Ace in the Hole: Why the United States Did Not Use Nuclear Weapons in the Cold War, 1945 to 1965 (Contributions in Military Studies)

ACE IN THE HOLE

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ACE IN THE HOLE Why the United States Did Not Use Nuclear Weapons in the Cold War, 1945 to 1965 Timothy J. Botti

Contributions in Military Studies, Number 165

Greenwood Press Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Botti, Timothy J. Ace in the hole : why the United States did not use nuclear weapons in the Cold War, 1945 to 1965 / Timothy J. Botti. p. cm.—(Contributions in military studies, ISSN 0883-6884 ; no. 165) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-313-29976-5 (alk. paper) 1. Nuclear weapons—Government policy—United States—History. 2. Deterrence (Strategy). 3. Cold War. I. Title. II. Series. UA23.B726 1996 355.02,7,097309045—dc20 95-50451 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 1996 by Timothy J. Botti All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-50451 ISBN: 0-313-29976-5 ISSN: 0883-6884 First published in 1996 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Printed in the United States of America

er The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

For American combat soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. Their lives are more important than the prestige of bureaucrats, politicians, and diplomats.

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CONTENTS

+

Abbreviations

ix

Sayonara Sanity?

1

+ War Scare

7

+ The Soviets Draw an Ace

17

+ Strategic Error

23

+ First Forbearance

31

+ The Cart Before the Horse

44

+ French Chestnuts in the Fire

55

+ The President Vacillates

66

+ Muscling Up

78

++ Sword of Damocles

95

++ The Last Sideshow

102

++ The Autobahn to Armageddon

109

++ Cocked Gun

121

++ Amateur Hour

138

viii

Contents

15. Harebrained Schemes

151

16. Muddling Through

163

17. Multilateral Folly

171

18. High Noon

185

19. Two Bluffs

201

20. Best-Laid Plans

216

21. Strategic Incompetence

230

22. Unplayable Card?

243

Notes

253

Bibliography

289

Index

301

ABBREVIATIONS ABC AEC AFSWP ANZUS ASM BERCON BNSP CEP Chicom CIA CINCAL CINCBAOR CINCEUR CINCFE CINCLANT CINCNELM CINCONAD CINCPAC CINCSAC CINCTAC CNO DEFCON DIA DOD EDP EEC ERP EWP

Atomic, Biological, Chemical Atomic Energy Commission Armed Forces Special Weapons Project Australia-New Zealand-United States Air-to-Surface Missile Berlin Contingency Plan Basic National Security Policy Circular Error Probability Chinese Communist Central Intelligence Agency Commander-in-Chief Alaska Commander-in-Chief British Army of the Rhine Commander-in-Chief Europe Commander-in-Chief Far East Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Commander-in-Chief Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Commander-in-Chief Continental Air Defense Commander-in-Chief Pacific Commander-in-Chief Strategic Air Command Commander-in-Chief Tactical Air Command Chief of Naval Operations Defense Condition Defense Intelligence Agency Department of Defense European Defense Plan European Economic Community European Recovery Plan Emergency War Plan

X

ExCom FEAF FROG GDR GNP IANF ICBM IOC IRBM ISA JCAE JCS JSSC KGB LOCS MAAG MARCON MC MLC MLF MRBM NAC NATO NIE NME NORAD NSAM NSC NSRB OPPLAN PFIAB PL POL PPBS PPS PRC QRA ROC ROK SAC SACEUR SACLANT SAM

Abbreviations Executive Committee (NSC) Far East Air Force (U.S.) Free Over Ground German Democratic Republic Gross National Product Interallied Nuclear Force Intercontinental Range Ballistic Missile Initial Operational Capability Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile International Security Affairs (DOD) Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (Congress) Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Strategic Survey Committee Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnasti (Soviet Committee for State Security) Lines of Communication Military Assistance Advisory Group (DOD) Maritime Contingency Plan Military Committee (NATO) Military Liaison Committee (AEC) Multilateral Force Medium Range Ballistic Missile North Atlantic Council North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Intelligence Estimate National Military Establishment North American Air Defense National Security Action Memorandum National Security Council National Security Resources Board Operations Plan President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board Permissive Link Petroleum/Oil/Lubricant Planning-Programming-Budgeting System Policy Planning Staff (State Department) Peoples Republic of China Quick Reaction Aircraft Republic of China (Taiwan) Republic of Korea (South Korea) Strategic Air Command Supreme Allied Commander Europe Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic Surface-to-Air Missile

Abbreviations

SEATO SHAPE SIOP SLBM SNIE SSM TAC U.K. U.N. USAF USSR WSEG

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Single Integrated Operations Plan Sea-Launched Ballistic Missile Special National Intelligence Estimate Surface-to-Surface Missile Tactical Air Command United Kingdom United Nations United States Air Force Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (DOD)

xi

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ACE IN THE HOLE

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1 SAYONARA SANITY? These tearjerkers, these fellows who are always saying what oughta been done and they weren't there and they don't know a damn thing about it. . . . They keep crying their eyes out about those people who were killed by those [atomic] bombs. I haven't heard any of them crying about those boys who were in those upside-down battleships in Pearl Harbor! — Harry S Truman, September 22, 1961l

After the United States trumped the Japanese Empire in August 1945 with two atomic bombs, American leaders could have accomplished in the next several years what kings, city-states, nations, and empires have been attempting to do since the time of the Roman Republic—conquer the world. The fact that they did not attests as much to a lack of world-girdling ambition in the American character as to the relatively benign nature of American traditions and values. On the other hand, Potomac strategists were quite willing and determined to extend politico-economic hegemony over key regions of the earth and risk war to maintain that ascendancy. Thus they established alliances and defensive perimeters to contain the Soviet Union, and when in the next two decades the Communists tried to break through the containment barrier, they overreached to deploy military power even to the mainland of Asia. First in Korea, then in Indochina, presidents were sorely tempted to flex America's growing nuclear muscles and deal the Communists a crushing defeat. Neither Harry S Truman, who had made the wartime decision to smash the Japanese, nor Dwight D. Eisenhower, an avowed advocate of relying on the atomic arsenal, nor John F. Kennedy, who faced the most dangerous crises of the Cold War era, nor Lyndon B. Johnson, who had at his disposal nuclear power of varied and overwhelming strength, made that decision. Instead, they chose to face down the Communists with a combination of politico-economic power backed by conventional military forces, with the nuclear ace held back in case of need. The price of nuclear abstention—or, more correctly, overexten-

2

Ace in the Hole

sion of American power—was two debilitating wars, disruption of the U.S. power position versus the Soviet Union, and upheaval in a peaceful American society. Eventually, nuclear weapons seemed as much a symbol of Washington's fecklessness as a mark of strength.2 The conscious decision of America's leaders to opt for limited war over nuclear victory could not have been predicted in 1945. Truman's no-brainer decision to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the purpose of saving up to one million casualties awed, exhilarated, and fascinated the American public and confirmed the view of many in Congress that the United States was a nation of destiny, favored by the Almighty. After China fell to the Communists in 1949, any strategist of perception who pondered the vast manpower advantage possessed by the enemy had to come to the conclusion that resort to nuclear weapons in any future battle made military sense. Particularly until the Soviets acquired the atomic bomb, and except where the U.S. faced the Soviet Union directly over Berlin and Cuba thereafter, chances that use of nuclear weapons would erupt into global war were minuscule. On the contrary, right up to and including the introduction of ground troops into Vietnam, the U.S. could have employed nuclear weapons against Asian Communists and not suffered a nuclear response from the Soviets. The longer-term consequence of such use, however, might not have been without tragedy.3 VITAL INTERESTS If the atomic bomb was such a military panacea in 1945, how did American leaders come to the point in 1950 where they were willing to commit the bulk of U.S. combat forces to Korea and suffer 33,000 deaths and tens of thousands of other casualties? A dozen years after that miserable experience, why did they decide it was preferable to build up a force of 580,000 men in a backwater country like Vietnam at an ultimate cost of 200,000 casualties, including 58,000 dead, without utilizing the one weapon that could have brought swift victory? The answer is interwoven with American postwar conceptions of what were the nation's strategic or vital interests. A concise definition of vital interests is whatever is required by a nation to secure its immediate physical safety and integrity, its economic prosperity, and its long-term security vis-a-vis adversaries. For the U.S. in the Cold War era, vital interests, narrowly defined, fell within three main categories: direct defense of American territory and population, alliance protection for key geographic regions of military-industrial importance such as Western Europe, and access to critical raw materials such as Middle East oil. These tangible interests were identified by civilian strategists and military planners. However, as the ideological struggle between the free world and Communist bloc developed in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, American leaders with not too distant memories of the triumph of aggressive U.S. armies in World War II grew frustrated by the defen-

Sayonara Sanity?

3

sive/reactive nature of containment and broadened the definition of what was vital to the national security. Dean G. Acheson, Secretary of State during Truman's second administration, declared that America's national interests were "anything that increases the capacity of the United States to control political and economic developments around the world and to penetrate foreign markets." Eventually, Washington's policy-making elite convinced themselves that vital interests arose in any region or country threatened by Communism or Communist-inspired aggression.4 Mindful of Hitlerian aggression in the 1930s, Potomac strategists were determined not to repeat the mistakes of British and French appeasers of the Nazis. As an alternative to a large and expensive military establishment, they relied upon the deterrent effect of atomic bombs, but these were in shockingly short supply until the early 1950s due to bomb design problems and fissile material shortages. Truman would not have been eager to respond to Communist aggression with the Ultimate weapon anyway, for fear of Allied reproach and world condemnation. It seemed a more sensible policy to deploy American soldiers as crusaders against Communism and avoid the risk of global war. Even when losses of men and materiel piled up to such a degree that the folly of limited war became plain, he and his successors still held back from employing nuclear weapons. It was the young men fighting and dying half a world away who first suspected that the territory they were trying to hold was as worthless to U.S. continental security as the far side of the moon. The rest of the nation did not catch on until body bags came home in quantity from Vietnam. However, most American leaders knew in their heart of hearts that what they had declared vital to the national security was not so. No president, when push came to shove, dared employ the terrible and apocalyptic power of the atom unless America's true vital interests, narrowly defined, were at stake. The choice then became: sacrifice thousands of soldiers in a contest with Communists for the marginal places of the earth, or withdraw and see U.S. prestige diminished. How most came to the conclusion that the expenditure of even one atomic bomb was not worth the lives of 58,000 Americans reveals as much about U.S. leaders themselves as about their thinking on the use of nuclear weapons. But for a few, the waste of American flesh and blood, combined with a flawed sense of what was vital to national security, propelled a desire to force a final showdown with the godless Communists. WAR PLANS AND THE BOMB To foil the Communist threat, military planners knew that the U.S. in the postwar years had to hold Western Europe, the Middle East, and Japan. Illogically, war plans called for yielding much of the first two regions to a Red Army blitzkrieg. Because American military forces had been demobilized at the

4

Ace in the Hole

war's end, no conventional means existed for stopping massive tank armies from rolling across the north European plain toward the Rhine River. The only effective counteroffensive had to be an air-atomic assault on Soviet cities and a war of annihilation if the resulting damage did not force Soviet dictator Joseph V. Stalin to surrender. This was what Major General Lauris N. Norstad of the War Department's Operations Plans Division told Truman in an October 29, 1946 briefing. Truman listened but did nothing to make certain that the U.S. would have at its disposal a sufficient number of bombs. In fact, the President did not acquaint himself with facts and figures on the makeup of the postwar stockpile until briefed by Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission David E. Lilienthal in spring 1947. While pursuing a policy of international control of atomic energy by the United Nations (U.N.) to maintain the American atomic monopoly, he left details of the atomic program to General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Engineering District, and senior advisors like Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, who gave Groves authority to carry on as he would. Groves took a hard line that absolute security had to be maintained for atomic secrets, thus influencing Truman to deny atomic cooperation even with the British. Although the general favored being "ruthlessly realistic" to the point of attacking unfriendly nations aspiring to develop atomic weapons, his policy was to build but not assemble bombs for a large stockpile.5 In reality, rapid expansion of the atomic stockpile was not possible in 1946. Key scientists such as Robert J. Oppenheimer, chief scientist of the Manhattan Project, fled the government's employ for university positions out of disapproval of the use of the bomb against Japan and exhaustion from the wartime research and development effort. The brain drain slowed work on redesigning the Fat Man plutonium bomb used at Nagasaki and the Little Boy uranium prototype dropped on Hiroshima even as trouble with two of the three atomic reactors at Hanford, Washington slashed production of fissile materials. Since the Mark III design, based on Fat Man, was inefficient, bulky, and heavy, the period of technological development required to create a mass production model extended into 1949. In the interim, the stockpile of bomb parts and atomic cores remained woefully inadequate to execute war plans.6 Nor did the U.S. possess more than a minimum force of bombers to deliver its atomic bombs in January 1946. Only 27 B-29 Silver Plates had been modified to carry the Mark III and very few bomber and bomb assembly crews had been trained. Moreover, the range of the B-29 was insufficient for intercontinental attack without in-air refueling, and that capability would not be acquired until the flying boom technique was perfected in 1949. In the meantime, the U.S. had to rely upon overseas bases.7 In addition to British and German sites, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) established major forward bases in the North Atlantic (Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland, Labrador), the North Pacific (Alaska and the Aleutian Islands),

Sayonara Sanity?

5

the Western Pacific (Philippines, Marshall, and Ryukyu Islands including Guam and Okinawa), and the Middle East (Dhahran in Saudi Arabia). For the next two years, SAC rotated B-29 squadrons to and from these bases to practice wartime deployment. Agreements were also negotiated with the British for improvement of their air bases to handle American atomic bombers. For example, large bomb pits had to be constructed to hoist Mark Ills into bomb bays. For financial reasons as well as fear of provoking Soviet retaliation, the British did not always make these improvements at a pace pleasing to SAC generals.8 One historian has gone so far as to call the early American atomic deterrent a hollow threat. More precisely, it was a threat under development and one not wise to underestimate. The detonation of just two crude bombs had quenched Japan's thirst for national suicide. Undoubtedly, a similar effect would have been produced on a bewildered and war-exhausted Soviet people had Moscow suddenly disappeared under an atomic mushroom cloud. And yet American military planners themselves underrated the bomb and concluded, even before less than awe-inspiring tests of two devices at Bikini atoll in the Pacific in July 1946, that a victorious war with the Soviet Union would require attacks on 17 cities, including Moscow, Leningrad, and Vladivostok, with a total of 98 atomic bombs. Since only 65 % of a bomber force would survive to deliver bombs, and only 75% of these would strike targets accurately, the attack success ratio would be just 48%. Thus to be safe, they wanted another 98 bombs in reserve, making the stockpile goal for the next several years approximately 200 bombs.9 By mid-1946, the U.S. did not have 200 atomic bombs, not even 98, not even 10. Had bomb parts and atomic cores been combined, no more than 9 would have been available. Not until the National Security Act of 1946 was passed, creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the congressional watchdog Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), and the Military Liaison Committee (MLC) to coordinate between the AEC and the military, did the program begin to recover its focus and efficiency. Then a critical lack of uranium led the U.S. into negotiations with the British and Canadians to barter limited atomic cooperation for a lion's share of supplies. The Modus Vivendi of January 7, 1948 tided the U.S. over until discovery of additional deposits in the American west, Canada, and elsewhere eliminated the raw material bottleneck. The U.S. was able to respond to early Cold War crises by building more plants for the production of fissile material.10 CONCLUSION The Modus Vivendi also ended a residual right that Winston L. Churchill had secured from Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Quebec Agreement of 1943 for the British to have a veto over America's wartime use of the bomb. Even after the intercontinental B-36 bomber began to be deployed in July 1948 and in-flight

6

Ace in the Hole

refueling was developed for the B-29 and its improved version the B-50, the U.S. counted on use of British bases. Not until the Triad concept of long-range bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) came to fruition in the early 1960s could the U.S. clearly calculate that nuclear systems at forward bases were not critical for general war with the Soviets. Fully cognizant of the strategic importance of their little island, British leaders applied leverage to reinstate the veto or at least a strong right of consultation on American nuclear systems based in Britain. London's deeply rooted fear that the next world war would mean the destruction of western civilization clashed repeatedly with Washington's deep-seated desire to cast off all restraint and settle matters once and for all with the Kremlin. Even without a veto over use of atomic bombs, the British helped restrain American leaders from unleashing Armageddon upon the Red Hordes and in the backwash annihilate much of Europe and Asia. However, Allied resistance to U.S. calls for an anti-Communist crusade created increasing friction and frustration which tended over time to push Washington toward unilateral action.11

2

WAR SCARE Why the American people would execute you if you did not use the [atomic] bomb in the event of war. — John Foster Dulles to James V. Forrestal, October 19481

The blockade of all rail, road, and river traffic into Berlin by the Soviet Union on June 24, 1948 did not come as a surprise. It was presaged by a series of Communist provocations, including the Greek civil war, subversive activities in France and Italy, and a sudden coup in Czechoslovakia on February 24, 1948. The U.S. responded with the Truman Declaration of March 12, 1947, which extended economic and military aid to countries threatened by Communism, an American-financed Economic Recovery Program (ERP), also known as the Marshall Plan, announced June 5, 1948, to restore stability and prosperity to democracies in Western Europe, and negotiations for a Western European defense union, which eventually gave way to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). These larger developments had an effect on the four occupying powers in Berlin. Increasingly, the Soviets refused to cooperate with their British, French, and American counterparts. In winter of 1947-48, they began to harass Western authorities, preventing full access to the Soviet zone. American military power in Europe was at very low strength by early 1948 with only 98,000 U.S. Army troops facing upwards of 4.1 million Red Army soldiers (175 line divisions) supported by as many as 1.2 million satellite troops. On March 11, U.S. Military Governor in Germany General Lucius D. Clay sensed what he described as a "subtle change" in Soviet attitudes, indicating that Moscow might be getting ready for war. His telegram to Army Chief of Staff Omar N. Bradley was a catalyst for emergency meetings of the nation's top intelligence officials to consider that possibility. Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal was so concerned about the possibility of surprise attack that he asked Lilienthal how long it would take to get atomic bombs to the Mediterranean area. Even after the intelligence community concurred on March 16 that

8

Ace in the Hole

military action by the Soviets was unlikely in the next 60 days, the war scare continued. Air Force Chief of Staff Carl Tooey Spaatz sent out an alert on March 27 to commands in the northwest U.S. and dispatched additional air units to Alaska. Three days later, the Soviet military governor in Berlin informed Clay that effective April 1, U.S. personnel and military freight shipments and baggage would be subject to inspection. After a British civilian aircraft was rammed by a Soviet fighter and all passengers killed on April 5, Clay received authority to use fighter escorts in a selective manner. However, his recommendation that the U.S., Britain, and France each assemble a division at Helmstedt near the East German border as a warning to the Soviets that Western powers intended to reinforce the Berlin garrison was turned down.2 BLOCKADE Despite the intelligence estimate presented to the President and updated on April 2 that the Soviets would not strike in the immediate future, officials in the National Military Establishment (NME), precursor of the Department of Defense, became increasingly troubled by AEC control of the atomic stockpile. Civilian custody inhibited the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) from gaining expertise handling the bombs and slowed deployment in an emergency, military officers argued. However, division among the services impeded their attempt to cut the AEC out entirely. The Air Force and Navy were locked in a vicious quarrel over whether the Air Force alone should carry out the air-atomic role set forth in emergency war plan (EWP) FROLIC. Chief of Naval Operations Louis E. Denfield and other senior naval officers, especially Vice Admiral Arthur W. Radford, argued that since the B-36 bomber could not penetrate Soviet air defenses, the Navy should be permitted to build flush-deck carriers and high-altitude bombers. Attempting to resolve differences, Forrestal held a conference with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) at Key West, Florida on March 11, 1948. He brought temporary peace by deciding that while the Air Force would have primary responsibility for strategic bombing, the Navy would "not be denied use of the atomic bomb." Then on March 18 he asked Truman to place all atomic bombs under the NME.3 The day before, the President had appealed to Congress to approve funds for the ERP and a Universal Military Training program to resist the "growing menace" of Soviet expansion. However, he delayed making a decision to transfer custody of atomic bombs to the military in the forlorn hope that Soviet harassment in Berlin would abate. It only worsened in May as the Western powers prepared to implement currency reform as a step in the economic fusion of British, French, and American occupation zones. After the Soviets suspended rail traffic into the city, Clay responded with a small airlift of supplies to garrison forces in West Berlin. He continued to press Washington for action on the ground to call Moscow's bluff.4

War Scare

9

About 50 disassembled atomic bombs were available by mid-year. All were Mark-Ill types which required 16 hours of painstaking work to put together and had to be completely taken apart and reassembled every nine or ten days because of short battery life and heat buildup around the atomic cores. If Mark-Ills had to be moved to Europe for emergency use, delays would be incurred in transferring custody to the military as well as assembling the bombs because only enough crews were trained to put together two bombs a day. But despite the fact that the NME was in no position to counter a Soviet seizure of Berlin or even an invasion of West Germany by conventional military means, Truman had not yet made up his mind that atomic bombs would be used. This was made clear on May 5, 1948 when the JCS briefed him on the EWP HALFMOON (FROLIC renamed) and he asked them to develop an alternative plan relying on conventional bombing alone. Ostensibly, he was concerned that an agreement might be reached in the U.N. to outlaw use of atomic weapons or that the American people would object to another use of that destructive power. His uncharacteristic hesitancy on the custody issue as well as failure to give a go-ahead on HALFMOON demonstrated that he had grave reservations about taking the heat a second time for using atomic bombs.5 The American military establishment had no such misgivings. Nor did they intend to permit other government officials to meddle in war planning. When Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Roy all proposed at the National Security Council (NSC) meeting on May 20 a study of whether atomic bombs should be used in a future war, Chief of Staff of the Air Force Hoyt S. Vandenberg complained to Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington that any civilian study would infringe on what was purely a military responsibility. Forrestal agreed and worked to keep State Department and AEC officials ignorant of war plans and the size of the stockpile. Although the NSC study went forward, the weak policy statement it produced came at the end of summer and did not control decision making.6 The Soviets finally applied a full-court squeeze to the Western position in Berlin on June 19 by stopping passenger train and highway traffic, then cutting off electric power from the Soviet sector to the Western sector five days later and announcing that Four Power government in Berlin had ended. Reacting cautiously, Truman turned down Clay's preference for armed ground convoys to advance along the autobahn to West Berlin to break the blockade in favor of a full airlift of supplies to keep the city afloat. C-47 transport planes began carrying food and medicine to Berlin on June 26. In the next few days, two squadrons of B-29 bombers were flown to Germany while conversations were undertaken with the British to base two more squadrons in the United Kingdom (U.K.). On June 30, an unconfirmed report that the Soviets had put barrage balloons in the flight path of British planes heading toward Berlin set off a brief but revealing war scare. Truman did not want a military confrontation with Moscow, his chief of staff Admiral William T. Leahy informed Forrestal, the

10

Ace in the Hole

JCS, and the service secretaries. However, it would be a good idea to get the atomic stockpile over to Europe forthwith just in case Stalin wanted one with Washington. When Roy all suggested that the U.S. use the incident as a pretext for a showdown with the Kremlin, Forrestal questioned whether atomic destruction of Moscow and Leningrad would bring the Soviets to their knees. Somehow, Stalin and his Communist henchmen might survive to order Red Army forces to wreak havoc all over Western Europe and the Near East. Bradley remarked that even if the air-atomic assault was successful, a preemptive attack might not be morally justified. The bombs would be dropped on cities, not military targets per se, killing millions of civilians. Fortunately, Clay informed Washington the next day that the barrage balloon incident had never taken place. As the airlift geared up, diplomatic maneuvers commenced.7 Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee and his advisors feared that deployment of American B-29s to Britain would only heighten the crisis atmosphere and provoke the Soviets to open hostilities. Although the American deployment did not include any atomic capable aircraft—32 Silver Plate B-29s of the New Mexico-based 509th Bomber Group would only come east as far as Labrador for training and the new B-50s of the 43rd Bomber Group had not yet been fully tested and converted to atomic capability—the Soviets did not know which American B-29s were equipped to carry atomic bombs and which were not. Only after the Soviet response of July 6 to a Western note of protest engendered a round of negotiations did the British agree that B-29s could fly to British bases. They gave no carte blanche for actual use.8 Moreover, on July 12, the British Chiefs asked the JCS for information on the American air-atomic plan and a say in whether the bombers would be launched. Under Secretary of State Robert A. Lovett stalled, then on August 13 used a French inquiry about the possibility that the wartime Combined Chiefs arrangement would be revived as an excuse to deflect the British request for command cooperation. Despite a clear indication that the U.S. might not have access to British bases unless greater cooperation on atomic decision making was forthcoming, Secretary of State George C. Marshall and Forrestal held firm that only the JCS would direct SAC operations and the EWP. The U.S. soon had 90 B-29s armed with conventional bombs within striking distance of the Soviet Union.9 In mid-July, Forrestal renewed pressure on Truman to transfer custody of atomic bombs to the military and to decide in advance that atomic bombs would be used in a war. Truman resisted, saying that "no dashing lieutenant colonel" would have authority to use the most powerful weapon on earth but rather that he would make that decision himself at the appropriate time. Nor would he compel the AEC to turn over custody of bombs to General Vandenberg. It was not the philosophical question of civilian control of the atomic program that concerned him, he told Forrestal. There was a presidential election coming up in November, and for political reasons he did not want the issue to blow up in his face.10

War Scare

11

Neither Forrestal nor other top NME officials would let matters be. Roy all came up with a plan for a graduated escalation of military steps, ultimately involving use of atomic bombs. The Secretary of Defense himself gathered Roy all, Marshall, and Bradley on July 28 to forge consensus to pressure the President to resolve the question of whether atomic bombs would be used. He would not be fulfilling his responsibility to the national security unless an affirmative decision was forthcoming, Forrestal told the group. If the U.S. unilaterally gave up use of the atomic bomb, Marshall's job of leaning on the Soviets at the negotiating table would be that much harder. When Bradley complained that Admiral Leahy had conveyed yet another request from the President for a war plan using only conventional weapons, Forrestal lost patience. On his own authority, he directed the JCS to give top priority to a war plan assuming use of atomic bombs.11 TENSE FALL Negotiations over the fate of divided Berlin faltered at the end of August. Despite reports by the NSC and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that the Soviets could not in fact reach the military-industrial complexes of North America with their current unimpressive force of short and medium range bombers and that the Soviet people were war-weary and their country not yet recovered from the great physical destruction visited upon it by the Nazis, some State Department officials wanted to engage the JCS in a debate about how, not if, atomic weapons would be used in the event of war. Others took the opposite viewpoint. The authors of NSC 30, U.S. Policy on Atomic Warfare, lobbied against making any formal decision and only reiterated what Truman had already declared—that the military should make all preparations and the President would decide whether and when to go atomic in light of the circumstances at the time. Unconcerned with civilian opinion, the JCS polished up its plan of attack on the Soviet Union. By September 1948, there were 132 atomic-capable planes with another 70 B-29s and B-50s scheduled for conversion by end of the year. Still, the stockpile of unwieldy bombs had not yet caught up with the number of bombers.12 With negotiations stymied and the military facing critical decisions on keeping the airlift going into the fall and through the winter, Forrestal believed the time had come once again to lay before Truman the hard atomic facts. He arranged a top secret briefing by Vandenberg on September 13, 1948. In addition to going over war plan assumptions, the Air Force Chief of Staff raised the issue of convincing the British to permit construction of atomic storage huts at Sculthorpe and Lakenheath in England. Feeling that war was very close, Truman said he prayed he never would have to use the atomic bomb again but would make the decision if necessary. He felt better after lunch with Marshall, who assured him that his gut reaction about the imminence of hostilities was

12

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wrong.1J Following a morning Cabinet meeting on September 16, Truman discussed with Forrestal and Marshall a proposed mission by Lieutenant General Norstad to enlist the assistance of Air Chief of Staff Arthur W. Tedder in convincing the British government to cooperate on preparatory steps for an air-atomic campaign. Marshall also raised the custody issue at Bradley's request because the Army Chief of Staff was concerned that some civilian AEC officials like the top two men at Los Alamos were personally opposed to using atomic weapons and might interfere with transfer to the military in an emergency. Truman pleaded the same excuse he had in July, that the November presidential election tied his hands politically. He did, however, approve Norstad's mission to England.14 In late September, Forrestal ordered war games of the air-atomic plan, a review of the procedure for transferring atomic bomb components from the AEC to the military, and a search for alternative command posts outside Washington. Aside from the remote possibility that the Soviets had somehow produced a few atomic bombs and means to deliver them, the Secretary of Defense was worried because all was not well with SAC. New commanding general Lieutenant General Curtis E. LeMay reported that morale was low, airlift capacity was lacking to carry bombs to overseas bases in an emergency, and pilots were badly in need of more vigorous training. In fact, a practice bombing run on Dayton, Ohio in January 1949 would turn into a fiasco as radar equipment failed at high altitude and weather and other navigational related problems caused no plane to "drop" a bomb closer than 5,000 feet to target. Anxious to deflect the Navy's attack on the B-36, Vandenberg reassured Symington who reassured a nervous Forrestal on October 5, 1948 that SAC could put atomic bombs where the Air Force wanted when they wanted and how they wanted. One eventual outcome of the continuing Berlin crisis was to permit the Air Force Chief of Staff to make this boast without fingers crossed behind his back.15 Intelligence estimates that the Soviets feared to provoke war over Berlin turned out to be correct. Even so, Forrestal and Marshall undertook to solidify support at home and abroad in case Stalin again tightened the screws. They were gratified to hear from a gathering of major American newspaper editors on September 14 that public opinion about the use of atomic bombs had turned around because of Soviet obstinacy over Berlin. In October, Forrestal reported to Marshall that Republican foreign policy spokesman John Foster Dulles, who worked as a consultant for the State Department, assumed it was a foregone conclusion that atomic bombs would be used in war. Marshall carried the message of strong main street backing for use of the bomb overseas to French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin in Paris on October 6, 1948 and Italian officials on October 18. He received unequivocal assurances from both Attlee and Churchill in November that all of Britain, including church officials, backed the American atomic power play over Berlin. The only annoying detail was that the British Chiefs persisted in

