.S. nuclear response (unless the
Soviets agreed to limit fighting to conventional weapons). Rejecting
the idea of "no first use," senior U.S. officials took
it for granted that a massive Warsaw Pact conventional attack
on Western Europe would prompt a nuclear response from outnumbered
Western forces.
The following documents, a sampling from the
1963-64 period, were selected to invite comparison and contrast
with the 1964 Warsaw Pact war plan and related documents that
are now available on the website of the Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw
Pact. The U.S. documents suggest how senior civilian and
military officials in the Kennedy-Johnson administrations thought
about nuclear war and nuclear weapons use in European and intercontinental
military operations. The theater and strategic war plans that
they approved, however, remain classified. Yet, basic planning
concepts and nuclear targeting options in U.S. war plans come
across as does the political context that shaped military planning.
Not surprisingly, just as the Soviet and Czech
documents imputed the most aggressive purposes to NATO, the U.S.
documents ascribed comparable aggressive purposes to the Warsaw
Pact side. Interestingly, however, some of the U.S. material
partially validates Soviet fears of first strikes and surprise
nuclear attack. Yet, when American war planners thought
about striking first, they believed that it would be in response
to certain information that the Soviet military was planning
to strike American and European targets. In this way, American
leaders thought it possible to preempt a Soviet attack.
One wonders if comparable Soviet-era material
exists, whether in Politburo, Party, or Defense Ministry archives. The
new documents were produced by the military, but given that "politics
was in command" during the Soviet era, one wonders how military
and civilian leaders thought about and discussed the problem
of nuclear weapons use in private. Is there a record of
a comparable Politburo or high command discussion where top officials
argue that they have deterred the Americans from undertaking
rash actions in Central Europe? Is there a record of Communist
party leaders suggesting that they had any doubts about first
use of nuclear weapons? In this connection, documents that
elucidate Soviet-era procedures and policies for nuclear weapons
use would be especially significant.
Document One: U.S. National
Security Council, Net Evaluation Subcommittee, "The Management
and Termination of War With the Soviet Union," 15 November
1963. Location of original: National
Archives, Record Group 59, Department of State Records, Records
of Policy Planning Council, 1963-64, box 280, file "War
Aims."
This 79-page document is divided into sections
below for easier navigation:
Cover pages
Table of Contents
The Problem
I. Introduction
II. An Analysis of War
III. War Management: Political-Military
Objectives
IV. War Management: Selected Requirements
for Political-Military Planning
V. Conclusions and Recommendations
Appendix - Planning Task: The Management and
Termination of War with the USSR
Document One-A: Memorandum
from William Y. Smith to Maxwell Taylor, 7 November 1963. Location of Original:
National Archives, Record Group 218, Records of Joint Chiefs
of Staff, Maxwell Taylor Papers, Box 25, file "Net Evaluation"
(also available, for a fee, as document 395 in National Security
Archive published microfiche collection, U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Weapons and Politics
in the Missile Era, 1955-68, Washington, D.C., 1998). The
Net Evaluation Subcommittee (NESC) was a highly secret National
Security Council Subcommittee that was active between the mid-50s
and the mid-60s.[2] Its original purpose was to prepare annual
studies analyzing the net effects -- in terms of overall damage,
human losses, and politico-military outcomes -- of a U.S.-Soviet
strategic nuclear war. When preparing these analyses, the NESC
would factor in different circumstances for the outbreak of war,
e.g., a Soviet or U.S. first strike. None of these analyses
have been declassified but they presented a uniformly grim and
disturbing picture of the destructiveness of nuclear war. When,
following a presentation on the effects of nuclear war, President
Kennedy said "and we call ourselves the human race!",
it may have been after receiving a NESC briefing.[3]
During its last few years, the NESC prepared
special studies that supplemented the annual net analysis. The
document that follows was one of those studies, the first U.S.
government effort to study systematically the problem of nuclear
war termination. Worried about the danger of nuclear war
and the inflexibility of U.S. nuclear strategy, the Kennedy administration
had begun to look closely at "flexible response" and
"controlled response" strategies for fighting non-nuclear
conflicts in Europe and controlling nuclear warfare. Consistent
with that, the NESC took up the chilling task of considering
whether it was possible to fight a nuclear war in a "discriminating
manner" so that it ended on "acceptable terms"
to the United States while avoiding "unnecessary damage"
to adversaries. To illustrate the problem of war termination,
the NESC presented several scenarios of U.S.-Soviet nuclear war,
drawing conclusions and recommendations from them. Comments on
a nearly final draft of this study by Col. William Y. Smith,
then assistant to JCS Chairman Maxwell Taylor, summarized this
complex study.