War Scare

13

inquiring about details of the EWP and wanted coordination of same with their forces. American officials continued to turn aside such requests.16 Throughout the summer, there had been substantial unity among Potomac strategists about the importance of maintaining Western rights in Berlin. Abruptly on October 13, the JCS broke ranks over the issue of committing so many American forces and especially transport planes to maintain access to the city. In the event of war, these would all be destroyed by Soviet air power and American war plans badly disrupted, they argued. For one thing, the Air Force required transport planes to carry atomic bombs to forward bases. For another, the JCS were not at all certain that West Berlin was worth defending. They challenged the notion that this lonely fort in Indian country was really vital to American security. They intimated that by remaining in Berlin, the Western powers were giving the Soviets an excuse to go to war.17 This was the narrow view of vital interests, centered on cold calculation of the worth of territory to the military-industrial strength and global position of the United States. In that context, the JCS were undoubtedly correct. West Berlin's 150 square miles and two million frightened inhabitants, requiring airlift of an average 5,500 tons of supplies a day and tying up the bulk of the American transport fleet, was a strategic liability, not an asset. And yet because of instability in Western Europe, holding Berlin while the jaws of the Russian bear threatened to clamp down upon it had a significance far beyond its intrinsic value. Retreating from the former German capital would have been a harsh setback, though not necessarily a fatal one, to American attempts to forge a politico-military alliance to resist Soviet pressure. Even beyond the necessity of maintaining American commitments, honor, and prestige, fighting for Berlin would have a profound psychological effect on skittish allies and the rest of the world. Repeatedly since the end of the world war, the French, for example, had pleaded with American leaders not to abandon continental Europe to the Red Army in war plans. Heretofore, the U.S. had resisted making the commitment.18 When the JCS brought their concerns to Lovett on October 14, they were ridiculed. Marshall's most trusted advisor felt free to speak scathingly to the nation's senior military men, he said, because he had worked so closely with them as to be virtually a military man himself. Accusing the JCS of having a "case of the jitters," he declared that the decision to remain indefinitely in Berlin had been made formally by the President at the NSC meeting on July 22 and was not subject to review. Nor did he agree that Berlin was a strategic liability. To maintain the airlift through the winter, the State Department would back all the steps the JCS wanted. Although it was not policy to remain in Berlin forever, if and when the U.S. did get out, it would not be with its tail tucked between its legs. After Symington and Roy all also castigated the military men, they backed down. The abuse they endured at the hands of Lovett and their own service secretaries, questioning even their moral courage to stand up to Communism, must have left a very bad taste in their mouths and had a profound

14

Ace in the Hole

effect on their willingness to gainsay emotional appeals to fight the Soviets and their allies in the future. The next time duty called to identity the nation's true vital interests—after North Korea invaded South Korea—the JCS would waffle between enthusiasm for the battle and backstage grumbling that the U.S. was wading into muck deep up to its neck.19 UNDERMINING THE BOMB Despite SAC's humbling experience of being unable figuratively to clobber Dayton, by January 1949 the U.S. at least had a force in being with potential to deliver a smashing blow against Soviet cities. The stockpile numbered approximately 100 atomic bombs and 200 atomic-capable planes, and aerial refueling with flying booms gave SAC an emergency range of 10,000 miles for B-29s and B-50s. Soon B-36s would be equipped with jet pods and other improvements, alleviating some of the problems that troubled aircraft had experienced in early flights, though hardly ending the controversy as to its effectiveness. On the way back from Europe in December 1948, Forrestal felt certain enough about American strategic power to work up a paper on the kind of massive damage SAC could inflict on Soviet cities. Target folders and navigational charts would be available for the first 70 urban-industrial targets by February 1, 1949, the President was told at a briefing on December 20, 1948. Plans for attacking petroleum/oil/lubricant (POL) targets as well as crippling air defense by fighter planes would add to enemy confusion. Later on would come attacks on hydroelectric plants and the inland transportation network. Because of a weak Soviet early warning and air defense system and the inability of Soviet bombers to impede air-atomic attacks from England and the Cairo-Suez area, planners now assumed only a 25 % initial attrition rate due to enemy activity and mechanical breakdown.20 Far more comforting to Truman was the fact that as winter progressed and spring came, the airlift was holding. By late March, the Soviets were mewling that the NATO alliance, signed in Washington on April 4, 1949, amounted to a plan to use atomic weapons against the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR) because it consolidated a network of American military, naval, and airatomic bases around the perimeter of the Soviet Empire. Kremlin leaders were conveniently forgetting that their blockade of Berlin had given great impetus to the movement. Offered a face-saving conference on Berlin, Stalin agreed to lift the blockade on May 12, 1949. His attempt to fragment the Western powers had backfired.21 If the Soviets had no doubt that the U.S. possessed enough terrible power to destroy Moscow, Leningrad, Vladivostok, and a dozen other cities, oddly Truman and most of his advisors were more uncertain than ever. To some degree this ambivalence was due to the Navy's continued shelling of Air Force capabilities to carry out the air-atomic plan. In January 1949, Navy criticism

War Scare

15

of the conclusions presented to Truman at the December 20 briefing led the JCS to appoint a six-member committee headed by Lieutenant General Hubert R. Harmon to study the strategic bombing question yet again. Further, the Army as well as the Navy began to argue for tactical use of atomic bombs against lines of communication (LOCs), troop concentrations, and advance supply depots to stop a Soviet invasion of Western Europe at the Rhine River. Criticism of strategic bombing did not prevent Louis A. Johnson, who succeeded Forrestal on March 28, from passing judgment to cancel the Navy's flush-deck supercarrier plan. Insistence by Admiral Denfield and his staff in a February 17, 1949 dissent from a JCS report that B-36 and B-29 bombers could not penetrate Soviet air space did not sway him.22 However, the continuing controversy did raise further doubts in Truman's mind. Forgetting what he had been told about the concentration of Soviet population and industry in a few targets, he confided to a meeting of NATO's Foreign Ministers on April 3, 1949 that atomic bombs alone could probably not overthrow the sprawling Soviet empire. Although he assured leaders of Congress three days later that he still had the fire in the belly to pull the atomic trigger if necessary, he ordered Johnson to undertake yet another study of the air-atomic plan and its potential effectiveness. With the Berlin blockade soon to be a page out of history, Johnson promised to complete the study in a timely fashion.23 i In the meantime, the Harmon Committee report of May 12, 1949 demonstrated just how controversial the air-atomic issue had become by coming up with conclusions that were intended to satisfy all the services but which were in fact absurd. Assuming the improbable, that 100% of bombers would get to target, the committee estimated that 30-40% of Soviet industry would be "temporarily" destroyed, that Soviet POL would be disabled, that 6.7 million Soviets would be killed or wounded, but that strategic bombing alone would neither force the Soviets to surrender nor weaken and topple the Communists from power. On the contrary, despite incapacitation of Soviet POL, Red Army offensives against Western Europe, the Middle East, and Asia would continue unabated and Soviet survivors would fight harder than ever, confirmed in their belief that foreign powers were as evil as Communist propaganda had led them to believe. Consequently, major efforts by the Army and Navy would be required to finish the job atomic warfare had started along with continued conventional bombing. But even if millions of Russians rose like avenging ghosts from the atomic ashes of Moscow, Leningrad, and other cities, and overran half the world, atomic bombing was still "the only means of rapidly inflicting shock and serious damage to vital elements of the Soviet war-making capacity." The U.S. should make "every reasonable effort" to prepare the maximum number of atomic bombs for prompt and effective delivery to target.24 Johnson neglected to read the Harmon report until October, then did not allow Truman to see it until the study the President had asked for had been completed in January 1950. Denfield, of course, supported the findings because

16

Ace in the Hole

it opened the door to a Navy atomic role. Vandenberg and the Air Force angrily protested. Only the further expansion of the atomic stockpile and LeMay's reform of SAC would ultimately end the controversy. In the 1950s, the Navy would win a share of the nuclear pot as well with development of atomic bombers for aircraft carriers and the Polaris missile submarine.25 CONCLUSION As the Berlin Blockade crisis wrapped up, there was no doubt that American strategic bombing capabilities left a great deal to be desired. LeMay admitted as much in a letter to Vandenberg on July 15, 1949, complaining about too few C-54s to implement the EWP and inadequate stockpiles of fuel and other logistical requirements at SAC's in-transit and forward air bases.26 However, the guerrilla war Denfield, Radford, and other naval officers fought against the Air Force, albeit in the context of fighting for scarce defense dollars and not intended to harm the nation's war-fighting capabilities, brought no credit to their service. Denfield was dismissed in the Revolt of the Admirals protest against cancellation of the supercarrier. Radford was sent into honorable exile as Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC). Ironically, he later resurfaced as JCS Chairman and became the primary advocate of the nuclear option in the Eisenhower administration. By then the international atmosphere was even less amenable to use of atomic weapons.

3

THE SOVIETS DRAW AN ACE While the Soviet capability of launching an atomic attack this year or the coming two years is believed to be small, it is not to be ignored, because when all the hundreds of key targets in the United States are broken down by target systems, it is found that the destruction of a relatively few targets could cause a serious delay in our mobilization, or retaliation, and delay—the loss of time during an extreme emergency—is one factor that could jeopardize our position in this era of blitzkrieg and far-reaching military surprise moves. — Briefing for the President, January 31, 19501

The real unknown variable in a contest between the U.S. and the USSR was not Soviet ability to survive widespread air-atomic assault. It was the question of when Soviet scientists would produce their own atomic device and the Soviet military a capability of responding with atomic attacks to American bombing. In mid-1948, the CIA had predicted that the earliest the Soviets would build an atomic bomb would be mid-1950 but that the most probable date was mid-1953. SAC's EWP had been updated to anticipate this possibility as early as January 1949. Still, it came as a sudden shock when on September 3, 1949 an American reconnaissance bomber detected atmospheric debris that indicated the Soviets had detonated an atomic device in late August (the 29th). When President Truman finally announced the event on September 23, a shiver of fear passed through Americans and their NATO allies.2 Despite the fact that the Soviets had only 150 B-29 type TU-4 bombers with no forward bases or aerial refueling capability to reach the continental U.S., despite the fact that on September 30, 1949 the American atomic stockpile reached 200, the mood in the free world was one almost of despair. China was falling to the Communists. Mao Tse-tung announced the founding of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) on October 10, 1949, adding another 700 million people to the enemy camp. At Truman's request, the JCAE voted to expand greatly the American atomic program for rapid and huge increases in the stockpile of bombs and sided with those in the administration who wanted to

18

Ace in the Hole

build a hydrogen bomb. Some Congressional leaders saw war as inevitable.3 KENNAN'S REVULSION If Soviet possession of the bomb made the American military and Congress more belligerent, one important State Department official became dramatically more pacific. Director of the Policy Planning Staff (PPS) George F. Kennan, author of the famous long telegram from Moscow about the sources of Soviet conduct which led to formulation of the containment policy, discussed in a meeting on April 15, 1949 what he saw as a "dangerous" NSC staff study of Measures Required to Achieve U.S. Objectives with Respect to the USSR. The paper stated that in the event of war the NME should be prepared to defend the western hemisphere, keep open LOCs and bases in Allied countries, and conduct the strategic air offensive against the Soviets at the earliest possible date, but Kennan believed that this policy created the possibility that the NME and JCS could conduct atomic warfare without political restraint. By fall 1949, he was complaining to Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (David) Dean Rusk that strategic bombing of Soviet cities would violate the 1899 Hague Convention on rules of war. He was referring to the prohibition against discharge of projectiles or explosives from balloons agreed to at the Convention and reaffirmed in 1907, but World Wars I and II had already shown the irrelevance of treaties attempting to regulate the conduct of wars. The clock could not be turned back on the Battle of Britain, strategic bombing of German cities, the firebombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo, and the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no matter what the letter of international law.4 Kennan seriously undermined his credibility with Secretary of State Acheson in an October 11 meeting of the PPS, attended by his boss. The JCS, he argued, were not infallible. Particularly alarming was their insistence on basing conclusions on the maximum estimated capabilities of the enemy and the most improbable course of events. Although only the President could decide on the use of atomic weapons, because of military plans to use the bomb it might be impossible to prevent going atomic should war come. In his view, neither total annihilation of the Soviets nor forcing their complete surrender was possible. Rather the U.S. should have as its objective limited warfare, not total, because using atomic bombs on Russian cities might only stiffen the courage and will to fight of the Russian people. Thus it might be "infeasible" to retaliate against a Soviet attack on Western Europe with atomic bombs.5 Paul H. Nitze, soon to replace Kennan as Director of the PPS, was quick to respond that if such was the case, it would be necessary for the U.S. and its allies to begin a huge buildup of conventional military forces by devoting 20%, not 5%, of Gross National Product (GNP) to defense. Less happy about the implications of Kennan's reasoning, Acheson observed that they must look at the

The Soviets Draw an Ace

19

question from the point of view of what governments and their people would do, not what they could do. If Washington agreed with Moscow not to use atomic bombs as Kennan proposed, they would deprive themselves not only of the use of those fearsome weapons but of the fear of retaliation. And it was fear of atomic bombing that, in his opinion, held back Soviet aggression.6 Discussions of this issue continued in the PPS through the end of the year. By December, Acheson's view had hardened against Kennan's belief, clearly fueled more by emotion than logic, that the atomic bomb was not a deterrent to Soviet action. On December 16, Kennan argued that "winning" a war in Europe meant stopping the Red Army at the Rhine or if possible the Elbe River near the division between East and West Germany. He opposed atomic bombing of Soviet cities and attempting to conquer and occupy all Russia because the Soviets might have as their goal only the "limited" objective of seizing Germany, not conquering all Western Europe. Very few American officials agreed.7 Some signatories of NATO, on the other hand, had begun to have reservations about countering a Soviet invasion of West Germany with an airatomic offensive. At a meeting of defense ministers in Paris on December 1, 1949, a split developed over explicit language about "prompt use of the atomic bomb" to carry out strategic bombing plans. Bradley, now Chairman of the JCS (after the National Security Act of 1949 created the office, as well as the Department of Defense to replace the NME) and head of NATO's Military Committee, favored incorporating such a statement in a Strategic Concepts Paper the committee was drafting. The Danes were opposed, however, causing Secretary of Defense Johnson to drop the language and retain only reference to it in minutes of the debate. Another controversy arose over whether the U.S. should be required to use atomic weapons for the defense of NATO. Preparing for the North Atlantic Council (NAC) meeting in mid-December 1949, Acheson confirmed with Johnson that all that had been agreed by the defense ministers was that the U.S. would insure the ability to deliver any and all weapons in the event of war but that no commitment to use or not use any type of weapon had been made. Only the President could decide on the use of atomic bombs, Acheson concluded. They were a separate category from all other weapons.8 ATOMIC SCENARIOS State Department and NATO debates on atomic weapons policy had no effect on formulation of war plans by the American military. The Air Force continued to insist on the air-atomic offensive as set forth in the EWP OFFTACKLE on November 8, 1949, the plan that was in effect at the beginning of the Korean War. According to OFFTACKLE, in the first three months of a war SAC would drop 220 atomic bombs on 104 Soviet cities, holding back 72 bombs for a second wave attack on undestroyed targets and using additional

20

Ace in the Hole

atomic bombs as they were produced. However, as Lieutenant General John E. Hull, director of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) told Truman on January 23, 1950, planners still did not believe the air-atomic offensive alone would produce a Soviet collapse. Despite a projected 70-85% success ratio and destruction of one-half to two-thirds of Soviet industry in areas attacked, the Red Army was expected to invade and conquer Western Europe. Only in the second year of war would the Allied buildup be sufficient to launch a cross-channel invasion and land forces at the mouth of the Rhone River to begin to push the Soviets back. Holding air bases secure around the perimeter of the Soviet empire was essential to turn the tide.9 If the JCS actually believed the Soviets could survive the carnage created by 300 atomic bombs, now beginning to include Mark IV types with up to 50 kilotons of explosive power, they were being excessively cautious. Perhaps they were too impressed by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey report that incendiary attacks during World War II, such as those against Tokyo, Dresden, and Hamburg, had caused as much damage as atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and had not forced enemy capitulation. More likely, they tailored their war plans to justify important roles for all branches of the military to avoid divisive in-fighting such as the B-36 vs. supercarrier set-to. Indirect proof of this assertion are the conclusions military planners came to when considering in late 1949 what the Soviets would need to knock the U.S. out of a war. The estimate was that as few as 100 atomic bombs on target (or as many as 500) would wipe out American retaliatory forces, including strategic air bases, and destroy American ability to mobilize manpower and industry. By implication, then, a similar attack by the U.S. on the Soviet Union would bring victory. But soon even the most skeptical strategist would have to admit that nuclear power unleashed in quantity would finish off a foe. On January 31, 1950, Truman made another no-brainer decision, this time to build a hydrogen bomb with many times the destructive power of atomic weapons. Once Robert Oppenheimer, back in government service as head of the AEC's Scientific Advisory Committee, told him that the Soviets were capable of developing thermonuclear weapons too, it took only seconds to make up his mind.10 For the time being, however, the U.S. had merely to concern itself with Soviet atomic weapons. These numbered a few at the beginning of 1950 and were projected to rise to between 10 and 20 by mid-1950 and between 70 and 135 by mid-1953 as the Soviets expanded from two atomic piles to more. On February 1, John Kullgren of the NSC staff presented these figures to Truman as well as the 1949 estimate for 100-500 bombs on target to defeat the U.S. Then he distributed a paper by the Army, Navy, and Air Force warning of a farfetched scenario under which the Soviets with just 18 atomic bombs on 9 targets could devastate the U.S. in a surprise attack. This would require TU-4 bombers to fly over the Polar Cap from Murmansk and Anadyr (a base not yet completed) on one-way suicide missions. The Soviet bombers would attack the American steel industry centered in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Gary, and Youngs-

The Soviets Draw an Ace

21

town, the chemical industry concentrated at Niagara Falls, New York, the major population centers of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, and the seat of government power in Washington, D.C. The optimum time for the attack would be May. The U.S. needed to develop its air defense system and civil defense measures to reduce the threat.11 CIA analysts were not nearly so alarmist. Their February 10 "highly tentative" estimate calculated that the Soviets would need 200 atomic bombs on target to knock the U.S. out of a war. However, the Soviets would have to load up many more TU-4 bombers than 200 because many would be shot down on the way or develop mechanical difficulty. Although the CIA would not fathom a guess as to what percentage of Soviet bombers would get through, eventually for planning purposes the range of 40-60% was used. The Soviet atomic stockpile was not projected to reach the danger level until 1956 or 1957. On the other hand, Major General Kenneth Nichols and Brigadier General Herbert B. Loper of the MLC believed the Soviets might have even greater capacity due to atomic secrets given the Kremlin by Klaus Fuchs, a German-born British scientist who had participated in the Manhattan Project. Not only could Ivan have possessed secrets of the atomic bomb far earlier than previously believed and assembled a much larger stockpile, but Soviet scientists might already be well on the way to acquiring hydrogen bombs. The MLC pointed out that there were vast areas of the USSR for which the CIA had collected virtually no intelligence information. The Soviets might have a far larger atomic infrastructure than believed.12 Congressional leaders feared it was so. In a meeting with Acheson on January 26, 1950, they demanded full preparations for military hostilities, and one senator even called for an ultimatum that if the Soviets did not agree to U.N. control of atomic weapons, the U.S. would declare war. Anxious to head off such dangerous thinking, Acheson ordered the PPS to forge ahead with a basic review of national security policy approved by Truman in connection with the H-bomb decision. With scant assistance from the military because Johnson opposed the review and hated Acheson, Nitze and his staff produced by late March a draft of NSC 68 calling for a far-ranging conventional and atomic buildup. This was economically feasible, they wrote, because the U.S. GNP of $250 billion in 1949 was nearly four times as great as the estimated Soviet GNP of $65 billion, even excluding what allies could contribute. The buildup should begin immediately, moreover, because the critical date for Soviet atomic sufficiency to sneak attack the U.S. was 1954, not 1956 or 1957, and the greatest danger would arise if the Kremlin acquired the hydrogen bomb first. Because the U.S. could use atomic force only under clear and compelling circumstances and with the overwhelming support of its people, preventive war was not a possibility. The nation had to build up its atomic power as quickly as possible to reach such a size that the Soviets could not hope to destroy the military's ability to retaliate with overwhelming destructiveness.13 Dissent arose again from Kennan, now Counsellor to the Department of

22

Ace in the Hole

State and soon to take a leave of absence to teach at Princeton. Objecting to atomic warfare on grounds it was barbaric and not in consonance with the principles flowing from American tradition and nature, Kennan put forth the specious argument that the atomic bomb was basically irrelevant because it did not affect the attitudes and beliefs of Soviet leaders. He wanted agreement with Moscow on peaceful uses of atomic power and, if this was not possible, a reduction of the stockpile to a minimum force of bombs for deterrence. He went on to add in a February 17 memo that the Soviet atomic bomb was also irrelevant since it added "no new fundamental element to the picture." Oppenheimer agreed, as did Charles E. Bohlen, Minister at the American Embassy in Paris, who asserted that "it is difficult to deduce any evidence that this [atomic] monopoly on our part [has] influenced Soviet policy during this period or abated its aggressiveness." Apparently, Bohlen believed that the 175 line divisions the Kremlin was reputed to command were held back from attacking NATO by Stalin's love of peace alone.14 CONCLUSION There have been times in the postwar period when one or two senior government officials took positions diametrically opposed to the policy supported by virtually all others and were later proven correct in their obstinacy. An example is Under Secretary of State George Ball telling President Kennedy in 1961 that he opposed American intervention in Vietnam for fear of a deeper and tragic involvement. But in this instance Kennan and his few backers were wrong. The key factor in Soviet strategic thinking from August 1945 to August 1949 was in fact the American atomic monopoly. Even after the bomb entered their own arsenal, fear of U.S. nuclear strength would be central to their calculations through the 1950s, into the 1960s, and beyond. That is not to suggest that criticism of the JCS and other American leaders who overemphasized the Soviet threat was not justified. Kennan was correct that military leaders always assumed worst case scenarios, no matter how farfetched. But ignoring the fundamental and controlling factor in the early Cold War period, even out of deep and heartfelt moral repugnance at the death and destruction use of atomic weapons would cause, was highly irresponsible. Had Kennan's advice to hold down the stockpile been followed, great harm could potentially have been done to the national security. The years ahead would see crisis after crisis in which nuclear superiority bailed American leaders out of trouble of their own and Communist creation.15

4 STRATEGIC ERROR If we embark upon a general policy to bulwark the frontiers of freedom against the assaults of political despotism, one major frontier is not less important than another, and a decisive breach of any will inevitably threaten to engulf all. — Douglas Mac Arthur, March 3, 19481

Because of possession of atomic bombs, Nitze and the PPS expected a more aggressive Soviet Union, willing to run risks of war, perhaps making attempts to seize Berlin, Vienna, Yugoslavia, or Iran. Stalin had another battlefield in mind. According to Nikita Khrushchev, he approved in fall 1949 a plan by Kim II Sung, dictator of client state North Korea, to invade South Korea. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief of American forces in the Far East (CINCFE), had already let slip to a British journalist on March 1, 1949 that South Korea lay outside the American Far East defense perimeter. In a public speech to the National Press Club in Washington on January 12, 1950, Acheson confirmed that the U.S. would only defend the island chain from the Aleutians south to the Philippines. Even so, Stalin was so fearful of American atomic might that he withdrew Soviet advisors from North Korea. He did not want the U.S. to use an attack across the 38th Parallel as an excuse to wipe out the USSR's incipient atomic capabilities or even launch general war.2 NAKED AGGRESSION Actually, American leaders consistently maintained right until the outbreak of war that, as the JCS said to Marshall and Forrestal in September 1947, the U.S. had "little strategic interest" in the Korean peninsula. Only MacArthur held a contrary view, giving Bradley and the JCS the distinct impression, on an inspection tour from January 29 to February 10, 1950, that the Far East

24

Ace in the Hole

commander believed OFFTACKLE's assignment of first priority to the European theater and second to the Far East should be reversed. Then on June 24, the North Koreans surged across the border with South Korea, set arbitrarily in 1945 by then Army Colonel Dean Rusk, who had been General Joseph L. Stilwell's deputy chief of staff in the China-Burma-India theater. It was immediately evident that South Korean forces, really just lightly armed police units, could not cope with North Korean heavy armor in the form of Soviet-built T-34 tanks. To rally international support, the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council demanding a cease-fire and North Korean retreat. Decisions of more immediate relevance were made behind closed doors in Washington.3 Meeting June 25 at Blair House because the White House was under renovation, Truman, Acheson, Johnson, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the service secretaries discussed first the importance of the island of Formosa, not Korea, where Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalists had fled after their ouster from the mainland by the Communists. Ill and not at his best, Bradley read a report from MacArthur that the U.S. should at once secure the island because it could be used as a springboard for further Communist attacks and to shove a salient into the American Far East defense perimeter between Okinawa and the Philippines. However, Acheson feared the reverse—a premature return to the mainland by Chiang—and advised the President to place the Seventh Fleet between the two Chinese camps so that fighting in Korea would not blow up into something far more calamitous. Arms and equipment for the South Koreans was as far as he would go to intervene on the peninsula. The only American military operation he supported was evacuation of U.S. dependents.4 Those measures were wholly inadequate to satisfy the JCS, anxious to avoid an accusation of timidity in the face of Communist aggression as during the Berlin Blockade. Bradley rashly declared that Korea was as good a place as any to draw the line against Communism, and added that American air and naval actions should be prepared to slow down the North Korean offensive, specifically the deployment of F-51s to the peninsula. Agreeing with the JCS Chairman that the Soviets were not yet ready for war, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Forrest P. Sherman pointed out that the North Korean invasion gave the U.S. a valuable opportunity to take on the Soviets as well if they opted to intervene. As war games had pointed out, Korea in Communist hands posed a strategic threat to Japan. Vandenberg went even further with a warning to the President that the Air Force would have trouble handling Soviet air power unless American bombers were given the go-ahead to knock out Soviet bases in the Far East, including Vladivostok, with atomic bombs.5 The Air Force Chief of Staff may have been thinking about best intelligence guesses that the Soviets had a substantial force of TU-4 bombers with anywhere from 10 to 20 atomic bombs. SAC Commander LeMay was so concerned about a sneak attack on the continental U.S. that he would petition Vandenberg in a letter on June 30 to designate a successor (which he hoped would be himself)

Strategic Error

25

with authority to initiate an atomic offensive in the event the nation's top civilian and military leadership were wiped out. However, Truman decided to await further developments before committing himself to widespread American air and naval attacks, or even ground intervention. He did authorize preparation of plans to destroy Soviet air bases in the Far East and deployment of more ships to Pearl Harbor to back up the Seventh Fleet but held back from giving MacArthur a free hand to take charge of the defense of South Korea.6 In hours, not days, the situation worsened. South Korean resistance evaporated, and mobs of refugees flocked southward toward the port of Pusan. Believing that Stalin fully backed the North Korean gamble, Truman agreed to unrestricted American air and naval actions south of the 38th Parallel the night of June 26. He waited four days more before making the fateful decision to put the first ground forces into Korea and bomb north of the 38th Parallel. In the meantime, he ordered the State and Defense Departments to study where the Soviets and/or their allies might next attack and whether Korea was the beginning of a global Communist offensive. The policy of the U.N., which had nominal authority over American and Allied forces under MacArthur's command, was to restore the border between North and South Korea, he made clear. The overall plan of American strategy was to stop short of committing so many forces that the U.S. could not respond to Soviet attacks in Yugoslavia, Iran, or other places. In the event of overt Soviet intervention on the peninsula, the U.S. would pull out of Korea and implement the general war plan, including the air-atomic offensive. He specifically rejected suggestions that the U.S. seek U.N. sanction beforehand.7 PRESSURE TO USE THE BOMB Even against North Korean forces, the demobilized U.S. military almost bit off more than it could chew. An ill-prepared battalion called Task Force Smith fought a gallant but calamitous rearguard action to slow North Korean forces and was driven back into a perimeter around Pusan with the rest of the 24th Infantry Division as well as the 25th. The North Koreans were so certain of victory that they shot captured American prisoners in the back of the head. After General Walton H. Walker arrived to take command of U.N. forces on July 13, additional reinforcements were hurried from Japan, Hawaii, and the continental U.S. Walker had about 100,000 troops by early August, including 45,000 South Koreans. Meanwhile in Tokyo, MacArthur drew up plans for what would become the Inchon landing near the South Korean capital of Seoul. He teletyped the Pentagon on July 7 that only Chinese intervention could turn this intended triumph to disaster and asked that SAC be prepared to attack Chinese lines of communication if Peking sent its soldiers into North Korea in force.8 The desperate situation around Pusan called into question whether

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MacArthur would ever have opportunity to pull off his great amphibious coup. Serious consideration was given by the Army's plans and operations branch (G3), headed by Major General Charles L. Bolte, to the possibility of using atomic bombs tactically on ports and air bases held by the Communists and in support of ground troops. The problem was that the current situation of American air superiority had caused the North Koreans to disperse their forces as much as possible and so avoid concentrations of forces most vulnerable to atomic attack. Unless the Chinese intervened in force, targets suitable to warrant expenditure of 10 to 20 bombs—a number that would not impair conduct of the EWP against the Soviets, Bolte told Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins—would not materialize. Furthermore, since the only atomic weapons available were airburst bombs carried by SAC B-29 Silver Plates, B-50s, B-47s, and B-36s and the Navy's AJ-1 carrier plane, it would be difficult to identify battlefield targets in a timely fashion and coordinate an air-atomic attack with ground commanders. Even so, General Charles P. Cabell of Air Force Intelligence proposed providing MacArthur's air force with 10 atomic bombs to prevent the possibility of a Dunkirk situation in Korea. They would insure that the U.S. kept a toehold on the peninsula.9 It was also the opinion of CINCPAC Radford that the American people would support the use of any weapon in the nation's arsenal to insure victory in Korea. However, the JCS were wary of placing atomic bombs into MacArthur's hands because of his unpredictability and the autonomous manner in which he conducted operations. At 70 years of age, a former Army Chief of Staff with five star General of the Army rank and seniority above any other officer in the military (including General of the Army Eisenhower, then retired and president of Columbia University), he had ordered bombing north of the 38th Parallel on June 29, a day before Truman had officially given permission. His emphasis on the importance of Korea, Formosa, and the Far East area in general did not generate confidence in the JCS that, if the Soviets entered the war and he was ordered to evacuate the Korean peninsula, he would obey. On July 10, therefore, Collins and Vandenberg went to Tokyo to sound out the imperious commander.10 Indisputably a brilliant military strategist, MacArthur briefed his nominal superiors on July 13 about the Inchon operation and reiterated his concern about possible Chinese Communist intervention. If that occurred, it might present a "unique opportunity" to use the atomic bomb to turn the Korean peninsula into a cul-de-sac by bombing tunnels and bridges leading from Manchuria and Vladivostok and so trap Communist forces and destroy them. He wanted Vandenberg to "sweeten up" the force of B-29s under his command with atomiccapable planes so that he could keep 30 bombers in the air daily. However, when Bolte heard MacArthur's plan he repeated to Collins that air burst bombs were not suitable for destruction of tunnels and bridges and that ideal industrial targets and major enemy air bases did not exist in Korea. Even so, he agreed that the JCS should approach Truman for policy approval to use the atomic

Strategic Error

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bomb. He asked that MacArthur be apprised of the limitations of air burst weapons and make revisions to his plan.11 Talk of using any of SAC's precious allocation of atomic bombs in Korea made LeMay's blood boil. He longed for a final reckoning with Moscow and grumbled about orders to transfer the 22nd and 92nd Bomb Groups to General George E. Stratemeyer, commander of the Far East Air Force (FEAF), as well as 10 bombers from the 9th Bomb Group. Not only did he demand that a SAC general command SAC planes but warned that diversion of bombers to missions in the Korean peninsula would seriously impair SAC's ability to carry out the EWP. Because the Korean situation had caused troubling redeployments of his forces, the war plan had to be revised on July 10.n Major General Leon W. Johnson, commander of SAC's 3rd Air Division in Britain, received the 93rd and 97th Bomb Groups to supplement the 301st, which was brought to full strength. In the event of war, his planes and three squadrons of the 43rd Bomb Group flying out of Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Harmon Field would attack Leningrad and land in North Africa for continuing operations. Simultaneously, 14 B-36s based at Fort Worth, Texas would make an intercontinental flight to strike at Moscow, then land at Limestone, England (a forward base, time permitting). For follow-up attacks, three squadrons of the 509th Bomb Group would deploy to forward bases in the Azores and Santa Maria in the Cape Verde islands. LeMay told Norstad that without counting the 509th, his bombers would drop 80 atomic bombs on the Soviet Union. Forward deployment to the U.K. would begin July 11 and be completed within the week.13 It was not until July 28 that Vandenberg convinced Bradley of the wisdom of deploying atomic-capable planes to the Far East. The next day, as Walker was issuing "stand or die" orders to his troops, Truman approved the move of 10 B-50s of the 43rd Bomb Group to Anderson Field on Guam. Although atomic cores were not included with bomb parts, SAC was one step closer to having the capability of delivering atomic weapons to targets in Korea on short notice. LeMay was so upset at the bad precedent of placing SAC planes under a theater commander that the next year he set up X-ray command in Tokyo headed by General Thomas S. Power.14 PRESSURE NOT TO USE THE BOMB With Prime Minister Attlee's agreement, B-29 Silver Plates—but not completed bombs with atomic cores—joined the deployment to bases in England. Fearful of Soviet aggression in Europe, the British fretted that the U.S. would overreact to events in Korea, commit too many forces, and permit the fighting to spill over into other areas. For example, Hong Kong, a British territory on China's southern coast and important for trade, was extremely vulnerable to Communist attack. London also opposed the uncompromising American view

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of the Chinese Communists as Soviet puppets and preferred to wean Mao Tsetung from reliance on Stalin by offering recognition of the PRC, membership in the U.N., and eventual Communist control of Formosa per the Cairo Declaration of 1943 (which asserted that the island belonged to the mainland). With some justification over the next few years, U.S. Navy officials would charge that the British were using Hong Kong to transship trade with the Chinese in violation of U.N. sanctions against such commerce. Although the British would eventually commit a brigade to the mostly American and South Korean forces under MacArthur's command, they wanted the side-show in Korea wrapped up as soon as possible.15 Acheson did an effective job of foiling British and other attempts to appease Peking. On July 10, 1950 he rejected out of hand a proposal to tie a settlement on Korea to eventual PRC occupation of Formosa as well as a Chinese Communist seat on the U.N. Security Council. That was politically impossible in any event because of Republican charges still hanging over Truman's head that he and the Democrats had "lost" China the year before. In August the Secretary of State deflected a British paper on the strategic importance of Western Europe and sidestepped Attlee's attempt to visit Washington in September to talk matters over with Truman. Not until after the November congressional elections, London was told, would the President be able to receive the Prime Minister.16 Meanwhile, State Department officials were intimately involved in atomic discussions with the military. On July 15, the PPS considered a policy statement that atomic bombs might only be used if the Soviets or Chinese intervened openly in Korea and if such use would bring a decisive military success. Two days later, Nitze alerted Acheson that the AFSWP was looking at the possibility of using atomic weapons to keep North Korean forces from pushing American ground units off the peninsula. Then in August, at the request of the JCS, Nitze and his staff put together NSC 79 on American war aims in the event of general war with the Soviets. Its conclusions stated that the goal of air-atomic attacks on the USSR should be to reduce radically Soviet atomic capacity while minimizing damage to the U.S. and its allies, to shift the balance of forces more decisively in the West's favor rather than capture territory, and once the war was over to dictate terms to the Soviets, including U.N. control of all nuclear weapons and facilities but with the U.S. retaining effective veto power over U.N. decisions. Acheson considered the paper so politically explosive that he ordered Nitze to destroy all copies but one and locked that document in his safe. As the possibility of a Dunkirk in Korea faded, so did enthusiasm for atomic use scenarios within the administration.17 On August 10, Acheson heard to his disquiet from congressional leaders about growing sentiment in the country for a preventive war. When U.S. Air Force planes then struck at Rashin near the Soviet border on August 15, 1950, he ordered Under Secretary of State James E. Webb to protest to the DOD that such action made a wider war possible. Collins got the message and dropped

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any idea of securing Truman's approval in advance for use of the atomic bomb. Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews did not and hinted in a speech in Boston that he might favor preventive war under certain circumstances. Although Matthews saved his job by claiming that he had been misinterpreted, Commander of the Air War College Major General Orville A. Anderson got fired for boasting "give me the order to do it and I can break up Russia's five A-bomb nests in a week." Influenced by Acheson and his State Department advisors, Truman would have been satisfied had a stalemate rapidly developed and negotiations been initiated to restore the prewar boundary.18 MacArthur thought differently. When Walker's Eighth Army counterattacked out of the Pusan Perimeter on September 13, 1950 and X Corps, spearheaded by the 1st Marine Division, implemented the Inchon amphibious landing two days later, North Korean forces were caught in a vise and almost completely destroyed. On September 27, MacArthur received permission from Washington to move beyond the 38th Parallel so long as major Soviet or Chinese forces did not appear in Korea. By the time of his Wake Island conference with Truman on October 15, the American Caesar could assure the President of his supreme confidence that the Eighth Army along Korea's west coast and X Corps, soon to be shipped to Wonsan on the east coast, would push on to the Yalu River boundary and reunite Korea under a democratic government. Despite ominous threats of intervention from the Chinese Communists, he was no longer worried about trouble from that quarter. Radford, who was present for the Truman-MacArthur meeting, interpreted CINCFE's comments to mean that in the event of Chinese intervention he would bomb Manchuria with B-29s, though not necessarily atomic weapons. Unfortunately, the meeting was conducted in such an informal manner that no one told MacArthur explicitly he could not bomb north of the Yalu. Hence, once the Chinese did intervene and MacArthur was desperate to launch air attacks into Manchuria to slow their troop movements, Truman's veto of the proposed retaliation caused great bitterness.19 On October 25-26, Chinese forces ambushed two South Korean divisions on Eighth Army's right flank and a few days later mauled the 8th Cavalry Regiment before mysteriously vanishing into the mountainous area of northwest Korea. MacArthur shrugged off the presence of an estimated 34,500 to 64,200 Chinese troops (the real figure was about 180,000) backed by 200,000 Chinese Communist (Chicom) soldiers and 500,000 militia in Manchuria as insignificant, but back in Washington Nitze contacted General Loper, now Assistant for Atomic Energy in the Office of Assistant Chief of Staff Logistics, U.S. Army, about the possibility of using atomic bombs tactically against troop concentrations and artillery positions. Like Bolte, Loper was not enthusiastic. There were few suitable targets for atomic bombs in Korea, he told Nitze, and use against Manchurian cities would kill tens of thousands of civilians. Any direct attack on China would almost certainly bring the Soviets into the war.20 The Air Force wanted desperately to bomb bridges on the Yalu River, but

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Acheson was opposed. He told Lovett on November 6 that the administration had made a secret commitment that "we will not take action affecting Manchuria without consultation with the British." Nevertheless, Bolte suggested that immediate preparations be undertaken to use atomic bombs in Korea so that if the President decided to make such a decision, it could be implemented in the shortest possible time. The CIA was concerned not simply with the situation in the Far East but with the global Communist threat. On November 15, that agency put out a near hysterical estimate of Soviet capabilities and intentions and an exaggerated view of Soviet air-atomic power in the near future. Although a late August estimate had placed the Soviet atomic stockpile at only 25, by midNovember the CIA was predicting the Soviets would soon be in position to win a global war.21 CONCLUSION The U.S. would be plagued by poor intelligence estimates of Soviet nuclear strength until U-2 spy planes began flying in summer 1956 to clear the sky of "Bomber Gap" sightings and spy satellites flamed into orbit in 1960 to show only empty fields where hundreds of Soviet missiles had been alleged to have been deployed. Caught looking twice in Korea—once in the initial invasion, soon in the Chinese intervention—American ground forces would find themselves fighting for their very survival. Only because of a wave of fear about Communist aggression and Soviet war intentions had Truman made an emotional decision to intervene in Korea. As Ambassador-at-Large Philip C. Jessup wrote later, the President was so shocked that the Communists would openly defy the U.N. and American military power that he decided to draw the line in Korea. He remembered only too well how the British and French had appeased Hitler in the 1930s with territory, population, and resources until Nazi power could not be destroyed without a world war. With the Communists already in possession of a mighty empire, he did not want to let them add to it, even in a little-considered peninsula on the edge of the Asian continent.22 But Korea in 1950 was not Czechoslovakia in 1938, and its loss would not have imperiled Japan or the Philippines or any other territory protected by the U.S. defense perimeter. By overreaching beyond the prudent limits of American interests, Truman placed the U.S. in the awkward position of having to expend significant resources and lives to defend worthless ground. With the Chinese Communists poised to intervene with massive armies, this strategic folly would soon be exposed and the President faced with a second decision whether to counter Asian fanaticism with American atomic strength. His judgment this time could not be made with such flippant ease.

5

FIRST FORBEARANCE What are we fighting for? . . . The real issues are whether the power of Western civilization, as God has permitted it to flower in our own beloved lands, shall defy and defeat Communism; whether the rule of men who shoot their prisoners, enslave their citizens, and deride the dignity of man, shall displace the rule of those to whom the individual and his individual rights are sacred; whether we are to survive with God's hand to guide and lead us, or to perish in the dead existence of a Godless world. . . . It has become, and it continues to be, a fight for our own freedom, for our own survival, in an honorable, independent national existence. — Matthew B. Ridgway, January 21, 19511

As MacArthur's final offensive was poised to begin in late November 1950, the JCS discussed with George Marshall, who had replaced Johnson as Secretary of Defense in September, and Acheson their desire to withdraw troops from Korea as soon as possible. Fearing that MacArthur's push to the Yalu would provoke massive Chinese intervention, Collins then went to Tokyo to persuade MacArthur to restrict his attacks so as not to run the risk of setting off a general war. MacArthur had no intention of depriving himself of the glory of routing Communist armies. His offensive got under way as planned on November 24; the next night, Chinese; forces caught Eighth Army units spread out and attacked furiously. An alarmed MacArthur detached the 1st Marine Division from X Corps to the east and "ordered a movement through the Choisin Reservoir area to take the Chinese in the flank. It was the 1st Marines themselves who were ambushed, struck by three Chinese divisions in 18 degree below zero temperatures and forced to fight their way back down to a defense perimeter established around the port of Hungnam. The Navy evacuated X Corps, most of its equipment, and thousands of civilians by December ll. 2 Meanwhile, MacArthur declared publicly that a whole new war had begun and sounded out LeMay on the possibility of bringing out the American trump card. At the NSC meeting with the President on November 28, the JCS and the

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service secretaries advised a delay of 48 to 72 hours to see how the battle developed. If necessary they were prepared to recommend a massive conventional bombing attack on Communist forces to help U.S. forces escape destruction. Marshall, whose judgment and advice had been sorely missed in early summer when the war had begun, reminded everyone that the U.S. was short of ground troops because training of new regular Army divisions and existing National Guard units would not be completed until mid-March 1951 and most were intended for NATO. Besides, he wanted to keep the fighting limited and localized per the U.N. mandate and prevent falling into what might be a Russian trap for the U.S. to engage in war with the inexhaustible hordes of Red China. Acheson added that MacArthur should stop the Chinese drive as soon as possible, form a defensive line across the peninsula, and hold it until South Korean forces were strong enough to take over. All this talk of limited war prompted Admiral Sherman to complain that American forces would have no choice but to hit back hard if bombed by planes flying from Manchuria. The possibility that Chicom air power would join the battle kept open consideration of using some of the approximately 450 bombs in the atomic stockpile.3 Over the next 48 hours, South Korean forces on the right flank of Eighth Army continued to crumble so that at a press conference on November 30, Truman said that use of atomic bombs in Korea was always under active consideration. The next day, in London, Attlee asserted to Parliament Britain's right of consultation on use of atomic weapons. Like Acheson, the British loathed and distrusted MacArthur and feared what he would do in the Far East if given a free hand. The Prime Minister got Truman to agree to an AngloAmerican conference in Washington beginning on December 4.4 The mood of senior American military leaders grew blacker over the next few days. Intelligence sources reported that Chicom leaders, at a meeting in Peking on November 10, might have come to a basic decision that war with the West was inevitable. Thus, not even threat of atomic retaliation would dissuade further aggression. So concerned was Collins about an all-out Chinese offensive backed by Soviet air power that on December 1 he told his colleagues that in such case only use of the atomic bomb would save MacArthur's forces. He thought the American position strategically worthless while the Soviets were on the flank in Vladivostok, and in any event losing Korea would not lead to the loss of Japan as some had claimed. However, the other JCS did not wish to abandon the peninsula and agree to a humiliating armistice. On December 3, Sherman and Vandenberg argued at a State-Defense Pentagon meeting that an evacuation should be a fighting withdrawal with severe American naval and air attacks to punish the Chinese for their aggression. The apparent insensitivity of senior administration officials to the casualties being suffered at that moment by fighting men in thefieldcaused General Matthew B. Ridgway, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, to complain that while the brass talked, soldiers died. Washington had to act immediately before Eighth Army and X Corps were overrun. Silence was the response, but afterward Vandenberg admitted that

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MacArthur would not obey JCS orders even if a viable plan could be devised to extract the troops. Ridgway retorted that MacArthur ought then to be fired.5 Another top government official who always thought less of the lives of American soldiers than American prestige was Acheson. In the Pentagon meeting with the JCS and separately on December 3 with Truman and Marshall, he was adamant that the war be kept limited, that military operations be localized, and that MacArthur execute an American Dunkirk rather than resort to atomic weapons. Not yet prepared to go to either extreme, the JCS sent Collins flying once more to Tokyo to determine just how far the U.S. would have to go to hold its position. On December 6 and 7, he discussed with MacArthur three possible scenarios for military action to beat off the Chinese, including use of atomic bombs. By then confident that X Corps could be extracted by sea from Hungnam and eventually linked to Eighth Army in a defensive line across the Korean peninsula, MacArthur turned aside the idea. Before the end of the year, he would change his mind.6

GOOD SENSE VS. NATIONAL HONOR The British arrived on December 4, 1950 with an agenda of bringing the Americans to their strategic senses about the danger of war with Russian and China and applying pressure for a cease-fire/negotiation plan that would require MacArthur to hold back from bombing Manchuria and eventually withdraw entirely from Korea. Formosa too would wind up in the Communist camp with the PRC claiming a seat in the U.N. as an additional reward for its aggression. It was mainly Truman's stubbornness that rallied the American delegation in the early meetings, for example, insisting in the afternoon of December 5 aboard the presidential yacht Williamsburg that the U.S. was not going to abandon 20 million South Koreans and see them murdered by the Communists. He would rather "fight to the finish" than cut and run, he told Attlee. Retreat would cost the U.S. not only buckets of blood unrevenged but severe loss of face in the eyes of Asian peoples, especially the Japanese. Preferring to call his plan "honorable withdrawal," the Prime Minister asked for an American commitment not to engage in retaliatory air and naval attacks once the disengagement occurred. He must have been shocked when Bradley blithely suggested that if the line the U.S. had drawn in Korea failed to hold, Washington would simply draw a new one in Formosa. Losing that island would cut lines of communication between Okinawa and the Philippines, the Chairman of the JCS asserted, though how with the Seventh Fleet unchallenged he did not specify. Swayed by intelligence reports that Peking's goal was nothing less than Sino-Soviet hegemony in the western Pacific, Acheson and Marshall quickly agreed.7 Not until a late night meeting on December 6 did Bradley show as much obstinacy as his President, encouraged no doubt by the same slight turn in battlefield fortunes that had caused MacArthur to reject the atomic option. He

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rallied angrily to the hero of the Philippine's defense when Attlee and his advisors proposed a military committee to run the war. Truman also turned the idea down, saying bluntly that the U.S. would stay and fight in Korea and that MacArthur—whom he privately derided as "God's righthand man"—would continue to command all U.N. forces.8 On Pearl Harbor Day, the Americans were even more aroused. In the Cabinet Room of the White House, Truman told Attlee it would be political dynamite to agree to Chinese Communist membership in the U.N. Acheson added that there would be no sell-out of Formosa and that if forced out of Korea, the U.S. might continue limited war attacks on the enemy to make them pay for their aggression. Having met Mao Tse-tung in 1945 on a mission to mediate the Chinese civil war, Marshall added that it was virtually impossible to negotiate with the Chinese Communists. Although he did not believe Formosa was of strategic importance, it was intolerable that it should fall into enemy hands. When Tedder and Slim warned that American plans to harass the Chinese after a withdrawal with air attacks, covert operations, and a naval blockade would bring a general war in Asia, Bradley and Treasury Secretary John W. Snyder retorted that what the British were really saying was that the Communists could fight the U.S. but that the U.S. could not fight them. If the Chinese had attacked Hong Kong, the British would certainly be clamoring for American help, even at the risk of general war. Marshall growled that if U.S. forces were kicked out of Korea, they could either go back to Japan like a "whipped dog" or do something about it.9 Tempers cooled but not American resolve. The President never backed away from his decision to stay and fight. It would have been a courageous American, indeed, who would have looked Harry S Truman in the eye on December 7, 1950 and told him that he had been wrong to commit troops to Korea and that the U.S. should now run from the Chinese. The British were rarely so blunt. They shifted emphasis to make certain a knock-down, drag-out fight with the enemy would not go atomic. In a private meeting with Attlee the next day, Truman made a huge gaffe. He suddenly agreed that the U.S. and Britain had always been partners in the development of atomic power and that he would not consider use of the atomic bomb without consulting Attlee. Delighted, the Prime Minister asked Truman to put those words on paper, but the President insisted that if a man's word was no good, it would not be any better in writing. Typed memoranda recorded Truman's commitment nevertheless.10 It required an awkward effort to put the consultation genie back in the bottle. At noon on December 8, 1950, Acheson and Lovett (now Marshall's Deputy Secretary of Defense) got Truman out of a meeting with Attlee to go over the history of Anglo-American atomic bomb discussions. Once Lovett refreshed the President's memory as to how the British wartime right of veto over American use of the atomic bomb was protested by the JCAE after the war and cancelled by the Modus Vivendi of January 7, 1948, Truman was ready to

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withdraw his pledge to Attlee. The Americans had Jessup's record of the conversation deleted from the official transcript of the meetings and tailored the final communique to commit nothing. As written, the President "stated that it was his hope that world conditions would never call for the use of the atomic bomb. The President told the Prime Minister that it was also his desire to keep the Prime Minister at all times informed of developments which might bring about a change in the situation." Because Collins had just returned from the Far East with a more encouraging briefing about MacArthur's plan for a fighting withdrawal down the peninsula and a greater possibility of establishing a defense line, the American reversal was easier for Attlee to swallow. He came as close as any British Prime Minister ever did to resurrecting the wartime veto.11 With the new year, Attlee pressed for political-military talks on use of atomic weapons and situations that might call forth that necessity. After stalling a while, the U.S. agreed to high-level discussions, which occurred until the Labour government lost power in Britain in October. Throughout these meetings, the Americans staunchly refused to give the British any firm commitment. Even with reference to NATO and Western Europe, Acheson was able to assure the JCAE that once the President gave authority to Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) Eisenhower, appointed on December 19, 1950, to use atomic weapons in a war against the Soviets, no encumbrance or veto by foreign powers could hold him back. In an added twist, the next spring Eisenhower insisted on autonomy from the JCS in his atomic targeting. Truman agreed. The unique position Eisenhower and his successors continued to occupy as both SACEUR and U.S. Commander-in-Chief Europe (CINCEUR) caused a situation throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s in which nuclear weapons assigned to NATO escaped Washington's close supervision as well as that of the allies.12 PREVENTIVE WAR CONSIDERED Despite Truman's decision to stay in Korea and prevent, as he put it, the Communists from murdering everybody, the JCS were unwilling to pour any more forces into the peninsula. The Great Debate was going on in Washington to add four divisions to the two already in Europe, but planned expansion per the NSC 68 policy was far from complete and troops for the new divisions were still undergoing training. Sherman and Vandenberg still believed withdrawal best from a military point of view to be followed by continued air and naval attacks on the Chinese. At a meeting to discuss the vulnerability of Japan to air assault on December 19, Vandenberg went much further. He was convinced that the Soviets planned to build up their atomic stockpile rapidly and initiate a general war in August 1951 after completion of the European harvest season. "He did not say so specifically," commented Rusk in a memo of the meeting, "but the implication was that it would be better for us to precipitate hostilities

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at an early date in order to prevent further USSR atomic build-up."13 Fear of a Chinese air offensive and the disaster such an assault could wreak upon MacArthur's retreating forces dominated strategy discussions through the end of the year. CINCFE wanted more American ground troops and predicted disaster if he did not get them. On December 24, he asked Washington for 34 atomic bombs, 26 of which would be used to attack roads and bridges (for which Army G-3 still believed air burst weapons were not suited), four to strike at Chicom troop concentrations, and four to hit critical enemy air bases. According to an Army-commissioned study on Tactical Employment of the Atomic Bomb by the Operations Research Office at Johns Hopkins University, however, 34 atomic bombs would be wholly inadequate as a prelude to a general counteroffensive. What was really required to smash the estimated 120 divisions (1.2 million men) the Chinese could ultimately put into the field was 360 atomic bombs, based upon 3 bombs per division inflicting 30% casualties (3,000 out of 10,000 men), and assuming very optimistically that at least 2,500 men would be concentrated in each one square mile area attacked with a circular error probability (CEP) of 1,500 feet by daylight visual bombing. At a minimum, one atomic bomb per division would be required to hold a defensive line 50 miles long. Only 25 bombs would be needed to hold a Pusan perimeter type inner defense line. However, since only 26 Chicom divisions had currently crossed the Yalu from Manchuria, it might be possible for MacArthur to stabilize a defensive line as long as 75 miles by judicious use of as few as 15 atomic bombs.14 There were problems with the study beyond its assumptions of optimal daylight bombing conditions and accommodating Chicom troop concentrations. It was assumed that only a very unrealistic 11 hours would be required to identify targets, convey their locations to SAC or FEAF bombers, and attack with required accuracy and effect. No consideration was taken of the state of U.N. forces to follow up atomic attacks with offensive action, nor were MacArthur's troops equipped with protective and detection devices to operate in an environment scarred by atomic blasts, heat, and radiation. Unless U.N. commanders intended to ignore enemy casualties, which would number in the tens of thousands, the strain on medical personnel and services would quickly reach the breaking point. Mauled for a month by human wave attacks, Eighth Army and X Corps were struggling to hold ground, not recapture it.15 On New Year's Eve, the Chinese launched a second offensive, prompting Vandenberg to fly out to Korea to take another firsthand look at the situation. Acheson persuaded him not to take along LeMay, whose presence might have raised worrisome speculation that the U.S. was about to employ atomic weapons in the peninsula. But CINCSAC was still focused on the big showdown with the Soviets, which his bombers with adequate warning and prudent forward deployments to overseas bases could initiate in six days. Under optimum conditions, he told Vandenberg on January 15, 1951, he could attack with all 135 atomic bombs assigned to his command in just 3 days.16

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The question was which targets should SAC attack. Vandenberg and Air Force brass favored priority for DELTA and BRAVO targets, code names for disruption/destruction of industry and blunting of Soviet air-atomic capabilities. Army planners were concerned about retardation of advancing Red Army ground forces, known as ROMEO targets. Complaining about lack of intelligence for specific BRAVO and ROMEO targets and even DELTA targets like electric power plants, LeMay preferred to drop bombs on large urban-industrial areas so that "bonus" damage to civilian populations would be achieved. Later in the year, LeMay got the JCS to agree that his commanders would have latitude to strike at BRAVO and ROMEO targets after cities had been pounded. However, in early February 1951 Vandenberg turned down LeMay's long-pending request from June 30, 1950 that he be given authority to launch the air-atomic offensive on his own initiative if a Soviet surprise attack on Washington killed all top civilian and military leaders. Instead, the Air Force Chief of Staff designated the Commander-in Chief of the Tactical Air Command (CINCTAC) as his emergency successor. Even CINCTAC did not receive specific authority to go to war.17 Meanwhile, Truman and his top advisors considered not only whether to provide MacArthur with the additional ground forces and atomic bomb capability he wanted but more fundamentally whether to continue the war in Korea and even force a showdown with the Soviets. Support for a more decisive policy came from Stuart Symington, now head of the National Security Resources Board (NSRB). He told the NSC on January 11, 1951 that the U.S. was in a "war of survival" with the Communists and time was running out. Commanding a force of 800 to perhaps 1,200 B-29 and B-50 type bombers, the Soviets with their growing atomic stockpile would soon have enough bombs to "blast the heart out" of American industry. What was the value of 1,000 atomic bombs in caves, he asked, if 100 were used to wipe out SAC's ability to retaliate? Who doubted any longer that the Soviets would attack when ready?18 In a memo to Truman, Symington really let his hair down. Because the containment policy was a failure, the U.S. should publicly draw a line, as was done with Berlin, and warn the Soviets that if they crossed over, it would mean war with atomic bombs. He blamed the State Department for wanting to localize all Soviet aggression and fight limited wars when the DOD had insufficient conventional forces to do the job set forth in war plan REAPER to stop the Red Army at the Elbe River. Although it looked as if the Korea conflict could be contained, one more Communist aggression and the U.S. military would be overwhelmed. 1952, not 1954 or later, was the time at which Washington would have to make the critical decision to cash in its atomic chips or fold its hand. As he had proved in the conference with Attlee and the British, Truman was not easily stampeded. He wrote Not Trueand Bunk in the margins of the document and added a final comment on the last page. "My dear Stu, this is [as] big a lot of Top Secret malarkey as I've ever read. Your time is wasted on such bunk as this. H.S.T."19

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Symington was subsequently mauled by Acheson and Marshall at an NSC meeting on January 25 for suggesting that the U.S. pull out of Korea and threaten the Soviets with use of the atomic bomb. The Secretary of State charged that such a public bluff would scare hell out of the allies. The Secretary of Defense warned that if approved, Symington's proposal would require a complete reexamination of American political, military, and defense mobilization plans. He demanded the paper, designated NSC 100, be given over to a State-Defense group for study, to which Truman readily agreed. When Symington objected that his real intent was to refute Soviet propaganda that use of atomic weapons would be immoral and to open a public debate on the matter to make the bomb not a political threat but a political ace, Bradley reproached him sternly for daring to put the REAPER code name into his NSC document. The Chairman of the JCS did have some sympathy for the idea of using the atomic bomb politically, however. He remarked that the U.S. had put itself at a great disadvantage by having announced to the world that it would not use the bomb. As mouths fell open all around the table, Acheson admonished the general that the U.S. had never made any such commitment. Truman emphatically agreed.20 A fine command officer and a man of significant intellect, Bradley had proven once again that his best service to his country was not performed with combat boots under a conference table. He was saved further embarrassment when Truman asked CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith when the Soviets would reach atomic parity with the U.S. and be able to "trade" atomic bombs with the U.S. Smith answered by saying that no one really knew.21 In actual fact, the JCS thought the position of the U.S. vis-a-vis the Soviets was improving. Because of increases and improvements in Air Force and Army forces, in five years the U.S. and NATO might be able to stop a Soviet attack on Western Europe with conventional means. Collins in particular was skeptical of Ivan's ability to translate laboratory atomic devices into mass-produced atomic bombs. For the next 18 to 24 months, however, until the military balance improved, he and Sherman thought it wise that the U.S. avoid war with the Communist bloc. Come mid-1952, the JCS would be ready and willing to take off the gloves. The size of the atomic stockpile had begun to increase more rapidly.22 For the time being, American soldiers and Marines had to slug it out in rugged, forbidding Korean terrain against Chinese forces who were eerily skilled at the art of ambush, flank attack, and sudden human wave charges. A great boost to morale and the effectiveness of combat performance of U.S. forces came with the assignment of Ridgway to head the Eighth Army after Walker was killed in a jeep accident on December 23, 1950. He initiated a policy of destroying enemy forces rather than holding a set defense line and was able to launch counterattacks that brought U.N. forces near the 38th Parallel by spring. Still frustrated by restrictions placed on his conduct of the war by Washington leadership and increasing casualties that made his "Home by Christmas" boast