The scenarios that the NESC presented drew
upon major targeting options in the still-secret U.S. strategic
nuclear war plan, the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)
that went into effect in fiscal year 1963. For example,
SIOP-63 included a counterforce option designed to limit a major
nuclear attack to Soviet bloc nuclear weapons targets only --
virtually a first strike option -- which senior officials wanted
available when a Soviet attack seemed imminent. At several
points in the scenarios in this report the decisionmakers ordered
counterforce attacks; for example in the one for a European conflict,
they ordered a "limited counterforce attack" that would
supposedly have been "carefully constrained to reduce urban-industrial
damage." Other options in SIOP 63 were for attacks
on cities/industrial targets only, attacks on non-nuclear military
targets, combinations of those target categories, as well as
"withholds" for China and Eastern European countries. Even
though the Kennedy administration was looking for alternatives
to Truman-Eisenhower era "massive retaliation", SIOP
options nevertheless stipulated enormous nuclear attacks.[4]
Document Two: "USAFE",
26 May 1964, possibly prepared
by Seymour Weiss, Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, Department
of State. Location of original: Record Group 59, Department of
State Records, Records of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Politico-Military Affairs, Subject Files, 1961-63, box 3, Johnson-European
Trip May 1964 (also available, for a fee, as document 992 in
National Security Archive published microfiche collection, U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Weapons and Politics
in the Missile Era, 1955-68, Washington, D.C., 1998).
This document records a briefing at headquarters
United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE) directed by CINCUSAFE
General Gabriel P. Disosway to Deputy Under Secretary of State
for Political Affairs U. Alexis Johnson, who was completing a
tour of U.S. bases and embassies in Western Europe. The briefing
disclosed the Air Force's assumptions that the United States
could only win a nuclear war in Europe because the "side
that hits first will win"; moreover, the Soviets were "not
thinking in terms of conventional war." Significantly,
Johnson raised a central problem: "the understandable reluctance
of responsible officials to agree to a general release of nuclear
weapons." This is a reference to what became known
as the "nuclear taboo" -- the idea that because of
their disproportionate effects nuclear weapons were virtually
unusable.[5]
Document Three: Memorandum
for the Secretary from Deputy Under Secretary U. Alexis Johnson,
"Meetings in Paris with Bohlen, Finletter, Lemnitzer, and
McConnell," 27 May 1964,
with cover memo and detailed report attached. Location of original:
Record Group 59, Department of State Records, Records of the
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Politico-Military Affairs, Subject
Files, 1961-63, box 1, Memoranda (file 1 of 5) (also available,
for a fee, as document 993 in National Security Archive published
microfiche collection, U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Weapons and Politics
in the Missile Era, 1955-68, Washington, D.C., 1998).
Also prepared by Seymour Weiss, this document
records discussions during April, 1964, between Deputy Under
Secretary Johnson and key U.S. officials based in, or then visiting,
Paris, including Ambassador to France Charles E. Bohlen, U.S.
ambassador to the NATO Council Thomas Finletter, Commander-in-Chief
Europe (CINCEUR) and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)
Lyman Lemnitzer, and Deputy Commander-in-Chief USAFE John P.
McConnell. Their conversations focused on a variety of problems,
including the use of tactical nuclear weapons, command-and-control
of nuclear weapons, threat assessments, and proposed force withdrawals
from Europe.
The discussions on tactical nuclear weapons
and threat assessment raised important questions. While Lemnitzer
assumed early use for nuclear weapons, especially anti-demolition
weapons (ADMs), his State Department interlocutors questioned
that assumption in part because a decision to use nuclear weapons
"would be the most crucial one any president could make"
and might not be made "quickly or easily." The
discussion of threats revealed interesting differences between
Lemnitzer and McConnell over whether Warsaw Pact forces could
"easily overrun" NATO forces, as the latter believed. Johnson,
however, argued that the probability of a large Communist invasion
was a "rapidly diminishing" one, arguing that it was
more important to plan for more likely contingencies such as
an East German revolt or Greek-Turkish conflict over Cyprus.