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a macabre joke, MacArthur turned increasingly to plans to bomb bridges and a large power dam complex that supplied electricity to Manchuria and Vladivostok on the Yalu. He also raised again on March 10, 1951 the possibility of making use of atomic weapons both within and beyond the borders of Korea, but his request for an atomic capability was not approved. By April his insubordination against Washington reached such an intolerable level, with pronouncements contrary to the limited war policy such as introduction of Chinese Nationalist forces into Korea and implied criticism even of the President, that his removal became a certainty.23 Under extreme political pressure at home where his poll numbers had descended to an all-time low, Truman canned MacArthur officially on April 10, having already agreed to turn over nine atomic bombs from the AEC's stockpile to Vandenberg as well as authority to deploy the atomic squadron of the 9th Bomb Group to Guam. The Chinese were massing for yet another huge offensive, intelligence reports indicated, and this time they might introduce significant Chinese air forces as well. Gordon E. Dean, Lilienthal's successor at the AEC, prudently conceded the transfer but fought to forestall the wider claim by the JCS to full custody of the stockpile. Citing a range of objections—the principle of civilian custody, the AEC's technological expertise, his moral duty to the nation, the low stockpile (about 650), the effect on Asian peoples if the bomb were used again against Asians, the danger of Russian retaliation with atomic bombs against U.N. forces in Korea, even the fear that the atomic bomb would prove ineffective in the rugged Korean terrain—Dean asserted that the AEC had an indispensable role to play in U.S. atomic warfare policy and that the President would be making a mistake by placing too much power into the hands of the military. Receiving vigorous support from the State Department, he did slow the pace at which the military began to take custody of the atomic stockpile. Growing Soviet atomic strength made the process inevitable nevertheless.24 The wherewithal to bomb air bases in Manchuria and the Shantung peninsula of China was what the JCS really wanted, and Ridgway, replacing MacArthur, petitioned on May 22 for the same atomic capability his predecessor had been denied. When the British heard that Washington might again be considering the ultimate weapon for Korea, they asserted a right to veto any American attack, atomic or not, on Chinese territory because it might bring Moscow to Peking's aid, per the Sino-Soviet treaty of alliance of February 14, 1950. Rusk replied to Foreign Secretary Herbert S. Morrison that if time permitted the U.S. would certainly try to get the British to agree in advance to American use of atomic bombs to counter a massive Chinese air assault. While agreeing in principle to such a plan, Morrison reserved his government's right, never recognized by the Americans, to approve the action at the time it was needed. The State Department was sly. Nitze and the PPS advised that if general war broke out, the British would have no choice but to back Uncle Sam's atomic play out of fear of Communist attacks on their worldwide

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interests. Fortunately for all concerned, the Chinese offensive was stopped cold by Ridgway's strategy and Peking agreed to armistice talks beginning on July 8. As both sides dug into the thawing Korean terrain, the danger of American resort to atomic weapons eased off.25 The Army continued to work on plans for tactical use of the bomb, however, under code name HUDSON HARBOR. In August 1951, the JCS recommended simulated tactical atomic strikes in Korea using actual weapons without atomic cores, or conventional bombs if over enemy territory. These exercises began in September but did not satisfy ground commanders that targets could be identified in timely fashion, nor that atomic strikes could be coordinated with air commanders, nor that offensive action on the ground could successfully exploit atomic detonations. G-3 concluded that the Army must develop a ground-to-ground missile and artillery guns to deliver its own atomic warheads. But in the meantime, instead of SAC having authority to control airatomic operations, CINCFE himself should direct the assault. The movement to develop a true tactical atomic capability had begun.26 FOCUSING THE MIND With stalemate in Korea, the Americans now had a breathing space to build up conventional and atomic forces and to deal with lesser matters like conciliating their British allies with talks on theoretical situations under which atomic weapons might be used. These discussions were not without real benefit. Forced to justify opinions and conclusions, American participants tended to narrow the focus of their strategic vision and reduce the effects of rabid antiCommunist sentiment on their estimates of interests vital to the national security. A natural consequence of identifying tangible, not mainly prestige-related, vital interests was to reduce the number of situations in which the U.S. would consider using atomic weapons. The analysis was done by the Joint Strategic Survey Committee (JSSC) and the State Department. By August 1951 they had decided that the U.S. would accept war with the Soviets under six circumstances: (1) if the Soviets attacked the U.S. (including Alaska) or Canada, (2) if the Soviets or their satellites attacked NATO members, (3) if the Soviets launched an overt military attack in Korea, (4) if the Soviets attacked overseas U.S. possessions or bases, including in Japan, (5) if the Soviets launched a substantial attack on West Germany (including Berlin), Austria (including Vienna), Trieste, Italy, or Japan, and (6) in the unlikely event that the Soviets attacked the Philippines, Australia, or New Zealand. Glaring in its omission from this list was the Middle East, specifically Persian Gulf oil, but since oil fields in Texas still supplied the bulk of American petroleum needs and the Middle East was considered a British area of responsibility, perhaps the JSSC assumed that region was covered. Korea, on the other hand, was not considered a vital area, but a Soviet attack there was presumed to be an

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indication that Moscow was ready to launch general war. Despite these specific conclusions, the JCS reminded the State Department before final discussions began with the British in September that no commitment to consult London on use of atomic bombs should be granted.27 Those talks climaxed with meetings September 11 and 13. While rejecting any explicit right to consult, the Americans did leave the Labour government wiggle room for ambiguous statements during the British election in October, which did not help because Winston Churchill and the Conservatives were returned to power. By then, the CIA saw the danger of general war more probable through Soviet miscalculation than as part of a deliberate Kremlin plan. But Churchill, when he learned that the Attlee government had given away Britain's right of veto over U.S. use of atomic bombs in the Modus Vivendi of January 7, 1948, was determined to win it back. His forceful personality caused concern that he would use American bomber bases in Britain as leverage to dominate NATO strategy as well as obtain a veto over U.S. military actions. The JCS warned that Washington might have to strike a deal to help in the defense of Hong Kong and protect Britain's maritime trade in exchange for Churchill's opposition to U.N. recognition of the PRC and to keep Formosa out of the hands of Chinese Communists. A visit by Churchill to Washington was swiftly arranged for January 1952.28 THE OLD LION RETURNS Wary once again that Truman might be outmaneuvered in personal conversation with a British Prime Minister, the State Department set forth for him a restatement of American policy on atomic bombs. First principle was retention of freedom of action for use and no prior consultation, including no commitment for further talks, though the U.S. did intend to continue informal discussions on world developments that might lead to general war or lesser situations that might also require use of atomic weapons. The President should also attempt to get Churchill to go along with American plans to use atomic bombs, though there could be no question that the U.S. could not use bases in Britain for military operations without London's approval. However, this point was ambiguous because by permitting SAC bombers to operate out of British bases, it could be argued that approval had been given in advance. The Americans would be more than happy to keep this ambiguity intact.29 Churchill met with Truman in Washington on January 6 and 7. At a dinner at the British Embassy on the first night, Acheson, Bradley, and Lovett strove mightily to convince the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary (Robert) Anthony Eden to agree to a U.S. plan to bomb military targets in China such as airfields and LOCs but not cities if an armistice could not soon be concluded. However, Churchill was adamant that no atomic bombs be used in Korea or China and was supported by Eden that no commitment could be given in any

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event until consultation with the full British cabinet. Neither man had any enthusiasm for an American proposal to cut off ocean trade to China. Maritime commerce was the life blood of the seafaring British nation, they explained.30 The next evening, Truman insisted to Churchill that he was prepared to use atomic weapons if and when necessary, though it had always been his personal feeling he should consult allies before doing so. Lovett interrupted to remind everyone that legal restrictions prevented frank atomic discussions between Britain and the U.S., although talks could continue without American commitment to yield to the British point of view. For example, the DOD was prepared to offer Churchill a personal briefing of the American EWP at the Pentagon. Concerned with negotiations about the wholefieldof atomic cooperation, which had been severely restricted even after the Modus Vivendi, thus impairing Britain's ability to develop the atomic bomb, Churchill accepted the offer but emphasized that U.S. law must be changed at the earliest opportunity to make real cooperation a reality. As he left Washington for a ten day visit to Canada, the reality was that no real progress had been achieved.31 The briefing for Churchill took place the morning of January 18, 1952 after the Prime Minister's return. Grown more passionate with age about his patriotism, he had been stung by a commitment Attlee had made for an American admiral to become NATO Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) instead of a British admiral, which Churchill believed the empire's great naval history required. The special war plan briefing helped assuage this defeat as well as greatly impressing him with American strategic might. He must have been alarmed, nevertheless, at JCS talk of a possible war with the Soviets if they refused a conference over Korea. Regardless of the nuances of his discussions in Washington, Churchill returned to London to make a statement in the House of Commons on February 26 about Britain's atomic rights. He asserted that the Americans could not use atomic bombs flying on bombers based in the U.K. without British consent. For if Britain no longer ruled the waves, if the sun was finally setting on the empire that he loved so dear, at least Her Majesty's Government still exercised sovereignty over the other Eden, demi-paradise which alone had withstood Hitler's fury in 1940. He did not wish to see it destroyed in a retaliation by Moscow for Washington's Far East folly.32 CONCLUSION British bases were now a smaller, though still significant part of the overall American atomic strategy. As the Korean war progressed, Truman authorized more bombs to be handed over to military custody and dispersed overseas to be ready for swift employment at need. Although Dean and the DOE continued to fight a rearguard action against this process, in particular against JCS assertions that only the JCS should advise the President where, how, in what types, and

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in what numbers atomic weapons should be used, not until September 1952 was the issue superficially resolved. The President approved an NSC paper stating that he would consult the JCS as his principal military advisors along with other members of the NSC. It was well understood by all concerned that Truman could accept or dispense with the advice of whomever he pleased.33 Rather Dwight D. Eisenhower could do so, for Truman would no longer be President once Eisenhower took office in January 1953. Then the former general would have to deal with the growing determination of the JCS and other military leaders to force the Communists either to conclude an armistice in Korea or face atomic destruction. Both the President-Elect and John Foster Dulles, his nominee for Secretary of State, already knew that the U.S. could not continue to keep such large military forces tied down in so marginal an area. Eisenhower intended to refocus American global strategy by emphasizing economic prosperity and atomic retaliation over large standing conventional armies, thus sustaining Containment of Communism for the long haul. It both heartened and disturbed him, therefore, to hear that American scientists had detonated the first hydrogen bomb, the MIKE shot, on October 31, 1952 in the Pacific. Fifty times as powerful as anything previously produced, the 10.4 megaton yield put an end to doubt about the finality of nuclear war.34

6 THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE In such circumstances, we would be forced to consider whether or not our duty to future generations did not require us to initiate war at the most propitious moment that we could designate." — Dwight D. Eisenhower, September 8, 19531

By January 1953 the American atomic arsenal numbered approximately 1,600 warheads. The Soviets had about fifty, doubling to one hundred by mid year. According to the consensus opinion of the intelligence community, fifty atomic bombs on target would kill 9 million Americans and destroy one-third of American industry. It was not foreseen that the Soviets would take the risk. Rather the Chinese Communists would prove to be the sharpest thorn in Uncle Sam's side over the next several years. After Stalin died on March 5, 1953, Mao Tse-tung pressed his claim to leadership of the world Communist movement.2 Eisenhower saw the struggle with Communism in as much economic as military-strategic terms. An important part of his New Look reliance on nuclear deterrence was development of tactical atomic warheads for the battlefield. Radford, who would take over from Bradley as Chairman of the JCS on July 1, 1953, enthusiastically approved the new defense strategy, as did Secretary of State Dulles. The only significant strategist who objected was Ridgway, SACEUR until replacing Collins as Army Chief of Staff, also on July 1. He deplored cutbacks of ground forces and dissented repeatedly from Radford's urgings that the U.S. go after the Chicoms with atomic firepower. Aside from Japan and Korea, he did not view territory on the periphery of Red China as vital to the U.S. The British too continued to oppose an aggressive American policy in the Far East. Churchill and Eden maintained that use of nuclear weapons in Asia meant doom for the British Isles. Although the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary never had a veto over American nuclear decision making, their refusal

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to cooperate with Eisenhower and Dulles to oppose the spread of Communism put brakes on the momentum to use atomic bombs in Indochina and the Formosa Straits. Influenced by his experience as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, the President always placed maximum emphasis on Allied support and cooperation. HOT BLOOD/COLD FEET Optimally, selection of the atomic option would have resulted from a reexamination of overall national security policy, but even before taking office, Eisenhower was considering extreme methods of bringing the Korean War to a close. To fulfill a campaign promise, he traveled to the Far East in December 1952 with Dulles, Radford, and George M. Humphrey, his nominee for Treasury Secretary, to be briefed by CINCFE Mark W. Clark on a plan to use atomic bombs in a ground offensive to establish a new defensive line across the peninsula from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to Wonsan, the so-called waist of Korea. An even more grandiose conception was conceived by MacArthur, whom Eisenhower had once served as military aide. In a memo dated December 14, 1952, MacArthur proposed to destroy China's "flimsy industrial base" with atomic bombs and sever its tenuous supply lines to the USSR. If the Soviets did not then agree to a peace conference to settle the Korean situation and Germany, the U.S. would clear North Korea of Communist forces by atomic bombing of military concentrations and installations and dramatic amphibious landings on both coasts of the peninsula. Eisenhower paid MacArthur the courtesy of taking a look at the idea but did not favor it.3 In early February 1953 he did give serious consideration to a plan by Clark to use atomic bombs to attack a buildup of three new Chinese armies in the Kaesong area, where the first armistice talks had taken place before being moved to Panmunjom. He told the NSC on February 11 that in his opinion Kaesong was as good a target as any for tactical atomic weapons and that the State Department and military should begin talks with the NATO allies to prepare them for the inevitability of dramatic action. However, Bradley advised that while armistice talks still had a chance of success, premature discussion of Clark's plan would do more harm than good. He succeeded in convincing the President not to give CINCFE the go-ahead.4 In Washington on March 6, Dulles broached with Eden a proposed NATO nuclear response to Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Except in the case of surprise nuclear attack, the Foreign Secretary wanted consultation at the time any such decision was to be made. He feared that if the U.S. sent planes based in Turkey to retaliate against Soviet forces, for example, Kremlin leaders would respond directly against the British Isles. Eisenhower remarked to Dulles that the real British concern was that the U.S. was secretly planning a war. In a meeting with Eden on March 9, he refused to concede any right of consultation,

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insisting that in an invasion scenario prompt action would be essential for victory. If he permitted London to postpone U.S. atomic counterattacks, he would be violating his constitutional duty as Commander-in-Chief of American military forces.5 Eisenhower was in fact under considerable pressure to end the Korean conflict quickly because of his own campaign promises as well as the American public's growing disgruntlement. Reflecting the opinion of many in Congress, Senator Ralph E. Flanders (R., Vermont) insisted that the U.S. and its allies either build up conventional forces in Korea for a war-ending offensive or utilize atomic bombs for air strikes into Manchuria. However, the JCS holdovers from Truman's administration expressed skepticism that atomic bombs would be effective against Communist troops, dug in deeply as they were along a 150 mile front. They noted that the first public atomic test on March 17, 1953 had proven that troops could be very close to ground zero and not be harmed. Instead of Clark's tactical strike, Vandenberg proposed strategic bombing of Chinese airfields north of the Yalu. Collins was opposed, saying that any widening of the war might bring Soviet atomic retaliation against Pusan harbor or Inchon to disrupt the U.S. logistical base. Worse, if Soviet planes attacked the planned amphibious landings and caught thousands of troops out in the open, the result for the American position in Korea would be catastrophic.6 An epidemic of cold feet spread throughout the NSC. At a special meeting on March 31, seven civilian consultants, brought in specially to ascertain public reaction to use of atomic weapons in Korea, reported that despite the American electorate's support for use of even the most powerful weapons to achieve a substantial victory over the Communists, the allies would scream bloody murder. Dulles agreed that somehow the "tabu" against use of atomic weapons would have to be lifted before world opinion would allow Washington to take this aggressive step. He concluded that until such time as it was, the U.S. must keep fighting with conventional forces.7 Two days later, the NSC Planning Board came out with a doubtful estimate of the military effectiveness of the atomic bomb, even if used against targets in Manchuria and North China. Although such weapons could prove decisive if employed in substantial numbers, the stockpile would be greatly reduced and America's "global atomic capabilities" to conduct general war adversely affected. Moreover, if the atomic offensive proved as ineffectual as they feared, the value of the deterrent to frighten the Soviets would be diminished. Frustrated, Eisenhower postponed a decision on using atomic weapons yet again at the NSC meeting on April 8. The only substantive step he took was to send another 386 bombs overseas, thus tripling the number so deployed.8 All this turmoil over Korea caused Eisenhower's stomach to act up with an attack of ileitis on April 16. The first of many medical problems that would plague him throughout his presidency, it must have reminded him of his own mortality and dampened his appetite for more aggressive action. As President, he was not going to rush into any decision to use nuclear weapons.

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NATIONAL STRATEGY Belatedly, the President and his advisors began to formulate a successor statement to Truman's NSC 68 Basic National Security Policy. Eisenhower himself set forth a concise definition of the nation's vital interests at a meeting with Republican legislative leaders on April 30. Pressured by Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, the man he had bested for the Republican nomination, to cut the defense budget even more than the substantial amounts already planned, he responded that military spending was dictated by American global strategy, which was very simple. The U.S. would fight to hold Western Europe because of its large population and industrial potential, the Middle East because oil imported from that region amounted to one-half American consumption, and Southeast Asia because that region was currently under severe Communist pressure. He offered no justification for Southeast Asia's importance beyond the fact that the Communists wanted it and were supporting a building insurgency against French Indochina. The only measure he planned to defend the region was financial assistance, though U.S. policy was to persuade the French to give up their colonies and permit the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to become independent democracies. He plainly hoped that no further intervention would be needed.9 In May 1953 the President initiated a formal attempt to define national strategy. Designated the Solarium Project, it took two months to complete and proposed three possible options for pursuing the struggle with the Communist bloc: (1) defending vital interests only, (2) drawing defense lines around NATO and the Western Pacific and fighting against any intrusion over those lines, and (3) weakening the Soviet Union and its allies while simultaneously strengthening the military, economic, and political capability of the free world to "assume the greater risks involved" in such an effort, with the ultimate goal of freeing Communist satellites from Kremlin control. The Solarium paper included a section on insuring an air-atomic response to a Soviet attack by placing completed atomic weapons in the hands of tactical units designated to use them. Although it was foreseen that conflicts between the DOD on one hand and the AEC and State Department on the other on custody issues and advising the President on use of atomic weapons would finally have to be resolved, Korean War dispersal of low yield weapons to military custody had already caused a lessening of AEC influence. The advent of hawkish Lewis L. Strauss to the AEC chairmanship as of July 1, 1953 would resolve most fundamental disputes between the AEC and DOD on issues of greatest importance and leave the State Department as principal opponent of JCS determination to roll back the Soviet Empire while the U.S. still retained overwhelming nuclear superiority.10 Radford's advocacy of option 3 of the Solarium paper drew support from Chief of Staff of the Air Force Nathan F. Twining and Chief of Naval Operations Robert A. Carney. Concomitantly, they favored going to town on

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the Communists with atomic weapons at the first opportunity. For the next ten years, right on through the Cuban Missile Crisis, hardliners never wavered in their belief that a showdown was inevitable. Dissent arose from Army Chief of Staff Ridgway, who irritated Eisenhower as well as Radford with his belief that the U.S. should rely more on conventional forces and less on Massive Retaliation. ENDING THE WAR At the NSC meeting of May 6, the old JCS still continued to stall on whether atomic weapons could be used with decisive effect in Korea. Winding up a spotty four years as Chairman, Bradley said that he doubted the usefulness of atomic strikes even against Communist airfields behind the front lines. A week later, Major General Sladen Bradley and Lieutenant General Hull of the JCS staff were brought in to brief the NSC on six possible courses of action to end the Korean War, three with atomic bombs and three without. Sladen Bradley confessed that no plan would really be effective unless atomic bombs were used. Hull added that they would have to be used in considerable numbers to really make a difference. There were still no good targets for atomic bombs in Korea, he explained. The military was most anxious to attack Manchuria and China proper, where from the military point of view atomic bombs could be employed to great advantage. An exasperated Eisenhower replied that he was not convinced that atomic bombs could not be used to great effect in Korea and wanted to know whether a penetration-type warhead had been tested at Bikini Atoll. Hull answered that tests of this weapon had been made at the Nevada proving grounds and that the effect was like that of an earthquake. Some still doubted whether large-scale destruction of enemy troops and materiel would result, however.11 Unconvinced, Eisenhower argued that it would be cheaper to use atomic weapons than conventional forces to blast the Chinese out of their dugouts, honeycombed as they were throughout the hilly Korean terrain. He worried that if a ground offensive were launched to battle to the waist of Korea, the Chinese would pour in more troops. Bedell Smith, Ike's wartime assistant and now Under Secretary of State, warned that there would be hell to pay with the allies if the U.S. went ahead unilaterally to use atomic weapons. On the other hand, if consulted they would argue with some justification that use of atomic weapons might bring in the Soviets and instigate World War III. His personal view was that because this was the first time in a thousand years that the Oriental East had stood up to the Occidental West and achieved stalemate, the U.S. should adopt the boldest course possible and go after the Chicoms directly. Although temporarily NATO would fall to pieces, if the U.S. was successful in destroying the Chinese threat, the system of alliances could be rebuilt.12 Eisenhower replied that many in Europe believed global war worse than

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surrender to Communist imperialism because such a conflagration meant the obliteration of European civilization. Short of that, the U.S. might lose its NATO and other allies who were the outposts of American national defense. When Vice President Richard M. Nixon interjected that the President should make his decision based upon the longer-term problem of when the Soviets would amass sufficient numbers of atomic weapons to deal the U.S. a critical blow, or less overtly rob the U.S. of the initiative to defend its interests around the world, Eisenhower said that he had authorized the Solarium Project with just that development in mind. He rejected Smith's statement that the American people could justifiably complain that two years of hard fighting had produced little gain. If the public wanted victory so much, they should all volunteer for front-line duty in Korea, he groused.13 Perpetual stalemate or use of atomic weapons—the choice faced Eisenhower starkly now, but he moved closer toward the latter alternative when the JCS suddenly did an about-face on May 20 and told the NSC they now favored a plan combining elements of the most aggressive options discussed earlier. It would include amphibious and airborne assaults with Marines and the 82nd Airborne Division behind enemy lines as well as complete destruction of Chicom air power with atomic bomb strikes. Collins assured the President the JCS would start moving reinforcements into Korea immediately and that the plan would be ready for final approval in three months. Smith reiterated what he had said earlier, that quick success would bring all the allies back into the fold. Expressing great anxiety about the possibility of Soviet air retaliation against defenseless Japanese cities, Eisenhower urged the JCS to move with all dispatch. Although he did not like at all the idea of starting a global war with atomic bomb attacks on Manchuria, the Chief's plan was the best that could be devised. He ordered no leaks of what the NSC was considering except to Solarium Project participants for their study of overall national strategy.14 Whether Eisenhower would ultimately have authorized using atomic bombs to end the war in Korea is uncertain. The pressures for and against such an attack would have been enormous. Fortunately, he was spared the decision because the Chinese, probably influenced by rumors the administration had let circulate around the Far East that the U.S. was stationing more atomic bombers in Okinawa, became more flexible in armistice talks at Panmunjom. An agreement was reached on July 26, 1953. A few days before, determined not to permit the war of attrition in Korea to begin again, Eisenhower approved a policy statement that if the Chinese broke the armistice, the U.S. would make use of nuclear weapons to defeat them. But the debate on the three options of the Solarium Project had only just begun.15 THE NEW LOOK Admiral Radford was the foremost proponent of the rollback option. A

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month after being sworn in, he and the other new Chiefs met to hammer out a military paper to translate Eisenhower's New Look policy into a force structure and military strategy that relied heavily on nuclear weapons to deter Communist aggression. Their contribution would eventually become part of NSC 162/2 Basic National Security Policy of October 30, 1953. In the interim on August 12, the U.S. learned that the Soviets had detonated a nuclear device, designated Joe-4, that was supposedly their first hydrogen bomb. Although it was subsequently determined that Soviet scientists had only succeeded in creating a boosted fission weapon with estimated yield of 300 to 600 kilotons, at the time it seemed that the Soviets had caught up with the U.S. in nuclear technology.16 Eisenhower was so stunned that on September 8 he seriously considered provoking war to wipe out the Soviet threat before it grew beyond all ability to counteract. He wrote Dulles that if Kremlin leaders would not agree to an equitable international control of atomic energy pact, this recalcitrance would be evidence of their intent to use nuclear weapons for aggressive purposes. The U.S. would have to be "constantly ready, on an instantaneous basis, to inflict greater loss upon the enemy than he could reasonably hope to inflict on us." However, the cost of maintaining such readiness would drive Washington to war or a dictatorial government that would deprive Americans of the very freedoms Communism threatened. Before he would make such a fateful decision, he considered it necessary to gain the bipartisan support of Congress, the American people, and the allies.17 This sort of thinking was typical of Eisenhower throughout his presidency. He would appear to come close to using nuclear weapons only to convince himself—or allow himself to be convinced by others—to hold off a decision. Oftentimes, he appeared to be voicing a hawkish opinion only to mollify aggressive tendencies in others, as in this instance with Dulles who in light of the Joe-4 test had proposed a complete reconsideration of American national security policies. However, on this occasion his concern was genuine enough. He told a press conference on October 8 that the Soviets could now attack the U.S. with atomic bombs. Dulles had to reassure Walter Hallstein, the foreign minister of West Germany, that the U.S. retained a huge lead in tactical atomic weapons, which were especially important because they were more practical and usable than big H-bombs.18 In the end, instead of opting for preventive war against the Soviets, Eisenhower decided to counter the Communist threat with a combination of an Atoms for Peace plan and a Massive Retaliation strategy. The former offered to the nations of the world the benefits of atomic energy for commercial, medical, and other constructive purposes. The latter warned Moscow that the U.S. would retaliate against Communist aggression with everything in the nuclear arsenal. Almost at once, the impracticality of Massive Retaliation became clear. If the U.S. built up its nuclear forces to the neglect of all else, a threat to respond to localized, relatively minor provocations would carry little credibility. No one, least ways the Soviets and their more aggressive Chinese

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allies, would believe that the U.S. would blast a buzzing Communist fly with a nuclear shotgun.19 The possibility of renewed war in Korea was still very real. But the U.S. was as much concerned with Syngman Rhee, president of the Republic of Korea (ROK), as the Communists. Extremely displeased that an armistice had been signed before Korea was reunified under his authority, Rhee made wild threats to attack the Communists and in the process compel the U.S. to go to war. By November 1953 Rhee's belligerence was considered so serious that the NSC decided U.S. forces would stand aloof if ROK troops carried out Rhee's threat. On the other hand, if Communist forces seemed likely to attack American forces or to be so successful against ROK troops that they faced imminent destruction, the U.S. might then have no choice but to come to Rhee's rescue. A situation might develop in which ROK action could trigger American use of atomic weapons.20 Foreseeing this danger, Radford and the JCS requested immediate authorization to deploy atomic weapons to the Korean theater. After some debate, Twining prevailed upon his colleagues that atomic strikes not be limited to tactical use in support of ground actions but be employed throughout North Korea and in China from Shanghai north to Manchuria. The JCS even wanted authorization from Eisenhower to prepare contingency plans for a nuclear strike against Soviet targets in the Far East, in particular Vladivostok, should local fighting blow up into general war.21 When Robert R. Bowie, head of the Policy Planning Staff, found out the extent of JCS intentions, he rallied Dulles to oppose the plan. The Secretary of State engaged in a heated debate with the Chairman of the JCS at an NSC meeting on December 3, at which Radford pushed for a massive atomic blitz and Dulles countered that attacks should be limited to North Korea. At first Eisenhower expressed enthusiasm for all-out war, saying he wanted to hit the Chicoms hard and wherever it would hurt most, including their capital Peking. But as Dulles talked, emphasizing the danger of bringing the Soviets into the conflict, the fact that the U.S. would not have the support of its allies, the probability that the Chinese would retaliate by invading Indochina, and pointing out that the more limited attack option still included the forceful measures of use of atomic weapons in Korea, a naval blockade of China, and "hot pursuit" of Chinese planes if they struck U.S. or South Korean forces from bases north of the Yalu, the President backed off. He accepted Dulles' description of the more limited plan as victory in Korea, not total victory over the Chinese. Radford salvaged what he could by pleading with the President not to impose too many restrictions on commanders in the field, as had happened first time around in Korea. By the end of the meeting, the NSC was considering not a buildup of atomic forces but a strategic redeployment of American divisions out of Korea as soon as the ROK army reached a goal of twenty divisions.22 Having compelled a semblance of consensus within the administration, Eisenhower and Dulles were ready to travel to Bermuda to meet with Churchill

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and Eden on American contingency plans for Korea, NATO matters, and atomic energy issues. The French attended as well and became involved in some discussions of use of atomic weapons. At the Mid-Ocean Club on December 4 and 5, 1953, Eisenhower assured the Prime Minister that if the Communists deliberately broke the armistice, the U.S. would use atomic bombs only against military targets directly supporting the aggression. Churchill and Eden objected that U.S. thinking about nuclear weapons was several years ahead of the rest of the world, and perhaps Washington should wait for world opinion to catch up. If attacked in Korea or any other theater, the best strategy would be to keep the fighting localized and not use atomic bombs. Even if it appeared that the Chinese Communists had initiated a massive offensive, there should at least be a forty-eight-hour delay before exercising the atomic option so that evidence of Communist aggression could be brought indisputably before the world community. Although Churchill professed to agree with the principle that atomic weapons should now be regarded as a proper part of conventional armament, he certainly did not mean it.23 Talks on other issues intervened at that point, but on December 7, Dulles went into detail about American contingency plans for Korea. Confiding that prior to the armistice the U.S. had already sent the means of conducting atomic warfare to the Far East and that American military forces had been poised to increase the scale and intensity of operations, he confirmed that in the event of renewed fighting the U.S. would indeed attack with its most destructive weapons. American pilots would adopt a policy of hot pursuit, striking into Manchuria if necessary to suppress Chicom air power. The island of Formosa would acquire strategic importance.24 While Eden conceded that hot pursuit might become necessary to establish and maintain indisputable control of the skies, he adamantly refused to approve any resort to atomic weapons even if restricted to military targets. Eisenhower responded that while the U.S. planned no rash action without consulting allies as to circumstances of use and targets, he could not and would not exclude the possibility of using atomic weapons. The American people spent $50 billion a year on defense, he declared, and were maintaining eight full divisions in Korea. They had to know that their government was making every effort to reduce this burden while still maintaining national commitments. The furthest he would go to conciliate world opinion was to avoid attacks on Chinese cities. However, atomic weapons would be used "against military installations, mainly airfields, supporting a renewed Communist offensive against United Nations troops in Korea."25 Realizing that the President's mind could not be changed on this fundamental point, Churchill appealed to Eisenhower at least to drop plans to announce the atomic retaliation policy in his Atoms for Peace speech the next day before the U.N. General Assembly. He dreaded a counter-declaration by the Russians that they would feel free to use their atomic weapons to respond, he said. Ivan might even gain a moral advantage by pledging not to be first to use nuclear

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weapons. "We might well find," the Prime Minister concluded, "that hostile and middle opinion throughout the world would unite in attributing to the Americans and their Allies the responsibility for exposing mankind to all the horrors of full-scale atomic warfare." Rather than chance widespread condemnation, it would be better to send private warnings to the Soviets and Chinese of U.S. intentions in Korea. Grudgingly, Eisenhower conceded that Churchill's argument made sense and removed the atomic warning from his speech.26 CONCLUSION British concern about consultation on use of nuclear weapons would only grow greater with time. Part of the reason was American scare tactics to get their way in NATO. At a meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in Paris on December 16, 1953, Dulles attempted to persuade the allies to approve nuclear weapons within NATO's force structure by alleging that the continental U.S. and Canada were now "easily within range" of Soviet atomic weapons. Although this dubious assertion and the unwise implication that American leaders would hesitate to retaliate against a Kremlin attack on Western Europe for fear of a Soviet nuclear strike at Washington did not convince NATO officials to authorize in advance use of atomic weapons by SACEUR, introduction of atomic-capable weapons systems like the 280 millimeter cannon could not be impeded. In the absence of dramatically increased defense spending by the allies to meet force goals set at the NAC meeting in Lisbon in February 1952, New Look reduction of American conventional forces dictated a NATO strategy based upon early resort to atomic weapons.27 If Truman had hesitated to approve any policy for using A-bombs, Eisenhower took care to approve only statements that retained his control of events. Paragraph 39b of NSC 162/2 stated that "in the event of hostilities, the U.S. would consider nuclear weapons to be as available for use as other munitions." However, he subsequently approved an interpretation, recommended by the State Department and AEC, that said the language of paragraph 39b did not constitute authorization in advance to use nuclear weapons and that the President himself would decide each situation on its merits. He left the door open for preauthorization of the use of nuclear weapons only in certain undefined tactical situations.28 On January 8,1954, Radford lobbied one last time to give CINCFE General Hull a free hand in Korea. The President was as much anxious as pleased that Hull could launch atomic attacks against the Communists within 22 hours of getting permission, and that this timetable would fall to 4 hours in six months' time. He told the Chairman of the JCS that he did not want to get into a situation in which atomic bombs were used in a border incident. He did reassure Radford that if a serious attack did develop, he would authorize use of

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atomic weapons along the same lines as planned in Europe—one atomic bomb on each forward Communist air base at the outset of hostilities. That should be sufficient comfort to all military commanders that their President would not let the Communists catch Uncle Sam with his pants down. But this was only the beginning, not the end, of Radford's campaign to win predelegated authority for the military to use nuclear weapons.29

7

FRENCH CHESTNUTS IN THE FIRE Under certain contingencies, time would not permit consultation [on use of nuclear weapons] without itself endangering the very security we seek to protect. So far as feasible, we must seek understanding in advance on measures to be taken under various circumstances. In these ways, our joint capacities will be best calculated to deter aggression against any of us and to protect us in case it should occur." — John Foster Dulles, April 23, 19541

Anglo-French misgivings notwithstanding, Eisenhower and Dulles were anxious to advance Allied and world understanding, and hopefully approval, of proposed American reliance on nuclear weapons to facilitate cuts in the defense budget, and in particular reduction of American ground forces in Korea. Thus the Secretary of State gave a speech in New York to the Council on Foreign Relations on January 12, 1954 announcing the Massive Retaliation policy. "The basic decision," he explained, "was to depend primarily upon a great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our choosing." Just as Churchill had predicted, Dulles' public pronouncement caused a furor and heightened fear of war.2 At this juncture, SAC really did have the capability of retaliating massively, as LeMay indicated in a top secret briefing for military officers and intelligence officials in Washington on January 28. He now had under his command 825 bombers, including 187 B-36s and 351 B-47s, 90% equipped for atomic warfare. In an emergency they would operate out of bases in the U.K., French Morocco, the Mediterranean area, the Pacific area, and the northwest U.S. including Thule, Alaska. Their mission would be to saturate the defenses of the Soviet Union from all directions so that all 600 Russian airfields would be attacked and destroyed as well as urban-industrial, command and control, atomic energy, and other military targets. Although coordination with the Navy's now substantial atomic force in the Atlantic was lacking and LeMay was still dissatisfied that he did not have all the aircraft and resources he wanted to carry

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out SAC's mission, there could be no doubt of the result in the event of general war. The Soviets and their allies would be completely annihilated.3 Another public relations blow fell in March when the BRAVO hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific, the first of six in Operation CASTLE, showered radioactive fall-out on a Japanese fishing boat named ironically the Lucky Dragon. Although only one Japanese died of radiation sickness, widespread outrage propelled a movement to ban further nuclear tests. Eisenhower permitted CASTLE to continue, resulting in technical improvements and the first practical hydrogen bombs for SAC bombers. The net result of the incident was to poison the international atmosphere against Massive Retaliation.4 In one respect this was unfortunate. A declaration that the U.S. would use the most powerful weapons in its arsenal to defend vital interests would certainly have deterred the Soviets or Chinese from challenging American might. On the other hand, credibility diminished as the U.S. sought to bring under its protection regions of lesser importance, such as Korea. Failure of the Eisenhower administration to make a realistic assessment of vital interests and adopt a policy that the U.S. would not be drawn into using military forces to defend non-vital areas now led the U.S. to involve itself again on the mainland of Asia. Since Eisenhower did not want to put ground forces into another meat grinder like Korea, and because he refused to do nothing when Communist aggression threatened to gobble up more territory, he found himself in the awkward position of having to consider use of nuclear weapons to defend nonvital regions. The most bizarre aspect of this dilemma was that Eisenhower did not appear to comprehend that Indochina and the Straits of Formosa, the main points of contention between Peking and Washington, were in no way vital to U.S. national security. Only when forced to consider whether to use atomic weapons to stave off defeat of American allies did the President come to a partial realization of his mistake. DIENBIENPHU Two months into Eisenhower's administration, he discussed Indochina with Dulles, Wilson, Humphrey, and special presidential advisor Harold E. Stassen. They concluded that in many ways the region that historically encompassed the countries of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore was more important than Korea because its loss would have severe repercussions throughout Asia and Europe. This fantastic assertion was based upon doubtful evidence. Geographically, Southeast Asia "flanked" the subcontinent of India and sat athwart lines of communication along the American Far East defense line. Resource-wise, it was a food basket, particularly for rice, and held significant deposits of tungsten, tin, and other minerals as well as natural rubber. From a political standpoint, a quarter billion people lived there, most within the French Indochina protectorate and British Malay peninsula

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colonies, but the Japanese takeover during World War II had awakened nationalist sentiment particularly in territory under French control. By the early 1950s, Ho Chi Minh had succeeded in fighting ten French divisions to a standstill in North Vietnam with his Vietminh guerrillas. Even elements of the famed French Foreign Legion could not restore order.5 When Communist cadres attempted to spread their activities into Laos, French forces responded by establishing a base at Dienbienphu, on the border with Laos but just inside North Vietnam. In early 1954, Vietminh general Vo Nguyen Giap laid siege to the place, causing Paris to request additional B-26 bombers from Washington to support their ground troops as well as American maintenance personnel to keep them in good flying condition. That prompted Stuart Symington, by then Democratic senator from Missouri and a member of the Armed Services Committee, to travel to Paris on March 5, 1954 to discuss the situation with French Minister of National Defense Rene Pleven. Pleven was taken aback when Symington proposed introducing two ROK divisions into the fighting backed by U.S. Navy carrier planes carrying tactical atomic weapons. He objected that the Chinese Communists would match Korean troops man for man and possibly pour in a torrent of soldiers to swamp French forces. While it was a good idea for American planes to counterattack Chinese aircraft, unfortunately there were no suitable targets for atomic weapons.6 A week later the Vietminh caused the French to reconsider Symington's adventurist scheme by dragging artillery to hilltops overlooking French positions around Dienbienphu. At Radford's invitation, General Paul Ely, Chief of Staff of the French Army, arrived in Washington on March 20 to discuss with him and Dulles a plan called Operation VULTURE to smash Vietminh forces with air strikes by B-29s carrying conventional bombs. Due in large part to Ely's minimal English language ability, the French general left Washington believing that U.S. air strikes would be forthcoming two days after a request by the French government. He did not hear, or chose to ignore, Dulles' caveat that Paris would have to agree to independence for the Associated States before the U.S. would intervene. Even then, the administration reserved the right to change its mind depending upon circumstances at the time of a request.7 Radford did not have presidential approval for Operation VULTURE, nor had he yet secured JCS unanimity. Ridgway, in particular, saw Indochina as a minor area of no importance and opposed American intervention. However, Radford went ahead to lobby Eisenhower on his own at the NSC meeting on April 1. By then the President and his Secretary of State had something more strategic in mind.8 Cautious lest the U.S. be drawn into the jungles of Southeast Asia in defense of French colonialism, Eisenhower and Dulles came up with a plan called United Action. This would be a coalition of military forces from the U.S., Britain, France, the Associated States, other free nations of the region, and perhaps Australia and New Zealand to intervene to save the region from a Communist takeover. Necessarily, any such grand conception required

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congressional support. On April 3, administration officials met with leaders of the House and Senate, including Senators William F. Knowland (R., California) and Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas). Before Congress would agree to commitment of air and sea power to help the French fight in Indochina, the President was told, the State Department had to secure ironclad guarantees of Allied support. The unanimous opinion of those present was that Congress would never again sit idly by while the U.S. fought a war like Korea, supplying 90% of the manpower.9 Meanwhile the situation around Dienbienphu was becoming daily more critical with Vietminh artillery pounding French airstrips and Communist infantry tightening the noose around French positions. Sensing a golden opportunity to take the wraps off the nuclear arsenal, Radford amended Operation VULTURE to provide for the use of three atomic bombs to break up the siege. Ridgway countered that if the Chairman of the JCS was so hot to take on the Communists, he ought to be urging the President to bomb the Chinese mainland, the source of all trouble in the Far East. For the moment at least, Radford kept his bomb sites focused on Dienbienphu.10 On April 6, the French requested B-29s from the U.S. for French pilots. Radford, supported by Twining, told Eisenhower that American pilots would have to be sent instead because there was insufficient time to train the French. He took the opportunity to run his atomic version of Operation VULTURE past Eisenhower. The President listened instead to advice from Dulles and Counsellor of the State Department Douglas MacArthur II, the general's nephew, that the U.S. should be careful about approaching the French with such an idea for fear of leaks and a public uproar.11 In a meeting of the NSC that same day, Eisenhower propounded a theory that if one nation in Indochina fell to the Communists, all of Southeast Asia would follow like a row of dominoes. He liked the analogy so much, he repeated it at a press conference the next day, along with an explanation of the alleged importance of the region. It was a source of tin, tungsten, and rubber, he declared, and if lost to the Communists, would threaten the Far East defense perimeter. He did not mention that most deposits of these commodities could be found in Thailand and the Malay peninsula, not French Indochina where the war was raging. He did not specify how the enemy could get at the Far East island chain without warships to challenge the Seventh Fleet.12 On April 11, Dulles went off to win the Allied support congressional leaders had said was so indispensable. Naturally he flew first to London since the British with their Commonwealth had the strongest position in the Far East and could bring along significant military and political assets. To avoid a direct rebuff, Eden permitted him to believe that the British government might agree to a joint declaration to guarantee an area of Indochina short of the Chinese border. However, in a separate conversation a Foreign Office official indicated unmistakably to MacArthur II and Assistant Secretary of State for Far East Affairs Walter S. Robertson that the British Chiefs of Staff considered Indochina

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of little strategic importance. Not only would Communist expansion into Southeast Asia not threaten the "security and vital interests" of the U.S., Britain, and France, but if the United Action plan went through, Peking would intervene and Washington would be tempted to use atomic weapons. That would cause the Soviets to come to the aid of their Chinese allies and bring on the possibility of another world war. Europe itself would be at risk.13 Still, the British did not entirely shut the door to some NATO-like organization to defend Southeast Asia. Returning to Augusta, Georgia to brief Eisenhower before heading on to Paris for the NATO Ministerial Meeting, Dulles obtained the President's authorization to tell Eden and French foreign minister Georges Bidault that the U.S. would reserve a certain number of atomic bombs for their use in the event of war. Eisenhower hoped to encourage Britain and France to take more responsibility to decide when those weapons would be used, and as a byproduct convince them to agree to the United Action plan. Comments by Dulles along those lines to the French Foreign Minister at the NATO meeting on April 23, 1954 may have confused Bidault, who later claimed that Dulles had offered France two atomic bombs for use at Dienbienphu. In any event, Radford met Ely at Orly Airport the next day to hear the French general ask again that Operation VULTURE be implemented. Even if it was too late to save the besieged French forces, the French government had decided that the positive psychological effect on French forces and their indigenous allies of American air intervention would be enormous.14 That same day in Paris, Dulles and Radford sat down with Eden to ask for British support for massive air intervention over Dienbienphu. Radford wanted British squadrons from Malaya or Hong Kong to join with American carrierbased planes in a last-minute attack to save the French. He and Dulles warned that if Indochina fell, the U.S. would be forced to take aggressive measures to prevent a Communist takeover of all Southeast Asia, including seizing Hainan island off China's southern coast, blockading the mainland coast with the Seventh Fleet, and ultimately attacking targets in China itself. Under time pressure to make a decision, Eden agreed to return to London that evening to speak with Churchill and the British cabinet. His comment that politically there would be hell to pay at home if Britain went in with the U.S. prompted Dulles to remark that Congress would not agree to American intervention in Southeast Asia without Allied support.15 Representatives of the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, France, Communist China and other interested parties gathered at Geneva on April 26 to discuss Far East problems. Eden met Dulles there the day before and promptly shot down the hope that London would join the U.S. plan. The British chiefs felt Dienbienphu already doomed, he explained. In any event, they believed they could hold a defensive line across the Malay peninsula whatever occurred in French Indochina. Stunned, Dulles predicted that the loss of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia would result in the fall of all Southeast Asia to Communism and the eventual loss of Japan. Eden insisted that to save French Indochina the U.S.

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and Britain would have to deploy a substantial force of ground troops and that the Prime Minister and Cabinet could not make that kind of deep commitment when London had more important interests elsewhere. Privately, he and Churchill hoped that by denying British cooperation, they could head off American military action altogether. The key was what Dulles had said about Congress requiring British support.16 Bitter that Eden had allegedly gone back on his word, Dulles remained in Geneva to castigate the Foreign Secretary while Radford went to England on April 26 to speak personally to Churchill and the British chiefs. He merely confirmed the British in their suspicion that the U.S. was planning a wider war with the Chinese. Churchill tried to help the undiscerning admiral understand that from the British point of view war in the Far East would result in Soviet nuclear weapons landing on the British Isles. From where Radford sat in the Pentagon, he could not see the connection.17 At the NSC meeting on April 29, Radford reported to Eisenhower that he was not certain the Prime Minister really did fear an atomic attack. Churchill's ultimate purpose seemed to be to arrange a conference with the President and Soviet Premier Georgi M. Malenkov to iron out East-West conflicts while in the meantime the British military protected London's interests in the Malay peninsula. That caused Stassen to demand a unilateral NSC determination whether the U.S. should intervene in Southeast Asia. He asserted that if Eisenhower himself proclaimed that putting military forces into the region was necessary to save it from Communism, Congress and the American people would agree. However, the President turned down the idea, as well as Stassen's suggestion that he threaten nuclear war to deter Chinese intervention, and suddenly denied by implication his earlier opinion of the importance of Southeast Asia. He said that if the U.S. intervened in Indochina, it meant general war with China and possibly the Soviet Union. At the very least, the U.S. would be in the position of fighting a local war against one million Chinese soldiers without Allied support, and another war and another after that. Moscow would like nothing better than to see the U.S. fritter away its strength in this manner. Before he agreed to put six or eight or ten divisions into Indochina, it would be better to decide on general war itself and mobilize for a showdown. When Smith and Nixon suggested limited intervention with air strikes, Eisenhower still balked. The allies would not support the action, and it was not even certain that the French would remain to fight on the ground.18 On May 5, Dulles returned to brief the President, then twenty-four leaders of Congress, on his travails. The congressmen and senators were outraged to hear the Secretary of State's description of British perfidy. Walter H. Judd (R., Minnesota) accused Britain of being worthless to the U.S. in the Far East and of wanting to save the Soviet Union from destruction so the U.K. would not be at the mercy of the U.S. There was widespread agreement that Dulles should retaliate by sabotaging Eden's proposal for a five-power conference to hold discussions over Southeast Asia. Since the five powers involved—the U.S., 4

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Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand—did not include any Asians, the British would be shown up as racists. Everyone agreed that the idea of intervention in Indochina was now out of the question. Two days later, with the skies over Dienbienphu clear of American air power, 14,000 French troops surrendered to the Vietminh.19 COALITION BUILDING AND THE BOMB By standing aloof, the British had in effect vetoed the American plan to intervene in Indochina. That did not mean that the U.S. recognized a British right of veto over American use of nuclear weapons, asserted again by Eden in a letter to Dulles. On the contrary, in Paris on April 23, the Secretary of State told a restricted group of the NAC that since the Soviets would use atomic weapons in a general war, NATO must be prepared to retaliate in kind. Although he promised that the U.S. would consult about such use if time permitted, his intent was otherwise. He assured Eisenhower upon his return to Washington that he had put the allies on notice that the statement in itself constituted the necessary consultation.20 Still furious at Eden, Dulles began to see something invidious in London's refusal to back a strong coalition move in Southeast Asia. Four days after Dienbienphu fell, he told the President that British policy on Asian matters was heavily influenced by the government of India and that the Indians were under heavy pressure by the Chinese whom they feared. Thus by permitting the British to stymie American plans, in effect it was the Chicoms who were blocking American strategy to confront them. If the administration revived an attempt to organize assistance to the French and Associated States in Indochina, the same thing would happen as before, he predicted. But Eisenhower continued to emphasize the importance of substantial Allied support for military moves, particularly use of atomic weapons, and shrank from making any decision to go atomic if it would cost the U.S. heavily among Asian opinion and the allies. By playing off external pressures against internal urgings to act, he kept control of events.21 Eisenhower was not the only American leader to have second thoughts about the advisability of committing military forces to Southeast Asia. Radford too came to the conclusion that "Indochina is devoid of decisive military objectives and the allocation of more than token U.S. armed forces to that area would be a serious diversion of limited U.S. capabilities." Thus when Dulles and his brother Allen W. Dulles, Director of the CIA, discussed a new plan for a security treaty with Thailand and Formosa to draw a line against further aggressions in Southeast Asia, he was opposed, but not because he had suddenly developed pacifist tendencies. On the contrary, he preferred to take up Ridgway's suggestion to go to the source of all trouble in the Far East—Red China. Warning that in three or four years as the Soviets built up their nuclear

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strength, the balance of world power would swing inexorably away from the U.S., he advocated direct action against the Chinese with atomic bombs whenever it was to the American military advantage. U.S. air and sea power combined with indigenous ground forces was the equation that would stem the Communist tide in Southeast Asia, he wrote on May 20, 1954. Washington should reserve its Sunday punch for the Chinese.22 The next day, Radford and the JCS put out a paper entitled "Defense of Southeast Asia in the Event of Loss of Indochina to the Communists." It concluded that establishing a static defense line in Thailand and Burma with large ground forces to repel a Communist attack, as the State Department and British were now advocating, was not feasible because of the terrain involved and the masses of manpower the Chinese could hurl into battle, estimated by intelligence sources at over half a million men and nearly 400 planes in just 30 days. Instead, the U.S. should react to Communist aggression with one of three plans, depending upon where the aggression occurred. In the event of a renewed offensive in Korea, CINCFE Hull should be permitted to strike targets in Manchuria and North China. If the Chinese moved southward into Indochina, CINCPAC Felix B. Stump should be given the green light to send carrier-based A3D Skywarriors against South China. If all hell broke loose in a general war between the U.S. and the Red Chinese, Curtis LeMay's SAC should be turned loose to ravage all of Mao's cities. In each circumstance, atomic bombs would be used without restriction. Radford let the military know the general thrust of his thinking with a speech to the Naval War College on May 25 that atomic forces would now be the primary U.S. weapon in the next war.23 Dulles decided that it was time to reign in the Chairman of the JCS. He complained to Eisenhower that Radford's loose lips had sunk his diplomatic initiative the month before with Eden and the French. From now on, and especially at an upcoming five power military conference, the JCS and their representatives should not speak about atomic warfare. Nor was the substance of the JCS paper of May 21 any help. It assumed the loss of Indochina—the very calamity American diplomacy was trying to avoid—and talked of virtually unrestricted warfare against the Chinese. If the Communists did launch a major offensive in Indochina, U.S. retaliation should be limited to those areas and facilities supporting the attack, such as airfields and lines of communication, as well as amphibious operations against Hainan island. The best plan to win Allied support was a NATO-type defense of Southeast Asia to deter aggression before it got started.24 Eisenhower laid down the law to Radford at a meeting with all his principals on May 28. The JCS Chairman had to agree to muffle any further talk of atomic warfare outside the confines of internal American government meetings. However, Dulles himself suddenly turned more belligerent with a dramatic proposal on June 2. He pressed the President that if the Chicoms launched an unprovoked attack after the defensive coalition had been formed and its intention to defend Southeast Asia made clear, the U.S. should respond with

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no less than a congressional declaration of war, use of nuclear weapons against Chinese air bases and ports, and possibly a nuclear strike at the Soviets to preempt them from coming to the PRC's aid per the Sino-Soviet defense treaty. The Secretary of State distinguished between his plan and Radford's in that the JCS had intended to lasso the Communists alone and without international sanction, whereas the collective defense idea would have Britain, France, the Associated States, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines firmly in the American camp. Eisenhower gave cautious approval but said that he would withdraw his support if the allies beat a hasty retreat or if congressional backing was not forthcoming for the full program. He wanted no military halfmeasures, he added. If a decision was made to respond to Chinese aggression, the Navy and Air Force would send their planes to bomb mainland military targets with atomic bombs. Above all else, the Pacific must remain an American lake.25 Pleased, Dulles went to work on the British, Australian, and New Zealand ambassadors on June 4. Already tied to the U.S. in the Australia-New ZealandUnited States (ANZUS) alliance, the latter two nations would not give support until Washington and London resolved their differences. British Ambassador Roger M. Makins asked a few polite questions, then told the Secretary of State he would report the conversation to the British cabinet. Subsequently, Admiral Carney attended the five power military talks in the middle of the month and was surprised to discover near unanimity that if the Chicoms launched ground and air attacks in Indochina, the U.S. should retaliate with atomic weapons. In fact, these military representatives believed that the Chinese Communists would probably react to a coalition intervention in Indochina by intervening themselves but would be intimidated to an unknown degree by American threat of nuclear weapons, and would press for a negotiated settlement if the U.S. then used those weapons against targets in China. The only substantial dissent came on the question as to how the Soviets would respond if the U.S. and its allies went to war with the Chinese.26 Eisenhower had no illusions about the consequences of a general nuclear conflict in the Far East and Europe. The U.S. and its allies would win but at devastating cost. On June 19 he told Ridgway, Twining, and a gathering of general officers at Quantico, Virginia that war with hydrogen bombs would result in terrific destruction. "I want you to carry this question home with you," he said. "Gain such a victory, and what do you do with it? Here would be a great area from the Elbe to Vladivostok and down through Southeast Asia torn up and destroyed without government, without its communication, just an area of starvation and disaster. I ask you what would the civilized world do about it? I repeat there is no victory in any war except through our imaginations, through our dedication, and through our work to avoid it."27 Considering the opinions expressed by top American military men throughout the remaining years of Eisenhower's presidency and on into the Kennedy administration, it is doubtful that the President's words had the desired

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effect. Most general officers considered total destruction of the Soviet Union and China, as well as substantial damage to Western Europe and other Allied countries, a necessary quid pro quo for ridding the world of the evil of Communism. Annihilating the two most dangerous enemies of the U.S. would have the added benefit of securing America's position as the world's economic, military, and political leader for decades, if not centuries, to come. Top military men like Radford and Twining, and many civilian officials besides, were convinced that a showdown with the Communists was bound to happen some day. They preferred it occur when the U.S. still had overwhelming nuclear superiority, not after the Soviets had caught up. On June 25, 1954 Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for his last conference with Eisenhower. Weakened by two strokes since December, he still had strength to warn the President in strident tones that Britain would never go to war over Indochina. He had been particularly alarmed by the results of American hydrogen bomb tests in March, he said. A description of the awesome effects of hydrogen explosions in a speech given in February by Representative Sterling W. Cole (R., New York), chairman of the JCAE, had shaken him to his soul. Although conceding that a general war could have been fought with atomic bombs, thermonuclear weaponry was simply too destructive and unpredictable. In fact, a country with one-tenth the force of H-bombs as another might well be able to prevail by sneak attack. To Eisenhower's assurance that the U.S. was still well ahead of the Soviets in nuclear technology, he gave a nod but did not change his opinion.28 CONCLUSION The main British concern in the Far East was defending colonies and Commonwealth states, not preventing the spread of Communism. Thus when the Geneva conference concluded an armistice in Vietnam, divided that country north and south between the Vietminh and Western-backed forces at the 17th parallel, and provided for elections in two years under international supervision, London gladly signed on. Eisenhower refused to bind the U.S. to the agreement, however. Under his and Dulles' leadership, the Manila Pact was signed on September 8, 1954 to form the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to resist armed attack and subversion in the region. Although the U.K. joined up along with France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines, Churchill and Eden were no more inclined to sanction war and use of atomic weapons over Indochina than before. American leaders were forced to conclude that any resistance to Communist Chinese aggression would begin and end with U.S. military power. Thus on July 23, after Chinese fighter planes shot down a British airliner near Hainan island, it was U.S. search planes from the Seventh Fleet that looked for survivors and fighter planes from U.S. carriers that shot down two Chinese

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planes and brought some semblance of security to the area. Dulles was angry that the British filed a diplomatic note of protest and did nothing more. He tried to get Eisenhower to agree to a policy of hot pursuit of Chinese planes, even to the point of invading airspace over China. The President agreed, but it was Dulles who had to follow up with Wilson to insure that orders to that effect were sent out to Honolulu.29 A definite change had occurred in Eisenhower's thinking in the eighteen months since he had taken office. As he told Syngman Rhee on July 27, he now feared that nuclear war would mean the end of civilization on the planet. Partly this was exaggeration to keep Rhee from involving the U.S. in another conflict on the Korean peninsula. Mainly it was genuine sentiment. In the crisis about to break out over islands controlled by the Chinese Nationalists off the coast of mainland China, the President would proceed cautiously. But the U.S. had already become far too committed to Chiang Kai-shek's government on Formosa to turn tail and run away.30

8

THE PRESIDENT VACILLATES The decision regarding Quemoy Island should be made in the light of our determination to resist the further spread of Communism. If we decide to resist such a limited aggression, we do risk an enlarged conflict. If we fail to resist this aggression, we commit the United States further to a negative policy which could result in a progressive loss of Free World strength to local aggression until or unless all-out conflict is forced upon us. — Arthur W. Radford, September 11, 1954'

In the Far East in the 1950s, U.S. policy adhered to the old Chinese proverb "Save a life and it is your responsibility forever." This was the stance on Korea where what had once been of no importance was now to be protected by resort to nuclear weapons. The U.S. would shortly take another step along the same wayward path with respect to Formosa (the Portuguese name for Taiwan) and the offshore islands. Ultimately, a lack of strategic discrimination would result in defeat in Vietnam. As early as March 22, 1949, the JCS declared Formosa not vital to U.S. national security. Citing a disparity between American military strength and the nations global obligations, they recommended no action, either diplomatic, economic, or military, to save the island from Communist takeover. Only in the event of general war might it be a good idea to seize the island as a base to launch attacks against the mainland. By December of that year, they amended their opinion only slightly to propose modest military assistance for the newly arrived Chiang Kai-shek regime, but Acheson blocked the initiative because nothing fundamental had changed to make Formosa of substantial strategic interest to Washington.2 Considerable sentiment did exist in Congress, however, to support the Chinese Nationalists in the wake of their ouster from the mainland. Republicans came increasingly to believe that the U.S. could not permit another Communist victory. In May 1950, Dulles thought the most suitable ground to make a stand was the island of Formosa. However, the North Korean attack across the 38th