Document Four: Department
of State Airgram enclosing "Secretary McNamara's Remarks
to NATO Ministerial Meeting, December 15-17, 1964," 23 December
1964. Location
of original: Record Group 59, Department of State Records, Formerly
Top Secret Foreign Policy Files, 1964-66, box 22, NATO.
Beginning with his famous May, 1962, "Athens
Speech", Secretary of Defense McNamara began an effort to
"educate" European NATO leaders on the realities of
nuclear warfare and the necessity for a flexible response military
strategy. This speech, delivered at one of the semi-annual
NATO defense and foreign ministers meeting, represented another
step in that effort. As in other speeches, he emphasized
the high costs of nuclear war, the problem of escalation control,
and the need to plan for contingencies other than a massive invasion. What
is especially striking about this speech, however, is McNamara's
confidence that NATO nuclear and conventional forces had deterred
the Soviets from strategic and theater nuclear attacks as well
as from massive conventional attack. Interestingly, McNamara
treats the latter as a "substantial" threat although
he may have privately agreed with State Department officials
that the risk was diminishing.
Document Five: Ambassador-at-Large
Llewellyn Thompson to Seymour Weiss, Bureau of Politico-Military
Affairs, "Implications of a Major Soviet Conventional Attack
in Central Europe," 29 December 1964. Location of original:
National Archives, Record Group 59, Department of State Records,
Records of Ambassador-at-Large Llewellyn Thompson, 1961-70, box
21, Chron-July 1964..
The State Department's most influential Soviet
expert of the 1960s, Llewellyn Thompson was then chairing a special
State-Defense committee on politico-military planning (the "Thompson
Committee"). In this paper, Thompson joins U.A. Johnson
in agreement that the chances of a Soviet conventional attack
in Central Europe were "remote." If, however,
the Soviets did make a "grab for Europe," Thompson
argued that Washington should reply with a strategic first strike
against the Soviet Union. Admitting that the United States
"might also lose," Thompson argued that a first strike,
including immediate use of tactical nukes, would be necessary
because the Soviets would otherwise take the same course.
Many historians have described Thompson as
a voice of sanity on U.S.-Soviet relations during the 1960s;
for example, he played a key role in encouraging President Kennedy
to take a moderate course during the Cuban missile crisis. His
willingness, at least on paper, to support first strikes and
first nuclear use suggests that a nuclear taboo was then far
from pervasive. If Thompson had the responsibility, however,
one wonders if he would have readily ordered a first strike in
an "ambiguous situation"?
Glossary:
ACE - Allied Command Europe
ADM - atomic demolition munitions
ASW - antisubmarine weapons
ECM - electronic countermeasures
LOC - lines of communications
MAAG - military assistance advisory group
MLF - multilateral force
MRBM - medium range ballistic missile
PAL - permissive action links (safety locks on nuclear weapons)
POLAD - political advisers
"special ammunition" - possibly a reference to depleted
uranium ammunition
Notes:
1. See, for example, Robert A. Wampler, NATO
Strategic Planning and Nuclear Weapons 1950-57, Nuclear History
Program Occasional Paper 6 (College Park, Center for International
Security Studies, 1990).
2. A history of the NESC would be most
useful but difficult to write until its major studies have been
declassified. Some materials on NESC, including its charter,
and summaries of some of its reports can be found in the volumes
on national security in the State Department's Foreign Relations
series. Some writers have argued that the NESC had war planning
responsibilities, but its role was strictly analytical, although
no doubt war planners studied its reports closely.
3. Dean Rusk, As I Saw It (New York,
1990), 247.
4. For a discussion of SIOP-63, see Desmond
Ball, "Development of the SIOP, 1960-1983," Desmond
Ball and Jeffrey Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting
(Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986), 62-70.
5. For thoughtful explorations of the
notion of "nuclear taboo," see Thomas Schelling, "The
Role of Nuclear Weapons," in L. Benjamin Ederington and
Michael J. Mazar, "Turning Point: The Gulf War and U.S.
Military Strategy" (Boulder, Westview Press,1994), 105-115;
Peter Gizewski, "From Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds:
The Nuclear Taboo in International Politics," International
Journal LI (Summer 1996): 397-418; and Richard Price and Nina
Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical
Weapons Taboos," in Peter J. Katzenstein, "The Culture
of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics"
(New York, Columbia University Press, 1996), 116-152.
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