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Parallel dictated that the Korean peninsula would be the place where the U.S. drew the line. As we have seen, Truman ordered the Seventh Fleet to insulate the Nationalists from Chicom attack and vice versa. Acheson then ably fended off British attempts to recognize the PRC's claim to the island and refused to make any concessions that would compromise the Nationalist government. By January 1951, frustrated that the U.S. had become engaged in a undeclared war against hundreds of thousands of Chinese Communists whose country they were not permitted to attack directly, the JCS pronounced Formosa a part of the Far East defense perimeter and of strategic importance to the U.S. They proposed to defend it with air and naval forces alone, leaving Chiang's forces to supply all ground troops. Eventually military advisors were deployed even to Quemoy, the largest offshore island under Nationalist control. CINCPAC Radford gained official responsibility for Formosa in November 1951.3 TROUBLE IN THE STRAITS As Secretary of State in 1953, Dulles calculated that Formosa in friendly hands threatened the mainland's central coastline so that the Chicoms could not commit all their forces to Korea to the north and Indochina to the south. In other words, the island's strategic importance arose from the need to help protect two areas that themselves were of marginal significance to the U.S. Although Radford, still CINCPAC, told Chiang in March 1953 he had no authority to participate in the formulation of joint U.S.-Formosa defense plans, his successor, Admiral Stump, petitioned the JCS in July to grant him authority to assist in the defense not only of Formosa but ten of the twenty-five offshore islands held by the Nationalists. Radford and his colleagues denied Stump's request but permitted him to work up OPPLAN 51-53, a contingency that assumed Stump would have authority in an emergency to strike at targets on the Chinese mainland with atomic bombs. CINCPAC's plan was ready by May 1954 as the crisis over Dienbienphu peaked.4 On a map of the Far East, Quemoy appears as a small speck off China's coast and well away from Formosa and its main island tributaries the Pescadores. Even more insignificant are the Tachen group to the north, but in the wake of the fall of Dienbienphu Eisenhower gave Seventh Fleet ships permission to visit those islands and approved hot pursuit of Chinese planes attacking the fleet. Three months later on August 18, anticipating further Communist aggression, Wilson requested the JCS render an opinion as to the importance of the offshore islands and their defensibility. Radford went to work, but so did Dulles, anxious to define a State Department position to head off what he expected to be an adventurous JCS paper. His senior advisors—Bowie, Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Robert D. Murphy, and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Livingston T. Merchant—objected strongly even to a defense of Formosa. They predicted that any commitment of

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U.S. prestige and forces to Chiang Kai-shek's government would build momentum to drag the U.S. deeper and deeper into the Nationalist-Communist conflict. They disputed the notion that Formosa was of importance to U.S. national security.5 On September 2, 1954, Radford and a majority of the JCS concluded that despite 78,000 troops already stationed on the offshore islands, the Nationalists would need U.S. assistance to defend them, probably including U.S. military forces. If the Communists launched a determined assault, U.S. planes would have to attack the mainland. Despite the risk involved, the JCS advised the President to commit publicly to the defense of Quemoy, Matsu, and the other islands because their loss would impair American prestige, cost the Nationalists tens of thousands of valuable troops, and thus weaken the free world's strategic position in the Far East. Only Ridgway dissented, insisting that the offshore islands were no more important to the U.S. Far East defense position than a spit in the ocean.6 On September 3, the Chicoms opened a massive artillery bombardment on Quemoy that took the life of many Nationalists and two Americans of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG). The next day Dulles cabled from Manila, where he was attending the signing of the SEATO pact, two questions for the JCS to consider before again debating the wisdom of defending the offshore islands. From the military point of view, was the defense of Quemoy substantially related to the defense of Formosa, and did the JCS consider Quemoy defensible by the Nationalists with American assistance? General Ridgway's response was no and yes. Even as the Seventh Fleet moved ships in to patrol the strait between Formosa and the mainland on September 5, he argued with Radford that Quemoy, while defensible with large commitments of Nationalist troops and American naval and air power, was in no way important to Formosa's defense. In fact, by committing to the offshore islands, the U.S. would be shifting forces dangerously away from the South Korea-Japan theater and running the risk of exposing this area to attack by the Soviets if general war came. Even the other Chiefs insisted that before committing to defend Quemoy, local U.S. commanders must be assured of freedom of action to retaliate directly against the mainland with atomic weapons. "In essence," Ridgway concluded, "the United States would be conferring upon a subordinate military commander the power of decision with regard to peace or war." That might result in nuclear war over territory not vital to American national security and only important for prestige reasons.7 On September 6, Nationalist planes and artillery struck hard at Chicom artillery batteries. Back in Washington, Admiral Radford left no doubt where he stood on the question of whether the time had come to give the Communists a bloody nose. "We need a victory," he wrote. "Ideally, we should like this occasion to take place on terms highly favorable to us—perhaps even on terms of our own making. Realistically, we know that there is little prospect of such a favorable combination of events coming to pass. It is considered, on the other

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hand, that supporting the defense of Quemoy offers a far better opportunity than we had at Dien Bien Phu and one worth considering." Specifically, he wanted the President to approve Stump's OPPLAN 51-53, including deployment of U.S. Air Force planes to Formosa to assist naval air elements. "The question of the use of atomic weapons would be presented [to the President] if and when the need arises, but with the understanding now that if essential to victory their use would be accorded."8 In effect, Radford wanted authorization in advance to use atomic weapons if the Chicoms attacked the offshore islands in overwhelming force. Not only Ridgway but most of the NSC reacted negatively at a special NSC meeting in Denver on September 7, 1954. But Radford rallied Carney and Twining to press Eisenhower for a public statement that the U.S. would defend the offshore islands even with nuclear weapons. Since the CIA estimated that Peking had on hand the 150,000 troops needed to storm and take Quemoy and that in a relatively short time enough air power could be transferred to the Amoy area opposite Quemoy to make things hot, time was pressing. Eisenhower did not feel the urgency. He knew that the Chicoms were desperately short of sealift and that their small fleet of antiquated destroyers, patrol boats, and fishing junks was no match for the powerful Seventh Fleet. Thus the crisis situation was somewhat illusionary, and he could afford to procrastinate to give Dulles time to work up secretly with the British a plan code-named ORACLE to arrange a cease-fire in the Formosa Straits. Under no circumstances was he inclined to grant Radford approval in advance to launch atomic attacks against the Chinese mainland. Like Truman, he was adamant against letting the nuclear trigger slip out of his hands.9 Through the balance of the year, Eisenhower permitted only defensive measures to be taken for the protection of Formosa and instructed Dulles that in exchange for a defense treaty between the U.S. and Formosa, Chiang Kaishek must accept an American veto over Nationalist offensive operations against the mainland. These talks continued until the U.S. signed such a treaty with Chiang's Republic of China (ROC) on December 2, 1954. The tense situation in the Formosa Straits would soon flare into violence again.10 DRAWING THE LINE The key questions for Eisenhower to decide was how much territory controlled by the Nationalists the U.S. was prepared to guarantee and with how much military power. On January 10, 1955, the Communists forced his hand with an air attack on the Tachen islands. Stump was ordered to restrain the Nationalists from retaliating until the President and his advisors had opportunity to consider their options, though the ever eager Chairman of the JCS wanted to send a wing of F-86 fighters to Formosa for Nationalist use. Before Eisenhower could decide what to do, eight days later Mao's troops stormed and took

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Ichiang, one of the Tachen group. Attacks on other offshore islands appeared imminent.11 At the NSC meeting on January 20, Dulles argued that the Nationalists should be pressured to pull out of the Tachens altogether and concentrate on defending the Quemoy and Matsu groups. He got an argument from Wilson, Humphrey, and Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Robert Cutler who saw Quemoy as a "hot spot" in the middle of Peking's backyard and insignificant to the defense of Formosa. Eisenhower thought that it was not just a question of where the line against Communist aggression should be drawn but when. As fighting in the Formosa Straits threatened to draw in American military power, it was the where of the matter that gnawed at him.12 As a precaution, he dispatched three more aircraft carriers to reinforce the Seventh Fleet. The same morning Dulles began working on congressional leaders with Radford's assistance to win their public support for a resolution of Congress. He put out the specious argument that loss of Quemoy and Matsu meant the fall of Formosa, then Japan, and the eventual retirement of American military forces all the way back to Hawaii and the West Coast. No one present contradicted him, but later in the evening, British Ambassador Makins listened with obvious skepticism to the prediction. He reminded Dulles of comments the Secretary of State had made to Eden in London on September 17, 1954, when the crisis had first broken, that Quemoy could not be held without use of atomic weapons. A projection of power into the Formosa Straits now, he added, would jeopardize the ORACLE cease-fire plan. Dulles assured Makins that when he had referred to atomic weapons, he had meant that the U.S. would have to resort to that extreme sanction only to stop an overwhelming attack. Now he believed that the U.S. would be forced to enter the fray only if Chicom assaults were so heavy as to pose a danger to Formosa itself.13 The entire mess had put Eisenhower in a bad temper. In an NSC meeting the next day, Humphrey's comment that it would be difficult explaining to the American public why the U.S. proposed to spend money to defend Quemoy and Matsu caused him to snap, "Look at a map!" Part of the President's ire was due to reluctance by congressional leaders to proclaim the joint resolution he and Dulles were pushing as a means to rally public support and impress the allies. Ultimately, he would have to give a speech on January 24, 1955 to coax out of Congress the Formosa Resolution of the 29th, stating that the President had authority to defend Formosa, the Pescadores, and "other territory" necessary for the defense of Formosa and the Pescadores if already in friendly hands. That other territory would not include the remaining Tachen islands, however, because Eisenhower prevailed upon a very angry Chiang Kai-shek to evacuate them with U.S. Navy assistance from February 7 to 12. He was relieved when Chiang did not request use of atomic bombs to hold Quemoy and Matsu. He issued express orders to the military that no nuclear weapons be utilized in response to Chicom interference with the Tachen evacuation without his direct authorization.14

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Meanwhile, Radford was wild again to take on Mao's masses. After a Special National Intelligence Estimate of January 25 warned that if the U.S. attacked the Chicoms the Soviets would probably intervene, he insisted during an NSC meeting two days later that tussling over the offshore islands would not mean general war in Asia. In fact, in his opinion Moscow and Peking were bluffing in the Formosa Straits because the Chicoms with their lack of seapower could not "get at us if we don't choose to be got at." They could only strike south into Indochina or renew hostilities in Korea. Certainly he was justified in his belief that the U.S. could project power into the South China Sea. By the last week of January, the U.S. had 4 carriers and 12 destroyers 100 miles north of Formosa and another carrier on the way. 45 F-86s had been deployed to Formosa as well, with another 30 soon to arrive. The President's order permitting the JCS to draw up target selections for an "enlarged atomic offensive" against the PRC seemed to indicate that Washington would soon be paying Peking back for Korea.15 But in a meeting with Radford on January 28, Eisenhower set limits to the force that could be used in fighting off Chicom air attacks that might occur as the Nationalists evacuated the Tachens. Local commanders might defend themselves but not retaliate against Chinese bases unless essential to the success of the operation and only against airfields positively identified as contributing forces to the attack. A single sortie from the mainland would not justify retaliation. Local commanders must first determine that the enemy's purpose was to launch further attacks to interdict the evacuation.16 Quemoy and Matsu were much more heavily garrisoned than had been Ichiang and could not be invaded without extensive mobilization of troops, air power, and most of all sealift capacity. Since Chicom weakness in that latter category persisted, Dulles had time to revive the ORACLE plan in February. Churchill and Eden turned him down once again, however, and he had to come home on February 16 to explain to Republican leaders of Congress that the British did not view Formosa as strategically important and that if nuclear war broke out in the Far East, they believed that the ultimate repercussion would be Soviet retaliation against Western Europe, in particular the British Isles. Their participation in the Manila Pact had not changed that opinion one iota.17 After visiting Formosa in March and finding the situation more tense than ever, Dulles came to the conclusion that the U.S. must finally and unilaterally draw the line against further Communist encroachments. He was able to persuade Eisenhower to agree that the U.S. would defend Quemoy and Matsu with atomic weapons, though not hydrogen bombs, which were now beginning to be carried by SAC bombers. After setbacks in China, Korea, and Indochina, if the U.S. now let the Chicoms take the offshore islands, the impact on Formosa and the rest of free Asia would be devastating, he argued. Since the U.S. had too few planes and ground forces in the Far East to fight the Chicoms by conventional means, the military would have to use atomic weapons. Neither Eisenhower nor Dulles could explain specifically how losing a few little islands

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hard against the Chinese coastline would translate into an invasion of Formosa. They believed that even in the absence of a blue water navy, Peking would somehow find a way to overthrow the Nationalist government.18 Radford was very pleased by Eisenhower's decision. He and the military had worked hard to convince Dulles that only atomic bombs would be effective against targets on the China mainland, in particular airfields, gun emplacements, and railroad centers. At the NSC meeting on March 10, 1955, he declared that the time had come to prove that atomic bombs could be used despite howls of protest from world opinion. Since the U.S. military force structure was built around nuclear weapons, it was inevitable that Washington would have no choice in the end but to go atomic. Dulles had begun to have second thoughts, however. He worried that a backlash in Western Europe would imperil ratification of the agreement made on October 23, 1954 to bring the West Germans into NATO as of May 5, 1955. In a meeting with Eisenhower and the JCS the next day, he lobbied for a forty-to-sixty day delay before using atomic weapons in the Formosa Straits no matter what the Chicoms did in the interim. Eisenhower agreed that the best scenario would be for the Nationalists to defend Quemoy and Matsu themselves, and for the U.S. to intervene at need with conventional air power and atomic weapons in that order. Although he did not confess it, in truth he had little liking for a confrontation with Peking in the Formosa Straits.19 Neither did he want policy papers interfering with his judgment for or against use of atomic weapons. Cutler had reminded him prior to the session with the Secretary of State and JCS about the interpretation of NSC 162/2, paragraph 39b the President had approved back in January 1954 that no advance authorization to use atomic weapons had been given to the military. That policy was now superseded by NSC 5501 as Basic National Security Policy, specifically paragraph 34 which held that as fear of nuclear war grew, the U.S. and its allies would never allow themselves to be in a position of choosing between "(a) not responding to local aggression and (b) applying force in a way which our own people or our allies would consider entails undue risk of nuclear devastation." But when Cutler proposed pinning down the JCS as to whether use of atomic weapons was really necessary in the variety of scenarios they had discussed (ranging from renewed Chicom artillery bombardment of Quemoy to invasion of the island to an assault on Formosa itself) and how the JCS intended to use atomic bombs and in what geographic areas, Eisenhower told him in effect to mind his own business. He would decide himself what to do if and when the Chicoms acted. He would take advice from the responsible officials from the JCS, DOD, and State Department and no one else. However, he did agree that the interpretation applied to paragraph 39b of NSC 162/2 denying advance authorization to the military to use atomic weapons would apply to paragraph 34 of NSC 5501.20 Although rebuking Cutler for interjecting himself into the province of the JCS, Eisenhower got to thinking that it might very well be a good idea to seek

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a second opinion before the fur started flying in the Formosa Straits. Accordingly, he sent his staff secretary Colonel Andrew J. Goodpaster to meet with Stump at Pearl Harbor on March 13. Stump's take on the offshore islands differed significantly from Radford's. The critical time of crisis, CINCPAC said, would probably end on March 25 because thereafter the Nationalists on Quemoy would be so well dug in that they could stop everything Peking threw at them, barring a major redeployment of air units to the Amoy area. Then and only then would atomic weapons be required, but the U.S. would have ample time to detect the buildup.21 Anxious, therefore, to buy time, the President decided to warn the Chicoms publicly that they were playing with nuclear fire. He authorized Dulles to say at a press conference on March 12 that the U.S. would retaliate with tactical atomic bombs if Peking stirred up trouble in the Straits and confirmed at his own press conference on March 16 that Formosa and the Pescadores were protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Although he did not mention the offshore islands specifically, hanging in the air was an implied threat that the Chicoms would invade Quemoy and Matsu at their peril. He told the world thaj the U.S. stood ready to use atomic weapons "just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else."22 Meanwhile, Radford and the Joint Staff continued working on the atomic attack plan. They intended to respond to an invasion of the offshore islands with bombing of airfields and POL sites near the major cities of Shanghai and Canton where millions of people lived. Chicom strength between these two locations was estimated at 550,000 troops and 720 planes, of which 445 were jets, operating out of 31 airfields, including 6 within range of Quemoy. The Nationalists, on the other hand, had a total of 422,000 ground troops, of which 16,000 where dug in on Matsu and 65,000 on Quemoy, with 605 planes, of which about 210 were jets. It was contemplated that if the initial atomic blitz did not bring the Chicoms to their senses, wider atomic strikes would have to be made on the mainland, including by SAC bombers from Guam, to pound Chicom IL-28 bomber bases. LeMay assured Twining that the wing of 30 B36s already stationed on that island was ready for immediate use against targets that had already been selected and assigned to bomber crews. An additional SAC wing of 30 bombers could be deployed to Guam at any time. All that was needed now was a provocation.23 REVERSING COURSE Throughout the crisis, the U.S. suffered from its usual lack of hard intelligence as to the exact size of the Chicom buildup and could only guess at Mao's intentions. Even so, Radford told the NSC on March 24 that the U.S. had to assume the worst. Although reassured by Eisenhower's agreement that the U.S. could not take out Chicom artillery emplacements without atomic

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weapons, he continued to press the President over the next few days to make the all-important public announcement committing American forces to the defense of Quemoy and Matsu. He also asked for further preparations to back up that threat and authorization for Stump to assume without restriction in his contingency plans that atomic weapons would definitely be used in the event of hostilities. Ridgway continued to dissent, repeating stubbornly that the offshore islands were in no way vital to the U.S. and that the Seventh Fleet could defend them in any event without resort to atomic weapons. Radford insisted that the crisis must result in a final reckoning with Peking and urged that if Washington even suspected Peking of preparing to launch a Pearl Harbor type attack on the Seventh Fleet, the President order Stump and LeMay to strike first. Disinclined, Eisenhower wrote in his diary, "most of the calamities that we anticipate really never occur. "24 A military man most of his life, Eisenhower gave the JCS tremendous leeway in making conventional force dispositions and issuing directives. He became furious with Admiral Carney, however, when the CNO made comments to reporters on the night of March 24 that there would probably be war in the Formosa Straits by April 15. Headlines to that effect the morning of March 26 caused Democrats in Congress to threaten retreat from the Formosa Resolution if U.S. intentions in the Straits changed from defensive to offensive. The President was able to hold bipartisan support on Capital Hill but resolved to replace Carney at his two-year anniversary on July 1, 1955. Ridgway would be replaced at the same time. He had long been frustrated by conventional force cutbacks and unhappy about the Massive Retaliation strategy.25 Now that the British had refused to help revive the ORACLE idea, Dulles was feeling impotent diplomatically. In a skull session of his top State Department advisors on March 28, 1955, he tried to dream up alternatives to use of atomic weapons, including sending a Marine division to Formosa and a naval blockade, but inevitably came back to the central question of whether the U.S. should strike with atomic bombs at POL dumps, bridges, rail lines, and airfields the length and breadth of China, or limit its action to a narrow defense of Quemoy and Matsu. What he feared most, he said, was that any limited defense would just invite the Chicoms to try again later when they were stronger. It might be better to obliterate them once and for all while the U.S. held such overwhelming strength. On the other hand, strictly from a military point of view, the U.S. could not afford to splurge its "limited" supply of atomic weapons and so undermine the entire balance of power with the Soviet Union.26 Somebody had apparently forgotten to inform the Secretary of State that the U.S. now had in its arsenal more than 2,000 nuclear weapons. Or perhaps Dulles was dissembling to prepare the ground for a withdrawal from his earlier strong stand that the U.S. had to draw the line against Communist aggression at the offshore islands. In any event, Robertson advocated retaliation with atomic bombs against Amoy or Canton so long as the attack produced the greatest effect. To which Bowie came up with the suggestion, almost certainly

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sarcastic, that the U.S. should serve notice to the Chicoms that if they stormed the offshore islands, the U.S. would from time to time drop atomic bombs there to give no advantage to the capture. Horrified, Dulles retorted that such rash action would kill innocent fishermen, not Communist soldiers. Quemoy and Matsu had military value in the hands of the Nationalists as a base to return to the mainland but not as a staging area for Peking's forces to invade Formosa.27 Pleased that the idiocy of using atomic bombs to defend worthless ground was apparently sinking in with the Secretary of State, Bowie forwarded to Dulles a CIA estimate that the proposed JCS plan would kill between 12 and 14 million Chinese. Allen Dulles gave Eisenhower's Press Secretary James C. Hagerty the same information on March 29, and either Hagerty or John Foster Dulles undoubtedly told Eisenhower. The next day at a briefing for House leaders, the President and his Secretary of State repeated the fabrication Dulles had dreamed up that "any appreciable use" of atomic weapons would severely diminish the stockpile. The President admitted that even at this late date, after seven months of crisis in the Formosa Straits, he was undecided as to whether the U.S. would intervene militarily to save Quemoy and Matsu.28 Sensing the support of his civilian leadership slipping away, Radford briefed the NSC on March 31 on the JCS atomic strike plan. To Dulles' protest that use of so many atomic bombs would result in widespread death by radioactive fall-out, he responded that "precision" weapons would be used to keep casualties modest and that, except in one or two instances, no large cities or concentrations of civilian populations were near proposed target sites. Troubled, Eisenhower expressed the hope that the great military might of the U.S. would give Peking pause and so obviate the necessity of the JCS plan. Stassen attempted to buck the President up by declaring that the key to deterring Communist aggression was making the Chicoms clearly understand that the U.S. would use atomic weapons if necessary.29 Over the next few days, Eisenhower's resolve to be the second President in history to use atomic weapons dissipated entirely. When reconnaissance flights over Chinese coastal areas failed to show an immediate invasion threat, he decided to reduce the force of 10,000 American troops Radford proposed to send to Formosa to man air defense and anti-aircraft batteries and train Nationalist troops. He then revealed to Hagerty on April 4 that he had definitely decided to downplay the crisis. Contrary to his previous opinion that Soviet mischief was behind all Communist provocations everywhere in the world, Moscow appeared to be trying to discourage Peking from testing American power. Although the U.S. could undoubtedly thwart an invasion attempt of the offshore islands with an air-atomic blitz, in his opinion the Chicoms would simply try again some time in the future when they were stronger and possibly atomic-capable. Instead, he wanted Chiang to look upon Quemoy, Matsu, and the other islands as mere outposts to be held by scaled-down garrison forces—5,000 troops on Quemoy, 1,000 on Matsu—who would put up a suicide defense and make the Chicoms pay heavily for their victory. In the aftermath,

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world opinion would rally to the side of the Nationalists.30 Eisenhower confirmed his decision to Dulles in a memo the next day. He wrote that the U.S. would not come to the defense of the offshore islands with nuclear weapons but would only assist the Nationalists to defend their outposts. Making strategic sense at long last, he declared that since loss of Quemoy and Matsu would not weaken the free world in any respect, the full array of American military might would only be unfurled to defend Formosa. Furthermore, he had decided upon an inducement to persuade Chiang to evacuate all the offshore islands. He would pledge to interdict sea-lanes along China's coast from Swatow at the southern end of the Formosa Straits to Wenchow at the north for all contraband and war-making materials until Peking made a public announcement disavowing any intention to take Formosa. In effect, the Seventh Fleet would take the place of Quemoy and Matsu as a defensive barricade against enemy buildup of supplies for an invasion of Formosa. American naval and air power would demonstrate the irrevocable commitment of the U.S. government to the security of Chiang's regime.31 Bowie wanted the President to announce the decision not to defend the offshore islands publicly. Instead, Eisenhower sent Radford and Robertson to break the news to Chiang in Taipei, the Nationalist capital, and explain the sealane interdiction idea and why Quemoy and Matsu should be evacuated. Meeting with the generalissimo on April 25, they emphasized that the President wanted to avoid a situation that might lead to war with atomic weapons. Radford went so far as to allege that in order to guarantee defense of the islands, the U.S. would have to strike first against mainland targets. The result would be too many civilian casualties and negative fall-out from world opinion, which would jeopardize U.S. base rights in allied countries. American ability to battle the Soviets, the principle enemy, could be severely impeded. Predictably, Chiang declared that he could not abandon Quemoy and Matsu without losing the respect of his people. He would, however, abide by the commitment he had made under the U.S.-Formosa defense treaty of the previous December to obey the President's directives against launching offensive operations against the mainland. He was grateful at least that the U.S. would continue to supply logistical support to the offshore island garrisons.32 If Chiang could not strike back against a Chicom attack, he could prepare a savage defense. From this time until the second Formosa Straits crisis of 1958, he continued to strengthen the garrisons and their positions on the islands so that fully one-quarter of Nationalist ground strength was eventually committed. Despite this buildup, had Mao learned at any time that Eisenhower now considered Quemoy and Matsu no more than expendable outposts—like Malta for the British in World War II, Eisenhower liked to put it—almost without doubt the Communist leader would have ordered an invasion. Instead, Chou En Lai let it be known at the Bandung conference in Jakarta, Indonesia on April 23, 1955 that his government was willing to negotiate the fate of the offshore islands. Despite press speculation two days later that the Radford-

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Robertson mission was intended to pressure Chiang into giving up Quemoy and Matsu, Mao apparently never tumbled to the fact that Eisenhower had pulled the rug out from under Chiang.33 Subsequently, in May the PRC released four American fliers held from the time of the Korean War. Chou added to the Bandung peace feeler by stating on May 17 that Peking would seek the liberation of Formosa only by peaceful means. Now confident that the enemy was running scared, Dulles tried to reinforce Chicom trepidations by sending a message through the Indian U.N. delegation in June that the U.S. intended to use nuclear weapons in a war with the PRC. All China would be devastated and 600 million Chinese left destitute, he warned. Peking had better have sense enough not to try anything.34 CONCLUSION A leading scholar of the Eisenhower presidency has called Eisenhower's performance during the first Formosa Straits crisis a "tour de force."35 It was hardly that. Hesitant and indecisive, Eisenhower nearly let himself be maneuvered by events and advisors into a war with atomic weapons against the PRC over insignificant pieces of island real estate. Not even Formosa was truly vital to American national security, though a case could be made that as part of the Far East island defense chain it would be militarily valuable if war came. The President's failure to recognize early on that Quemoy and Matsu should not be defended, and his troubling inability to fathom that military forces, particularly nuclear weapons of any sort, should be reserved to defend vital interests only, could have entangled the U.S. in another Far East bloodletting. Considering the long-term consequences of this strategic myopia, unfortunate is the mildest adjective that can be applied to the outcome. As for the overall hostility between Communism and the free world, Admiral Stump's remarks in a telegram to Carney on April 8, 1955 put it best. The Communists would not enter into a major war until they were militarily prepared and confident they could emerge victorious. Until such time as they were, the U.S. could overreach in crises like the Formosa Straits and not get its fingers burned. However, such imprudence would catch up with Potomac strategists in the end, especially with Soviet nuclear power increasing and Nikita S. Khrushchev, the new strong man in the Kremlin, willing to take chances. The President had to continue the American nuclear buildup so that if and when a showdown did occur, the U.S. would prevail.36

9 MUSCLING UP We are now living in an age when it can no longer be an issue of morality that a nation must receive the first physical blow before it can respond with force. In fact, the first blow can now signal the end of a conflict rather than the beginning. Therefore certain enemy action short of war should constitute sufficient threat to the non-aggressor nation that it would be justified in launching direct attack at least on enemy strategic air power to forestall its own disaster. — Curtis E. LeMay, July 16, 19551

At Quantico, Virginia on July 16, 1955, Curtis LeMay boasted to an audience of DOD civilian and military officials that with only 12 hours alert time, he could launch 180 intercontinental bombers to attack the Soviet Union. With as little as three days alert, he could launch all 1,000 bombers under his command. If other steps were taken, such as allocating a larger percentage of the nuclear stockpile to SAC, permitting loading of bombs at storage sites with first alert of an enemy preparation to attack, deploying complete weapons with units rotated overseas, and building more bases for bomber dispersal in the U.S., Canada, and Greenland, SAC could penetrate the enemy radar line in just six hours from takeoff in the American Zone of Interior. He made clear that he was fully in favor of a doctrine of preemptive war to defeat the USSR.2 After Eisenhower authorized dispersal of high-yield bombs (above 600 kilotons) to SAC that year and because Soviet ability to strike back was in grave doubt, a preemptive strike almost certainly would have succeeded. Their fleet of medium bombers still did not have an aerial refueling capability, and ballistic missiles their scientists were developing, particularly intercontinental range rockets, were several years from deployment. Moscow did possess enough nuclear firepower to ravage Western Europe, however. While struggling to develop a credible threat to the American homeland, Kremlin leaders could have responded to sneak attack by SAC with a nuclear holocaust over NATO cities. LeMay could not guarantee that the allies would survive a war.

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PREPARING FOR MASSIVE RETALIATION Eisenhower's determination to cut the defense budget gave impetus to the movement to slash conventional forces and rely overwhelmingly on nuclear weapons, including tactical atomic warheads, to fight limited wars. In December 1954, MC 48—The Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next Few Years—would come before the NAC. However, public statements by SACEUR Alfred M. Gruenther and his deputy British general Sir Bernard L. Montgomery that atomic bombs would be used in war again raised the issue of Britain's right of consultation. In the House of Commons, Churchill evaded a question about whether authority for NATO use of atomic bombs had already been transferred from political officials to military officers. He encouraged Eden to pursue the government's concerns privately with the Americans.3 On December 4 and again four days later, Makins met with Dulles. Eden was proposing that the U.S., Britain, and Canada first come to agreement as to SACEUR's authority to use nuclear weapons, then present a unified front to the other NATO members. In principle, all would acknowledge that civilian authorities retained ultimate decision-making power for nuclear weapons. However, in a crisis the issue would be decided informally and at the highest levels. On the diplomatic front, meanwhile, NATO would approach the Soviets with a proposal to outlaw atomic weapons use. Dulles' initial reaction was that France should be included in the key triumvirate instead of Canada and that Germany should be added to make a foursome in a year's time. Further, he thought that the NAC should not be consulted at all. Since MC 48 was basically a war plan which the military did not have automatic right to implement, it need not be submitted for NATO approval. Rather, he would discuss the matter personally with Eden and French Foreign Minister Pierre Mendes-France before the NAC meeting. Under no circumstances did the U.S. government want SACEUR's authority for using nuclear weapons subject to an elaborate machinery within the North Atlantic Council. Neither did he have any use for Eden's idea about making a deal with Moscow to remove the atomic option from both sides. That would result in an "atomic stalemate" in which the Soviets could attack unreservedly with conventional forces while NATO, hopelessly outgunned, would not be able to stop them.4 Eisenhower thoroughly agreed. The U.S. must retain freedom of action to use nuclear weapons if American forces were threatened, he said. That included some latitude for SACEUR to make decisions quickly in an emergency. The British and French must have no illusions that they had a veto over action essential for American security or the security of its armed forces. If the British pushed their plan before the NAC, the U.S. should make clear that "insofar as NATO is concerned the United States reserves the right instantly to use atomic weapons in event of enemy attack should the circumstances, in the view of the

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U.S. government, be such as preclude the delay inherent in obtaining concurrence of each of its NATO allies."5 Radford had sought authority in advance for CINCFE in Korea and CINCPAC over the Formosa Straits to use atomic weapons against the Chinese Communists and would do so again in the spring as the offshore islands crisis reached its peak. Eisenhower had refused to acquiesce and would remain opposed in future Far East crises. However, where Western Europe was concerned he held a different view, not only because he knew Gruenther well from wartime service in Europe and afterward but because of the dangerous situation that might develop if the Soviets launched a general offensive against NATO, including a nuclear barrage. If restrained from responding with all weapons at their disposal, American and NATO forces might be overrun and annihilated. Tactical nuclear weapons might in the process be captured or destroyed. Since in the fog of war, stable communications between the President and Gruenther could not be insured, some provision had to be considered for emergency use at SACEUR's discretion. Even if it was Eisenhower's intention to respond automatically to Soviet aggression in Europe with general war, a policy of predelegation of authority to use nuclear weapons made sense, if under very narrow conditions. At this juncture, however, no such predelegation authority existed. At the NAC meeting in Paris on December 16, 1954, Dulles attempted to get Eden and Mendes-France to agree that MC 48, as a war plan, did not require formal approval. The political problem of authority to use nuclear weapons would have to be worked out in weeks, not hours, he argued. It would be unwise to hold up SACEUR's planning process in the meantime. Unconvinced, the British and French foreign ministers insisted that MC 48 be submitted for NAC review the next day. A compromise was worked out whereby the war plan was approved but with governments reserving their right to determine ultimately whether nuclear weapons would be used.6 Meanwhile, the hard line Radford was taking toward the offshore islands crisis spilled over into debates about long-term U.S. strategy. He complained that NSC 5440, which would become NSC 5501 the next year and replace NSC 162/2 as Basic National Security Policy, was far too defensive/reactive in nature. It emphasized strengthening the economies of free world nations as well as Allied military power but proposed to balance the need for retaining freedom of action on use of nuclear weapons with the desirability of maintaining Allied cooperation. The Chairman of the JCS and his colleagues wanted to revise the document to "reflect throughout the greater urgency of the situation, define concretely the conditions which it is the aim of our security policy to create, and direct the formulation of courses of action designed to achieve the basic objective." In essence, the JCS wanted to lean hard on the Soviets during the period of U.S. nuclear superiority with an ultimate goal of overthrowing Communist governments in Eastern Europe. They saw little hope in negotiations so long as the Soviets remained an aggressive, expansionist state.

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Ridgway's support for Radford's tough stance was bought with a promise by his colleagues to support more conventional forces to go along with the burgeoning strategic weaponry.7 That was contrary to Eisenhower's New Look philosophy and far too risky for his taste. He told Republican leaders on December 13, 1954 and a bipartisan gathering the next day that the advent of hydrogen bombs in quantity necessitated a new kind of thinking and strategy. In the force structure, there would be fewer ground forces, more guided missiles, and a bigger reserve system in case quick mobilization was required. But fundamentally, his idea of Massive Retaliation was that the U.S. would "blow the hell out of them in a hurry if they start anything." The U.S. would not attack the Soviets first.8 On January 5, 1955, Eisenhower gave his support to NSC 5501. The final version approved two days later stated that the U.S. and its allies had "no foreseeable prospect of stopping the growth of Soviet nuclear capabilities and of reducing Soviet armed strength" except by negotiation or military action, but the U.S. specifically rejected the concept of preventive war. Ridgway, Twining, and Carney attempted to insert language into the document in favor of a "balanced forces concept" to meet Communist aggression in all its forms, whether nuclear, conventional, or unconventional (guerrilla), but this was opposed by Dulles, Humphrey, and others as too expensive and not necessary. Eisenhower professed not to care what words were printed in the paper. It was all semantics to him, he said.9 TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION Eisenhower had now twice rejected the idea of preventive war. However, the prospect of ballistic missiles that could strike targets in the American heartland in just thirty minutes after launch made the issue much less clear-cut. To prevail in a nuclear war, military commanders might have to attack first, as LeMay believed, or at least respond instantaneously upon report of Soviet nuclear attack. This doctrine of preemptive warfare gained even more adherents as nuclear warheads were reduced in size to fit onto the tips of ballistic missiles. Both sides saw the danger/opportunity in the technological revolution and accelerated research and development efforts. Operation CASTLE bore fruit for the U.S. by testing hydrogen warheads of only 9,000 pounds. A further advance was sealed-pit weapons, first deployed on Genie anti-missile missiles in mid-1955, which eliminated the necessity of storing warheads separate from the high-explosive detonating system and the time-consuming mating process that slowed launch time. But it was upon hearing a preliminary report in late November 1954 by the Technological Capabilities Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee, otherwise known as the Killian Committee because it was chaired by Special Presidential Assistant James R. killian Jr., that the Soviets already had an active missile

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program that Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for development of two intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and two intercontinental range ballistic missiles (ICBMs). He also approved construction of the U-2 spy plane which would fly well above Soviet fighter altitudes and take pictures of the earth below with a special camera developed by Edmund Land, as well as strengthening of the U.S. continental defense system with an early warning and detection network to alert air defenses and SAC to a surprise Soviet attack. However, the Killian report vastly overestimated the Soviet threat. AEC commissioner Murray was one of the few to protest that the U.S. lead in strategic forces was gigantic and that the President could afford to declare a one-year nuclear test moratorium to stop the arms race. But Murray's timing—he wrote the President on March 14, 1955 in the midst of the Formosa Straits crisis—was bad, and Eisenhower did not yet have national technical means of evaluating the Soviet threat. The preponderance of opinion within the administration told him to assume the worst.10 Although the test moratorium and nuclear arms control issues would return repeatedly to the world stage, not until John F. Kennedy pushed for a limited ban for atmospheric nuclear tests was any agreement concluded with the Soviets. Arms control negotiations did not bear fruit until the 1970s when the Soviets achieved rough parity with the U.S. in strategic forces. By then, the cost of maintaining tens of thousands of nuclear warheads pressured both sides to deal. In 1955 events seemed to require greater spending on the American nuclear arsenal, not less. On May Day in Moscow, American intelligence agents watched a flyover of new Soviet bombers, Bisons and Bears, which then secretly swung around and flew over again. This gave rise to a CIA estimate of May 17 that the Soviets had twenty of each and fears that they were building a massive long-range bomber force to threaten SAC. A month later, a National Security Agency radar station in Turkey tracked a ballistic missile test over the central Soviet Union. Although a National Intelligence Estimate of June 14 predicted Kremlin leaders would still avoid war for fear of nuclear retaliation, intelligence officials believed the Soviet strategic buildup would create pressure on Allied governments to appease the USSR, even to the point of neutrality in the event of general war. It was also contemplated that the Soviets would take advantage of world fear about nuclear conflict to push local wars, as in Indochina, in the expectation that the allies would pressure the U.S. not to escalate to confrontation. At a time when American strategic power waxed, the balance appeared to be swinging in favor of the Soviets.11 Efforts to prepare for a nuclear showdown with the Soviets were partly to blame for this misperception. Operation TEACUP in Nevada in mid-February 1955 caused alarm from Nebraska to New Jersey as upper air currents and rain spread minimal amounts of fall-out over a swath of territory. Then an ambitious NATO war exercise in June called CARTE BLANCHE caused a political uproar after press reports that 335 simulated atomic bombs had struck 100 targets in Germany, killed 1.7 million people, wounded twice that number, and resulted in unknown casualties by fall out. Radford was so concerned that unnerved

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Allied governments would attempt to restrict American freedom of action to use nuclear weapons that he protested Eisenhower's order to further disperse the stockpile overseas. On the other hand, the Chairman of the JCS continued to press upon the President the rollback option put forward two years earlier by Project SOLARIUM. After reviewing three-day Operation ALERT in mid-June, which simulated a Soviet nuclear attack on 53 American cities, Eisenhower had even less enthusiasm for aggressive action. The result of the exercise was 8.5 million "dead," another 8 million hurt, and 25 million homeless. That kind of staggering damage, the President told the Cabinet, would require the government to impose severe marshal law to mobilize surviving Americans to fight all-out and win the war. In the process, individual freedoms would be lost.12 In August the Soviets finally exploded a true hydrogen bomb. With their apparent lead in missile technology, it seemed they would be first to mount a thermonuclear warhead on an IRBM or even ICBM. Eisenhower responded by ordering the American missile programs speeded up. However, on September 24 he suffered a heart attack in Denver and was confined to the Army hospital there for the better part of two months. He missed all Cabinet and NSC meetings during this period and for a time believed that he would be unable to run for a second term. Fortunately, no great crisis arose that required his attention. A Chicom-Nationalist air battle over the Formosa Straits portended trouble in October but did not get out of hand once American officials pressured Chiang not to strike back at airfields on the mainland.13 ARMS CONTROL VS. NUCLEAR BUILDUP What Eisenhower had feared in late summer 1953 when he had written Dulles that the U.S. faced the prospect of an uncontrolled nuclear arms race was coming to pass. Within the administration, two basic positions developed for dealing with the situation. Radford, the military, Dulles, and many other administration officials favored acceleration of the American nuclear buildup. Harold Stassen, now the President's advisor on arms control issues, pushed negotiations. At the Big Four Summit Meeting in Geneva July 18-23, 1955, Eisenhower had already proposed that the U.S. and Soviet Union exchange blueprints of their military establishment and agree to what he called "Open Skies" aerial inspection, but this initiative came to nothing. A Big Four foreign ministers meeting October 27 through November 16 failed to resolve any outstanding East-West issues. After Eisenhower recovered from his heart attack, the debate was joined again within the American government. Stassen brought a proposal before the NSC on February 7, 1956 to eliminate from Soviet and American arsenals all hydrogen bombs. However, Dulles charged that the Soviets were using fear of nuclear war to stir up enthusiasm for superficial panaceas like the "ban the bomb" movement, and Radford charged that Moscow was blowing smoke from

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the peace pipe to obscure a secret buildup to wipe out the American nuclear lead. The JCS Chairman went on to propose at the NSC meeting on February 27 that NSC 5602, the new draft of Basic National Security Policy, blur the line between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons so that the military could use them defensively in local wars as well as offensively in general war. In essence he wanted official predelegation of authority by the President so that U.S. military commanders could preempt the Soviets with nuclear attacks if they felt themselves and their nuclear forces threatened. While agreeing that from a strictly military point of view what Radford said made sense, Eisenhower decided that political aspects of the problem, especially the need for allied support for U.S. actions, ruled out unrestrained use of nuclear weapons. Dulles endorsed the President's point of view but drew a distinction between general war and other military operations. If it came down to a choice between providing the military with the flexibility they needed to use nuclear weapons automatically and retaining Allied support, he favored the first alternative in the event of general war and the second for lesser conflicts. Although Eisenhower decided to postpone a decision on the exact wording of NSC 5602 until after a further report by the JCS, he spoke in favor of language suggested by Deputy Secretary of Defense Reuben B. Robertson Jr. The U.S., Robertson said, should consult allies before making a final decision to use nuclear, chemical, bacteriological, and radiological weapons so long as "an attack on U.S. forces is not involved." That would leave room for SACEUR's predelegated authority to use tactical nuclear weapons in an emergency.14 The President did not wish, as the Secretary of State had done, to distinguish between peripheral conflicts and general war. However, when he remarked that if the Communists attacked in Korea he intended to respond on the same basis as if the Soviets invaded Western Europe, he opened a pandora's box which other members of the NSC wanted to explore. What would be his decision, Dulles asked, if the Vietminh attacked South Korea? Would he order a nuclear attack on Peking? No, Eisenhower responded, but the U.S. would immediately bomb bases in China which were supporting the Vietminh aggression. After Allen Dulles asked about Communist aggression in Laos and the President replied that he was not inclined to intervene there, the Secretary of State reminded him that under the terms of the SEATO treaty the U.S. was obligated to do just that. Humphrey objected that it was not possible for the U.S. to fight protracted little wars. If the U.S. intervened, it must be with determination to clean up the whole mess in short order. Stassen, who had already cautioned about the "terrible repercussions" if the U.S. used nuclear weapons a second time against the colored peoples of Asia, now warned that if the free world believed the U.S. capable of responding to aggression only with nuclear weapons, Allied support would evaporate. But Radford retorted that the NSC had two years earlier adopted a policy of unrestricted buildup of nuclear weaponry and that their use "would become accepted throughout the world just as soon as people could lay their hands on them." He wanted to respond to

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Communist aggression everywhere with the ultimate sanction.15 Two weeks later, the Chairman of the JCS was ready to make his most determined pitch yet for a hardline approach. In a memo of March 12, 1956 which he handed to the President the next day, he painted what Eisenhower called "a very dark picture" of the future. The U.S. needed to pursue vigorous policies to show the world American determination to act, he said. "Our national policy must not include the requirement that our 'major Allies' always concur in our determination to oppose aggression." Of particular concern was a prediction by the intelligence community that the Soviets would deploy lowyield IRBMs with a range of 1,400 miles by 1957 or even earlier, IRBMs with high-yield warheads with range of 1,600 to 1,800 nautical miles by 1958-59, and ICBMs by 1960-61. Until long-range ballistic missiles were perfected for deployment in the U.S., Washington could only counter with deployment of IRBMs on Allied territory, especially Britain. That would further complicate the issue of consultation on use of nuclear weapons. Radford wanted the President to set a precedent that Allied restrictions would not interfere with predelegation authority for American military commanders. He wanted Eisenhower to agree at long last to a policy of using nuclear weapons around the globe to counter Communist aggression.16 The President still demurred. What he wanted, he told Radford, was Pentagon help to cut the budget by eliminating some of the multiple designs and programs currently under way for bomber and missile production. Radford answered that such an economy move would only be possible if the President could guarantee the military use of nuclear weapons in future wars, even local conflicts. At a philosophical impasse with his JCS Chairman, Eisenhower approved NSC 5602/1 on March 15. Although it included language on possible use of nuclear weapons in local aggressions even to the point of risking general war, he told the JCS on March 30 that he would make a commitment to use nuclear weapons only in two explicit scenarios: general war with the Soviets and as an automatic defense measure for air defense interceptions by Genie and other nuclear-tipped anti-missile missiles.17 Radford did not give up. By May he had the upper hand in the policy debate in part because Stassen concocted an unworkable plan for the U.N. to control a standing force of atomic weapons to enforce world peace, in part because Humphrey, Eisenhower's most important economic advisor, had become convinced that relying on nuclear weapons to stop local aggressions would justify ground force cutbacks and save money. But Radford only dangled the carrot, insisting that in exchange for radically reducing Army forces and reorganizing them into so-called pentomic units the President must commit to use nuclear weapons to defend NATO, Korea, Formosa, even Iran, which was demanding a large, U.S.-financed army to fend off possible Soviet aggression. Eisenhower would not do so. For one thing, the Koreans and Chinese Nationalists did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons because of their inherent destructiveness, he told the NSC on May 17. For another, the U.S.

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would never again involve itself in a small war beyond deploying a few Marine battalions or Army units. American air and naval power must be relied upon to back indigenous forces fighting Communist aggression, for example, in South Vietnam. Of course if there ever was another Korea-size war, he would certainly authorize use of atomic weapons. But as for Iran, since only the Soviets and not their satellites could attack that country, general war would immediately result and a large, U.S.-financed army would not be needed.18 MASSIVE RETALIATION VS. FLEXIBLE FORCES Radford won friends in the Treasury Department and Bureau of the Budget with his pentomic plan but made enemies in the Department of the Army and JCS. On May 24, 1956, in a briefing on the Joint Strategic Operations Plan for 1960, a medium range war plan, Army Chief of Staff Maxwell D. Taylor broke ranks with Radford. He told the President that use of atomic weapons in local wars would trigger general war and contravene the principle of flexibility of options which the U.S. should follow. Moreover, the cost of building nuclear systems would preclude maintaining sufficient conventional forces to fight small wars. He wanted a much larger role for the Army and Marines while still retaining a sufficient nuclear stockpile to fight a general war. Displeased, Eisenhower responded that he was convinced that the U.S. could use tactical atomic weapons and not provoke general war because the smallest atomic warheads were now no more destructive than conventional 20 ton blockbusters. General war meant Uncle Sam climbing directly into the ring with Ivan, he insisted. In the event the two super heavyweights got into a brawl, the pressure to go nuclear at the earliest opportunity would be so tremendous that it made no sense to assume otherwise. He would continue to craft his Basic National Security Policy on that basis.19 Public hostility to the concept of full nuclear integration arose in late June 1956 after testimony previously given in February by Lieutenant General James M. Gavin, the Army's Chief of Research and Development, to the Senate Armed Services Committee was released. Gavin had said that a Soviet attack would kill 7 million Americans, while U.S. retaliation would spread death and destruction from the British Isles to the Philippines. Further public outcry followed a leak in July of an even more radical proposal by Radford to cut army unit size and rely on tactical atomic weapons. Intended to implement at last the NATO MC 48 strategy of stopping a Soviet conventional attack with nuclear firepower, the plan would have reorganized and redeployed American land forces into self-contained battle groups including atomic weaponry, deployed them in dug-in positions on a narrow front, and used nuclear ground and air systems to smash enemy troop concentrations trying to break through. However, once the planned Army reorganization was leaked to the New York Times, the political backlash was so extreme that Eisenhower, even if he had

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wanted to go in that direction, could not possibly have made the move in a presidential election year. The next year, a pentomic concept was adopted with scaled-down divisions formed around battle groups but without inclusive atomic weaponry. The old idea of defense in depth and armored mobility was retained and received new impetus with the Flexible Response debate of the latter 1950s. For political reasons as much as military, many were persuaded that use of tactical atomic weapons was not credible in the face of growing Soviet nuclear capabilities.20 Regardless of Eisenhower's caution, the U.S. nuclear buildup had taken on a momentum of its own. By mid-1956, the stockpile had climbed to more than 3,000 weapons, would add another 2,000 over the next twelve months, and would eventually reach 18,000 by the end of 1960. In Europe, Gruenther asked for and received forces to carry out the MC 48 strategy, including twelve atomic demolition teams, twelve Honest John rocket batteries, four Corporal guidedmissile battalions, and a promise of many other nuclear systems under development as well. In the summer of 1956, the Air Force made plans to send Matador surface-to-surface missiles to Formosa, albeit without atomic warheads. The Army wanted Honest Johns, 280 millimeter guns, and NIKE, Corporal, and Redstone missiles for Korea. However, the most important proposal was deployment of IRBMs to Britain to tide the U.S. over until ICBMs based in the U.S. were ready. Whether Eisenhower intended to predelegate authority to use all these weapons systems or not, in the hands of military commanders under attack or cut off from communication with the President, they were a great danger to the Soviet Union and an element of unpredictability for Kremlin leaders in any crisis.21 They were also a source of concern for civilian officials. Part of the rationale for deploying new atomic weapons systems to Korea was to justify to President Rhee the reduction of American ground forces in the peninsula and persuade him to transfer four divisions of ROK troops to reserve forces. Worried about kicking a sleeping dog to consciousness, the State Department opposed the idea, while even Secretary of Defense Wilson did not agree that the most advanced American tactical atomic weapons should be bartered for ROK cutbacks. But overall the trend was in favor of a forward nuclear defense to reduce conventional force deployments overseas. In December 1956 the U.S. persuaded NATO to give official sanction to this concept. Radford and others were still deeply dissatisfied that the President failed in actual crises, such as the crushing of the Hungarian revolution in November, to intervene with nuclear intimidation. The fundamental question of whether the U.S. would ever counter local Soviet aggression with strategic weapons remained unanswered.22 BETTER INTELLIGENCE OF THE THREAT In December 1955 the DOD projected that the Soviets were at least two full

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years ahead of the U.S. on ICBM research and development. An operation code-named GENETRIX, which for the next two to three months sent plastic, gondola-carried balloons equipped with cameras and electronic interception devices over the Soviet Union, did nothing to alleviate this concern. Thus on April 18, 1956, worried about the slim but growing possibility of a bolt-out-ofthe-blue attack, Eisenhower authorized the expenditure of atomic weapons in air defense of the U.S. as well as updated rules for interception and engagement of hostile aircraft. After a June CIA report predicted rapid advancement of the Soviet hydrogen bomb stockpile, he ordered creation of a Net Evaluation Subcommittee to determine the vulnerability of SAC to surprise attack. He got a much better indication of the magnitude of Soviet power when the first U-2 spy plane flew over western Russia on the Fourth of July and took pictures of Soviet long-range bomber bases. The next day, another U-2 streaked over Moscow and the southern Ukraine, with four more reconnaissance missions following in the next two weeks. MiGs scrambled and attempted to intercept each time but flamed out in the extremely high altitudes, tumbling away harmlessly.23 When pictures from the special Land cameras aboard the U-2s were developed, they showed no massive bomber force after all. In fact, the hue and cry about a danger to SAC, which had spilled over into public debate as the Bomber Gap scare and helped launch the careers of several civilian strategists, most notably future Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, had been completely wrong. All the time the Soviets had been putting their main effort into their missile program to the detriment of manned bombers. If they were to launch a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack, it would have to wait until ICBMs were deployed in force. For the time being, therefore, the nation's physical security was not in imminent danger. Eisenhower was constrained from imparting this information to millions of anxious Americans for fear of revealing too much about the nation's intelligence capabilities. Nevertheless, having eyes over the USSR must have greatly buoyed him at a time when he was still recovering from a very painful attack of ileitis and secret surgery the night of June 7-8, 1956. For political reasons during the fall election campaign, he pledged to increase the number of B-52 bombers under LeMay's command and played up overall American nuclear strength.24 After his reelection, Eisenhower tried to put the brakes on the nuclear buildup with little success. Meeting with Wilson, Radford, and the rest of the JCS on December 19, 1956, he attempted to persuade Twining that the superiority of the B-52 bomber in penetrating Soviet air defenses should permit the administration to acquire fewer planes, not more, though savings would be plowed back into missile development. Furthermore, he wanted to dampen JCS demands forfirst-generationIRBMs and ICBMs, saying that early deployment of missile forces was more a psychological tool than a military necessity. However, Twining believed that the U.S. could turn out 30 missiles a month, not a more conservative estimate of 13 suggested by the Secretary of Defense,

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and that after the first 100 or so, the cost would drop to as little as $ 1 million per missile. With IRBMs costing one-half to three-quarters the expense of ICBMs, ballistic missile squadrons could quickly become an integral part of the strategic deterrent.25 Reluctantly the President decided to push ahead with IRBM deployment. It would counter the expected Soviet ICBM threat, mollify British Prime Minister (Maurice) Harold Macmillan, who had replaced Eden after Eisenhower had intervened with American financial muscle to force Britain and France to recant their seizure of the Suez Canal in October, and reinforce the U.S. commitment to Western Europe. Negotiations proceeded so that in March 1957 Eisenhower and Macmillan met to make an agreement in principle at Bermuda. Also in the pot was a secret protocol to stockpile nuclear warheads for Corporal missiles in Britain under full American control. Still, the President told the Prime Minister that he was pessimistic about the future. Any war fought with IRBMs and ICBMs would mean an end to civilization.26 In addition to exploding the Bomber Gap myth, U-2flightsturned up a few liquid-fueled rockets at the Soviet missile testing complex Tyuratom in central Russia. At the NSC meeting on March 29, 1957, therefore, Eisenhower approved an initial operational capability (IOC) of four squadrons of 15 Thor IRBMs (total 60) to be deployed in Britain beginning in 1958-59, even though the missile was not yet fully tested and reliable. The IOC for Atlas and Titans would be eight squadrons of 10 missiles (total 80). The President and his Secretary of State were so concerned at the overall growth of Sino-Soviet military and economic power that they did not reject out of hand a proposal in NSC 5707/1, a draft statement of new Basic National Security Policy, to build a Fortress America, as the old Republican isolationists had called for back in the Truman years. In fact, in principle they liked the idea of redeploying American ground forces to the continental U.S. and shifting the burden of supplying conventional armies to the allies while Washington continued to provide nuclear deterrence. Warnings, such as issued by Soviet Ambassador Valerian A. Zorin at the London Disarmament Conference in April, that the American policy of surrounding the Soviet Union with nuclear bases was a provocation, gave pause but did not deter steps to prepare for the long-dreaded confrontation with the USSR. American missiles soon joined SAC bombers at overseas bases.27 In May the U.S. convinced the NAC to adopt MC 14/2, a policy of Massive Retaliation for any sustained Soviet attack on NATO, whether with nuclear weapons or by conventional armies. This was a recognition that even with the 12 West German divisions being assembled and trained for full incorporation into NATO's military forces as of January 1, 1958, SACEUR would have woefully inadequate forces to stop a thrust by Soviet forces, still estimated to number as many as 175 divisions. At that moment, Stassen came up with an idea for the U.S. to pledge no first use of nuclear weapons. Since this was clearly contrary to U.S. policy and other disarmament proposals, and in itself utterly foolish given Soviet conventional superiority in central Europe,

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Stassen was soon in hot water with Dulles, Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald A. Quarles, and Konrad Adenauer, the aged and patriarchal chancellor of West Germany. Though Stassen maintained that his proposal would permit the U.S. to use nuclear weapons first if faced with an attack of a magnitude that could not be repelled by other means, fear that the U.S. would renege on its NATO commitment or even appease the Soviets by making concessions costly to West Germany caused Adenauer to harangue the State Department that the U.S. was about to give up its overseas bases. The Chancellor and his advisors began to ponder other alternatives for guaranteeing Germany security if the U.S. ever lost its nuclear will.28 American officials, too, considered ways and means of firming up Allied support for NATO's Massive Retaliation policy as well as insuring that the U.S. would never be decapitated by a Soviet surprise attack. After Eisenhower approved use of atomic weapons in the air defense of the United States in April 1956, consideration was given to authority to defend American overseas territories and possessions in a similar manner and even the U.K. and U.S. forces therein. The former authority was granted by the President on December 14, 1956, the latter not until October 29, 1959. Of even greater significance, the debate was joined in earnest on predelegation authority for senior military commanders. Led by Radford, the JCS wanted the widest latitude possible while the State Department and AEC favored much more narrow and detailed instructions. Although Eisenhower endorsed a general guidance on May 22, 1957 and thereafter gave official authority to seven Unified and Specific Commanders to use even thermonuclear weapons under certain circumstances without his express approval, detailed implementing instructions were not approved until February 16, 1959. CINCPAC, CINCFE, CINCEUR (same as SACEUR but wearing his American hat), CINCNELM (Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean), CINCAL (Alaska), CINCONAD (Continental Air Defense), and CINCSAC did not receive final predelegation authority until January 15, 1960. However, from mid-1957 on, General Lauris Norstad, who had replaced Gruenther as SACEUR on November 20, 1956 and was also close to the President, having served as his deputy air commander when Eisenhower was SACEUR, as well as the others could assume authority to launch nuclear weapons if under substantial attack by Soviet or satellite forces threatening destruction of his forces, and when he was unable to communicate with the President or other responsible officials in Washington. As before, Eisenhower was much less willing to grant authority for military decision on use of nuclear weapons in situations short of general war scenarios and when only tactical employment was involved.29 RADFORD'S LAST HURRAH As of June 30, 1957, Admiral Radford was scheduled to retire from active

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duty. At the NSC meeting on May 27, he made one final push to persuade the President to authorize use of nuclear weapons as if conventional in a debate on NSC 5707/7, specifically paragraph 15. In reply, Dulles said he accepted as "inevitable" that military commanders would some day have that prerogative but that the timing was not right because the U.S. did not yet possess so-called "little bang weapons" with selective effects (for example high initial radiation and no lasting fall-out) to wage limited war. He was immediately contradicted by Strauss who informed the NSC that under development were tactical nuclear weapons with as little as 5% the explosive punch of the Nagasaki bomb. A bit flustered, Dulles responded that all NSC members should have been apprised of this fact and that the allies too needed to be informed. Chancellor Adenauer, currently in Washington for talks with the administration, held deep religious feelings that use of nuclear weapons was wrong and world opinion generally was not ready to accept employment of tactical atomic weapons in local conflicts. After all, the U.S. did not wish to be compared to a ruthless military power like Nazi Germany. The entire State Department opposed incorporating the proposed JCS language into NSC 5707.30 Radford retorted that the world was not going to hear about the new Basic National Security Policy, so it did not matter what was written in the document. Annoyed at the bickering, Eisenhower said that military action in places like Berlin and the Near East could not be kept local in character and that the U.S. must be ready for nuclear operations in a general war. Limited wars would be fought only in underdeveloped areas, he added. He ordered the State Department to continue to study the problem of limited wars in certain hypothetical situations and directed Strauss to prepare a report on the types of nuclear weapons in the American arsenal and their numbers. As approved on June 3, 1957, paragraph 15 of NSC 5707/8 stipulated that "military planning for U.S. forces to oppose local aggression will be based on the development of a flexible and selective capability, including nuclear capability for use as authorized by the President. When the use of U.S. forces is required to oppose local aggression, force will be applied in a manner and on a scale best calculated to avoid hostilities from broadening into general war." Regardless of what was written in policy papers, Eisenhower kept his own counsel as to how he would react to Communist aggression. The facile language of Basic National Security Policy documents was merely to accommodate competing opinions.31 Strauss briefed Eisenhower and the NSC on the nuclear stockpile on June 6, 1957 aboard the U.S.S. Saratoga+++The gist of his information was t tactical weapons were now available which would not result in indiscriminate destruction. That led Radford and Quarles to tell the NSC a week later that the U.S. should act on JCS plans to deploy dual-capable weapons systems to Korea, including Honest John rockets and 280 millimeter guns. Although the deployment was designed to convince Rhee to reduce the number of ROK divisions from 20 to 16, thus saving the U.S. $600 million a year, Eisenhower refused to permit dispatch of these "defensive atomic systems" to Korea.

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Humphrey had told him that equipping forces around the world with nuclear weapons would prove terrifically expensive. He approved additional nuclearcapable aircraft for CINCFE instead.32 Radford did retire the last day of June and was replaced by Twining as Chairman of the JCS. General Thomas D. White replaced Twining as Air Force Chief of Staff, with Curtis LeMay soon to take over as his deputy. Replacing LeMay at SAC would be General Power. Since another hardliner, Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, had replaced Carney as Chief of Naval Operations in 1955, even with Taylor as Army Chief of Staff, the JCS and top American military leaders generally had not softened one bit in their collective determination to make use of nuclear weapons in the next war, be it a local conflict or the expected showdown with the Soviets. For that reason, the pressure on Eisenhower to provide American troops overseas with tactical nuclear systems intensified. He finally succumbed on Korea on August 8, approving the deployment of Honest Johns and 280 millimeter guns as a bargaining chip to persuade Rhee to cut the ROK army from 20 divisions to 16. But he also stated that what had been true ten years before was still true—that Korea was of no military importance to the U.S. Only because a takeover by the Communists would have severe psychological and political repercussions for Asian peoples, running the risk of the U.S. losing its entire Far East position, was he agreeing to tactical atomic firepower on the peninsula. The net result was an American commitment to defend non-vital territory with nuclear weapons.33

SPUTNIK AND THE GAITHER REPORT On August 27, 1957, Soviet newspapers announced the successful test flight of an ICBM. Three weeks later on September 16, an alert exercise run by North American Air Defense command (NORAD) at Colorado Springs demonstrated that SAC planes could not get airborne in the six-hour period believed to be the minimum time required for the Soviets to gear up and launch a surprise attack. Robert C. Sprague, president of Sprague Electric Company and head of the Security Resources Panel of the Science Advisory Committee on Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age, otherwise known as the Gaither Committee, was stunned. Particularly alarming were results of a simulated attack on SAC's 60 main air bases that suggested that with but 240 bombers the Soviets could smash the American bomber force and prevent all but 50 to 150 nuclear bombs from surviving. LeMay's reaction was more nonchalant. The Kremlin could never put together such a coordinated attack, he assured Sprague. Besides, he had reconnaissance planes over the Soviet Union twenty-four hours a day. If it were reported that they were massing for an attack, he would launch SAC.34 Another period of acute anxiety for the free world began on October 4, 1957. The Soviets sent Sputnik I into orbit around the earth, propelled by an

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SS-6 missile launcher. Although to the public the Soviets seemed now to have the capability of threatening the U.S. with nuclear-tipped ICBMs, and U.S. intelligence confirmed that a warhead the size of Sputnik's pay load would fit on a Soviet surface-to-surface missile (SSM) with a maximum range of 3,500 miles, in the American government there was little panic. Allen Dulles told his brother that the Soviet decision to jump over development of long-range bombers in favor of ballistic missiles was a questionable move and possibly a serious mistake. The enemy would certainly have more difficulty deploying operational rockets than they had in staging showy demonstrations. Even so, Eisenhower decided at the NSC meeting on October 10 to push ahead full tilt on ICBM development. The political and psychological impact of Soviet missile success was more important than the strictly military effect of ICBM deployment.35 What only a very few American officials knew was that a defect existed in atomic warheads the Soviets would mount on their first generation ICBMs. By exploding an anti-missile missile with 100 kiloton warhead at an altitude of 100,000 feet within several miles of an incoming Soviet ICBM, the U.S. could cause a pre-initiation of the Soviet weapon with much less explosive power than would ordinarily result. Dr. Isidor I. Rabi of the Science Advisory Committee briefed the President on this matter on October 29 and pushed for immediate construction of an anti-ICBM system. He also favored a ban on nuclear testing, because the Soviets were certain to discover the problem with time and more tests.36 Despite technologicalflaws,the Soviets did appear to have a significant lead in the missile category. The CIA and DOD agreed that the Soviets would have an operational squadron of ten prototype ICBMs in 1959, maybe earlier, and a more considerable number in three to five years. Already they had deployed IRBMs with ranges up to 700 nautical miles and would activate 1,000 mile missiles in 1958. In addition, they would quadruple their heavy bomber force to 400 to 600 planes by mid 1960 and launch a fleet of as many as 50 missilelaunching submarines by mid 1962. Eisenhower took comfort from Twining's briefing the last day of October that the U.S. now had a tremendous number of nuclear weapons and in the B-52 bomber an effective means of delivery. Once B-52s were equipped with RASCAL air-to-ground missiles, the penetrating power of SAC would be greatly enhanced. Because the JCS was now satisfied that the stockpile contained enough large-size hydrogen weapons, the President gave Twining the go-ahead to fill out Norstad's arsenal of battlefield nuclear weapons.37 Unlike the Killian Report of 1955, the Gaither Committee findings did not shock Eisenhower. In possession of intelligence information Sprague and his colleagues had not seen, he did not appear perturbed in the least at a meeting at the White House on November 4, the official briefing three days later, and a private talk with Sprague and thirteen others afterward in the Oval Office. Briefers told him that the Soviets now had 1,500 nuclear weapons. When their ICBMs were deployed in numbers, they would acquire the capability of wiping

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out SAC. What was required to salvage the situation was a $44 billion plan over five years to boost the IOC for IRBMs from 60 to 240 by late 1958 and for ICBMs from 80 to 600 by late 1959. Also included would be early deployment of six Polaris missile submarines carrying 16 missiles each (96 total), a massive civil defense program with blast shelters, and much improved technical intelligence capabilities to provide strategic warning of an attack. Otherwise, American nuclear superiority would give way to Soviet missile superiority by 1960-61. In the decade that followed, the Soviets would catch up in all other important categories and create a dangerous and unstable nuclear equilibrium some time after 1970.38 Sprague was so bothered by Eisenhower's blase reaction, even yawning at his eyewitness account of the September 16 NOR AD exercise, that he made a proposal for a new committee to reexamine national strategy. Specifically, he wanted to answer the question of whether the U.S. should continue its present defensive/reactive policy, opt instead for immediate preventive war against the Soviets, or pursue what Sprague called "hot negotiation", in effect threatening that unless Moscow agreed to arms control and nuclear disarmament treaties under terms stipulated by the U.S., Washington would drop its no preventive war policy. Since Eisenhower had suffered a mild stroke on November 25, which impaired his ability to speak for a few days and curtailed his work schedule somewhat longer, a meeting with the President was not arranged. However, on January 3, 1958, Dulles listened carefully to Sprague's idea, then told him in no uncertain terms that both he and the President believed that no one should decide the future of mankind by killing tens of millions of people.

Basic national security policy would remain CONCLUSION

And yet fear of the Soviets, fanatical distrust of Communist intentions, and the pessimistic view of the future reflected by the Gaither Report seemed almost prescient as events unfolded over the next several years. Not a few senior military and political officials, including Eisenhower and his successor, John F. Kennedy, would have to ponder again the possibility of a preemptive strike or preventive war. In the interim, there was growing disquiet about the doctrine of Massive Retaliation. Critics at home and abroad charged that a threat to respond with everything in the nuclear arsenal to local aggression in the third world was not very credible, especially in light of severe Allied opposition. Ironically, the allies held a different opinion about a local conflict over Berlin. Like Eisenhower, they believed that any direct military confrontation between NATO and the Soviet Union would result in rapid escalation to general war. Whether holding West Berlin would be worth the risk was open to debate. So long as Eisenhower remained President, it did not appear uncertain that the U.S. would take the risk. But Khrushchev was preparing to test his resolve.

10 SWORD OF DAMOCLES I do not think this [assurance that the U.S. would not misuse its missiles based in Europe] involves a veto on their part any more than an individual citizen has any veto over the action of the policeman on the beat. He is entitled to know that the circumstances under which the security force operates are such to give him reasonable assurance on these matters. I do not think any government can legally, constitutionally, give another government a veto over action which it might deem indispensable for its own national existence. — John Foster Dulles, November 19, 1957'

From the moment Stalin lifted the Berlin Blockade in May 1949, fear of a renewed crisis hung like a sword of Damocles over the heads of Western Europeans. Only a thin but strong thread—Soviet fear of Massive Retaliation—kept the sword from falling. Even more so than the offshore islands, Eisenhower believed Hitler's capital untenable as a military outpost. And yet the city had tremendous political and psychological significance which Potomac strategists continued to recognize long after the JCS concluded it was a strategic liability in fall 1948. When the first crisis ended, Bradley and the Chiefs counseled that in the event of new Soviet pressure, the U.S. and its allies should renew the airlift, send an armed convoy toward Berlin, and get ready to fight. While Acheson and State Department advisors were willing to consider probes as a last resort, they wanted to tell the Soviets beforehand that the cavalry was coming. This would eliminate the possibility of a misunderstanding that the U.S. was starting a general war. With Truman's assent, this position was set forth as U.S. policy in NSC 24/3 on June 18, 1949.2 The commitment to fight in Korea in 1950 postponed deployment of U.S. forces to Europe. After Peking's intervention, the JCS recognized that the U.S. would be unable to respond to a second blockade of Berlin with more than a partial airlift, embargo of steel shipments to the Soviet bloc, and chancier measures such as a counterblockade of Soviet shipping at the Dardanelles and Skagerrak choke points and sabotage attacks inside the Soviet empire. They

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suggested by implication that the West might have to yield its rights in the city. That opinion changed dramatically as the Korean War dragged on, U.S casualties mounted, and the nuclear arsenal grew. The NSC concluded on June 12, 1952 that if the Soviets moved against the former German capital, it would be a signal that general war was about to begin because to their minds Berlin was not vital to Soviet security. The U.S. response would be an ultimatum, hopefully with the support of the British, French, and West German governments, and war preparations.3 Allied solidarity was not at all certain. NATO conventional forces still paled in comparison to the manpower and quantity of weapons the Soviets could field, and significant West German strength would not be available until the latter part of the decade. Thus NATO watched helplessly as Soviet tanks crushed a rebellion of East Berlin workers and students in June 1953 and options for the Eisenhower administration to raise another blockade remained as limited as for Truman. A fundamental new element was being introduced into the mix, however. NATO's MC 48 policy calling for early use of atomic weapons to stop a Soviet invasion of Western Europe could easily be projected as a response to a Communist takeover of West Berlin. Radford implied as much in early 1956 when he declared that Soviet ability to jam electronic navigational aids would limit an airlift to good weather days only. He reiterated the view that a second blockade would be a definite signal that the Soviets had decided to make war upon the West.4 Radford and other top military officers had consistently pushed and cajoled, argued and pleaded for use of atomic weapons in Far East crises where vital American interests were not at stake. In central Europe, the case was much stronger, though not conclusive, that West Berlin must be held at all cost. By 1957, JCS petitions for authority in advance to use atomic weapons "selectively" in limited wars to oppose local aggressions suggested that a second Berlin crisis might fall into that category. However, as demonstrated in the debate over NSC 5707 Basic National Security Policy, Eisenhower remained adamant that U.S.Soviet confrontations could not be confined to local conflict. Moreover, limited wars could be fought only in the underdeveloped regions of the world, not the fault line between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, he concluded. In any event, he refused to predelegate authority to go nuclear over Berlin.5 By 1957-58, American nuclear forces were so widely dispersed around the periphery of the Soviet Union and so technologically advanced that all that was needed to employ them was authorization to launch. In addition to SACEUR's battlefield weapons and tactical air power, the Sixth Fleet patrolled the Mediterranean, the Seventh Fleet roamed the Far East, and SAC bombers still flew out of bases in England. More alarming from the Soviet point of view, Thor IRBMs would take up station in Britain beginning in 1959, and Jupiter IRBMs would be accepted by Italy the year after that. Add to these forces Britain's few V-bomber squadrons, and Soviet planners had to take into account thousands of warheads with thousands of megatons of explosive power which

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could annihilate their country in a matter of hours. No wonder they were desperate to redress the strategic situation, perhaps by exploiting cracks in the NATO alliance. American leaders were just as determined to hold the allies together. A principal tool was participation in nuclear operations and access to U.S. nuclear weapons in an emergency.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR THE ALLIES To repair severely strained Anglo-American relations over the Suez crisis and on the heels of Sputnik, Eisenhower pressed ahead on negotiations with the British to station IRBMs on their soil. Envious of London's special relationship with the U.S., the French suggested a similar arrangement at the May 1957 NAC meeting. However, like the British, they required for political reasons carefully crafted language that would insure their operational control of the missiles even while nuclear warheads remained in U.S. custody. A very touchy subject was decision on use. For public consumption, American negotiators suggested a parrot of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty that "an armed attack against one or more of [the Parties to the agreement] shall be considered an attack against them all." Privately, they insisted that "joint decision" still gave the President final authority. What the British ultimately accepted, and what the French rejected after Charles De Gaulle became premier of the Fourth Republic on May 31, 1958 and eventually president of a stronger Fifth Republic in January 1959, was American officers having the "key to the cupboard," so to speak, the ability to render the missiles useless by refusing to release nuclear warheads in a pinch. Given the Massive Retaliation doctrine and until the

Soviets acquir++++++++++eaningful capability of attack+

was hardly likely.6 De Gaulle decided instead to pursue an independent French nuclear program. The West Germans were prohibited from following suit by agreements signed concurrent with their adherence to the North Atlantic treaty. Chancellor Adenauer had specifically pledged that his country would not produce atomic, biological, or chemical (ABC) weapons of any kind. The loophole was that the Germans were not prohibited from accepting such weapons from the U.S. or other allies or participating through NATO in their deployment and use. When in November 1957, U.S. officials pushed ahead with an idea for a NATO nuclear stockpile, the Federal Republic was very receptive. In fact, on November 21, only twelve and a half years after the collapse of Nazi power, Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano told Secretary of State Dulles that his government's main concern was that West Germany have full rights in the alliance. If the British and French possessed nuclear weapons, West Germany must too, or else Adenauer would renounce his pledge not to produce ABC weapons and a German nuclear force would be created outside of NATO. German authorities would be satisfied if their participation could be guaranteed

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under NATO's overall control, including the right to join fully in discussions on use of nuclear weapons.7 Dulles replied that the issue of consultation was a most difficult one. The U.S. wanted political discussions with allies but not talks that impeded prompt and decisive action in a crisis. Berlin was the perfect example. Since a swift Soviet move would require an immediate response, all allies might not be consulted. Such had been the case over the Formosa Straits in 1955, he alleged, where if the U.S. had beat around the bush for a week or two, the offshore islands might have been lost with terrible long-term consequences. Nor did he advise that the Germans follow the path the British had trod in developing an independent nuclear force. It was wasteful and expensive for other NATO powers to develop nuclear weapons while the U.S. had such an overwhelming arsenal. He assured the foreign minister that the American commitment to NATO was good as gold.8 As proof, he decided to confide some of the most intimate deliberations of the Eisenhower administration. It was the belief of American leaders that the distinction between nuclear and other weapons would break down over time, he explained. Despite the moral stigma the Soviets had attempted to attach, conventional fire-bomb attacks on Tokyo on March 9-10, 1945 had been as bad as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Thus, while a NATO decision to use nuclear weapons would normally be determined by political authority, SACEUR did have permission from the President in an emergency to use whatever means were at his disposal to protect his force from destruction by a Soviet or satellite attack. That included employment of small tactical nuclear weapons against battlefield targets. But the foreign minister and his government could rest assured that military commanders could not make a decision to bomb Moscow or other strategic sites inside the Soviet Union.9 Delighted to be briefed so freely, von Brentano assured Dulles that he himself saw no difference between conventional and nuclear war, nor between local and general conflict. If Soviet armies marched into Western Europe, nuclear weapons must be used to stop them. He fully agreed with the decision to grant SACEUR authority to use tactical nuclear forces on his own initiative in an emergency. He only insisted that there be no discrimination between weaponry U.S. forces possessed and those provided for other NATO forces, including Bundeswehr divisions. Dulles replied that the purpose of establishing a NATO atomic stockpile was to create conditions wherein all alliance forces could partake at need. German commanders would absolutely have that right. Satisfied, von Brentano only expressed reservation about the possibility of deploying IRBMs on German soil. With warning time of a Soviet missile attack of only six minutes, that was too great a temptation for the Kremlin to strike first.10 Three days later, Dulles and von Brentano met again to clarify access to the proposed NATO nuclear stockpile. The German foreign minister asked who would control weapons on German soil. Per American law, the U.S. would

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retain technical possession in peacetime, Dulles answered. However, in an emergency the President could authorize distribution to allies through Norstad, who as SACEUR would have overall military command and control of the stockpile and authorization, as mentioned before, to make use of the weapons on his own initiative to repel a direct attack. Predelegation authority and the timing of release to allies had not been finalized. Although in the event Soviet forces came across the border the issue would be clear-cut and general war would result, if the aggression were localized and involved only satellite forces, the President might not want SACEUR taking the fate of Europe into his hands.11 On December 14 in Paris, an enthusiastic Adenauer informed Dulles that the Bundestag would approve storage of American nuclear weapons on German soil in a NATO stockpile. However, he was upset that Prime Minister Macmillan, whom he did not trust, and the Soviets were talking about a proposal to ban all nuclear missiles from East and West Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Such an agreement would undercut NATO strategy and German security. Reassured by Dulles that whatever came out of arms control negotiations, the U.S. would still be able to retaliate with overwhelming nuclear power through its SAC bomber force, the chancellor agreed that decision on use within NATO should properly rest with the President. He only thought it important to craft some language that would satisfy the prickly French that their voice would be heard in an emergency. Dulles thought Paris might be amenable to a restatement of Article 5 that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all.12 Less than a week later after NATO had agreed on deployment of American IRBMs and establishment of a NATO atomic stockpile, officials from the MAAG in Germany sent word to Dulles that the Germans were "pepped up and anxious to go" on setting up the stockpile and insuring the Federal Republic's participation. The German Army Staff had been very pleased to receive information from Norstad on guided missiles and wanted to know more about all the nuclear-capable systems SACEUR intended them to purchase to fulfill his plan to equip the Bundeswehr with nuclear weaponry. MAAG advised that security within the planning staff of the West German Ministry of Defense was sound. The sooner the Germans could evaluate the cost of investment in weapons systems, training, maintenance, installation, spare parts requirements, etc., the sooner they could start to buy.13 By late March 1958, the Bundestag had debated and rejected a Soviet proposal to sign a peace treaty officially ending the state of war between the Soviet Union and Germany and set up a confederation arrangement with East Germany. Instead, the German parliament approved Adenauer's atomic armament policy on March 28 for a NATO nuclear stockpile on German soil. Now in addition to American nuclear forces ringing the USSR, Khrushchev had to face the prospect of instruments of mass destruction in the possession of an enemy who twice in the century had invaded Russian territory, killed tens of

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millions of people, and almost conquered the country. Like a pot starting to boil, discussions in the Kremlin heated up. The internal pressure on Khrushchev to demonstrate that Soviet fears for security could not be so blatantly ignored became enormous. BASIC NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY QUESTIONED Of course American leaders saw the situation much differently. It was the Soviets who were aggressors and occupiers of Eastern Europe, and the men in the Kremlin the evil ones who had built up a vast military establishment to threaten the free world. On May 1, 1958, an extraordinary debate over NSC 5810, Basic National Security Policy, took place. The President and NSC faced squarely the question of whether a situation of nuclear parity would free the Soviets from fear that the U.S. would retaliate with nuclear weapons for another attempt to take over West Berlin. If the answer was yes, a reconsideration of the Massive Retaliation doctrine would be in order and a buildup of limited war capabilities, nuclear but especially conventional, necessary.14 No surprise, Taylor was in the forefront of those who wanted a new strategic doctrine. He attempted to show the fecklessness of Massive Retaliation by alleging that in the last year the U.S. had suffered serious reverses in Indonesia, the Middle East, and elsewhere because limited war capabilities did not exist to battle Communist subversive activities. That was balderdash, retorted General White. Not only were American capabilities for general and limited war scenarios reasonably adequate, but by overstating concern about conventional forces at the NATO Military Committee and Defense Minister meetings in April, Taylor had conveyed the erroneous impression that the U.S. could not handle local conflicts. Agreeing emphatically, Twining also took the Army Chief of Staff to task for alarming the allies. Many NATO representatives had complained to him that backing away from Massive Retaliation would reveal to the Soviets a loss of American will to stop Communist aggression. They wanted no part in such a revolution in thinking.15 It seemed that Taylor's arguments had fallen on deaf ears, but then the Secretary of State stunned the NSC by agreeing in substance with the Army Chief of Staff. In two or three years, Dulles predicted, the Europeans would be clamoring for a localized defense in central Europe because they did not want nuclear war on the continent. By that time, the U.S. needed to develop small "clean" nuclear weapons and a new limited war doctrine to replace Massive Retaliation. The U.S. had to field forces to fight defensive wars not involving total defeat of an enemy. Eisenhower immediately responded that he did not like at all the notion that a state of mutual deterrence between the U.S. and Soviets would serve as an "umbrella" under which small wars could be fought, even in Europe. As Quarles had suggested, that would serve as a "lightning rod" for more wars, and those small wars would make a global conflict more

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likely. For example, if the Soviets suddenly seized Austria, there would be no way to have a "nice, sweet World War II type" fight. He had no intention of building up mobile and tactical conventional forces at the expense of strategic systems. To find money to pay for such a scheme, he would have to turn the U.S. into a garrison state.16 Dulles spluttered that he did not mean to suggest that a war in Europe could be kept limited. He merely wanted to convince the allies that some local defense was possible, using a different kind of military cooperation and modernization. Eisenhower threw up his hands. Had not the U.S. provided just such a local defense capability for years with six U.S. divisions? Had not American military forces been repeatedly modernized? How else could they hope to stop 175 Soviet divisions if not with nuclear armaments? That was not the point, Dulles insisted. In Korea, the U.S. and ROK deployed a total of 22 divisions. Even though only two were American, like the Europeans the South Koreans wanted to see conventional U.S. forces stationed on their soil for political and psychological reasons. Everyone in the room knew that the real deterrent in the Far East was nuclear weapons based on Okinawa. But conventional forces added an emotional assurance. In fact, he was scheduled to go to Berlin soon to repeat the guarantee he had made four years earlier that an attack on Berlin was an attack on the U.S. Given the realities of the present military balance in central Europe, he was not certain he would believe himself what he would say. Still, he would go dutifully to perform this "ritual act." Perhaps his audience would not catch on to the subterfuge.17 Now Eisenhower was completely flabbergasted. He declared that if the U.S. was not willing to go nuclear over West Berlin, they would lose the city in short order and all of Western Europe along with it. Then the industrial capability in that region combined with Soviet strength would force the U.S. to become a garrison state. Unfortunately, the rest of the President's comments are still classified, as well as other portions of this meeting. His sentiment not to back down to Communist threats, in any event, seemed unmistakably clear.18 CONCLUSION The President must have been profoundly shaken by the doubts Dulles expressed about Massive Retaliation. Only time would tell if his words had been a one-time aberration or an indication that he favored formulation of a new strategic doctrine along the lines of Taylor's Flexible Response. Very soon, Khrushchev would be ready to turn the screws on Berlin to test U.S. and Allied courage. Before that occurred, Mao Tse-tung planned one more attempt in the Formosa Straits. As with Korea, what once had been of no importance might suddenly require defense by nuclear firepower. Prior to direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam, this would be the last opportunity to employ nuclear weapons without running a risk of general war.

11 THE LAST SIDESHOW All Communists are tricky. So they might accept and later by "peaceful means" seize the [offshore] islands and we would have no recourse except blast the hell out of China mainland and that we couldn't do because of "public opinion." - Arleigh A. Burke, September 7, 19581

The life the U.S. saved in the Formosa Straits in 1955 had never really been out of danger. Periodic air battles broke out between Chicom and Nationalist planes over the offshore islands, and the U.S. had time and again to restrain Chiang Kai-shek from striking back at targets on the mainland. Anxious to precipitate a final struggle with the Communists, the generalissimo moved even larger numbers of troops to Quemoy and Matsu and dug them in deep. After a U.S. Navy patrol plane was shot down on August 23, 1956 with loss of life in the East China Sea, Radford and the military pushed through, over State Department objection, deployment of nuclear-capable Matador missiles to Formosa (now more often called Taiwan, the Chinese name for the island). Still, that was not enough to satisfy the hardliners. Even after Radford retired, many others remained who wanted in the worst way to pound the big bully on the Far East block. In August 1957, Stump complained to Burke that the U.S. should stop pussyfooting around on use of atomic weapons. He personally had talked to Chiang and South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, he said. Both believed the U.S. should turn loose the nuclear dogs on Peking but would not do so because of a lack of political will. Burke could only commiserate with CINCPAC that Five Star General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of Allied Forces in the European Theater in World War II, now President of the United States, seemed to have lost his stomach for a fight. The best the Navy could do about the situation in the Orient was keep its powder dry and wait.2 In Washington, the intelligence community did not expect any further

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Chinese aggression through 1961 because of the deterrent effect of American nuclear weapons now deployed in the Far East. They reckoned without Mao who urged Khrushchev in May 1957 at the Moscow Conference of Communist Parties to provoke war with the West. So what if China lost 300 million people to nuclear attack, Mao said. Hundreds more would spring up to take their place. Although Khrushchev was not so imprudent as to hurl human flesh and bone against the apocalyptic power of the atom, emboldened by Sputnik he did sign an agreement with Mao in October to assist the PRC in building a gaseous diffusion plant for the production of weapons grade uranium and to develop medium-range missiles. He also promised a prototype of an atomic bomb and tried without success to get Peking to accept Soviet MiGs and nuclear-capable bombers on Chinese soil. By end of July 1958, he had decided to back the Chicom power play in the Taiwan Straits. He first traveled to Peking to give his blessing, then permitted a false story to be printed in a Polish newspaper that he had already given the Chicoms atomic weapons. Long-range artillery provided by the Red Army to their comrades in the Peoples Liberation Army would make more deadly a bombardment of Quemoy.3 SWIFT REACTION Kept abreast of the possibility of trouble in the Straits by new Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Gordon Gray, Eisenhower met with Twining and Brigadier General Goodpaster on August 11, 1958 to go over JCS contingency plans. Twining said he was sending more F-86 Sabres to Taiwan as well as dispersing more SAC planes in "bombed up" condition with nuclear weapons on board in case the offshore situation or other trouble spots like Lebanon (where the U.S. had two months earlier deployed troops to head off an aggressive Iraqi move) erupted. The President grumped that he was still undecided on fighting for Quemoy and Matsu but that Chiang had almost forced him to do so by deploying so many troops there. The destruction of one-quarter of the Nationalist army would be a military and psychological blow from which Taiwan might never recover.4 All of Eisenhower's top advisors saw it the same way. At a meeting on August 22, Dulles, Allen Dulles, Twining, Burke, and others agreed that a major buildup of military equipment and supplies must be initiated to give the Nationalists the wherewithal to defend the offshore islands and American forces the capability to beat off a Chicom invasion if the President so decided. Thus over the next month, advanced F-100 Supersabres armed with Sidewinder missiles were provided the Nationalists as well as 8-inch howitzers, 155-mm guns, 240-mm howitzers, and more supplies of all kinds. The Seventh Fleet received another aircraft carrier, and the U.S. deployed five fighter squadrons and one NIKE battalion to Taiwan so that the island and the Pescadores Islands could be placed under the overall air defense command of the U.S. Taiwan

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Defense commander. Dulles led the assembled in a recommendation that the Nationalists, augmented by American air power where necessary, be permitted to retaliate against Chicom air attacks.5 On August 23, Chicom artillery opened up on Quemoy and kept firing day after day with devastating effect. Eisenhower's initial reaction was to restrain the predictable military desire to use tactical atomic weapons. A Special National Intelligence Estimate of August 26 warned that if the U.S. used atomic strikes on the China mainland to counter an invasion of the offshore islands, the probability was high that the Soviets would come to Mao's aid with nuclear attacks on Taiwan, the Seventh Fleet, or other American assets in Asia. Accordingly, the President cabled CINCPAC and the American military commander on Taiwan to use conventional means only to defend Quemoy and Matsu. Admiral Harry D. Felt, Stump's successor as of July 1, was furious but nevertheless revised Operations Plan 25-58 with a special non-nuclear annex. With Matador missiles on Taiwan and another squadron of B-47s deployed to Guam, the U.S. had plenty of atomic firepower in the theater sitting idle.6 Meanwhile, U.S.-Soviet relations were surprisingly cordial. On August 21, Eisenhower publicly invited Khrushchev to discuss with him the nuclear test ban issue. The Soviets had ceased testing unilaterally in March but reserved the right to resume if the U.S. and Britain did not stop as well. The President thought the issue so important that he did not withdraw the invitation after Chicom artillery began pounding the offshore islands. Warnings that Eisenhower and Dulles drafted for Peking to desist and statements by Khrushchev threatening retaliation if the U.S. attacked China did not interfere substantially with other issues between the U.S. and Soviet Union. These matters were determined by their own dynamics and logic. A diplomatic rupture, possibly even outright hostilities, would certainly have occurred had Peking resorted to more extreme actions to oust the Nationalists from Quemoy. At a meeting on August 29, Eisenhower, the JCS, and other advisors decided that Mao would either order his forces to step up their harassment and interdiction of supplies to Quemoy and Matsu, or launch an invasion of those islands, or even attack Taiwan by air as a prelude to invasion. The President yielded to pressure by Burke to permit preparations for U.S. Navy convoys of supplies to the offshore islands.7 The crisis grew more serious over the next few days with Chicom artillery threatening to cut off the offshore islands from resupply by Nationalist ships. The morning of September 2, Dulles called Twining to arrange a briefing by the JCS. In response to his question whether Under Secretary of State Christian A. Herter's information was correct that Chicom gun emplacements could be removed by conventional bombing, Twining replied in the affirmative but added that it would be a slow process unless atomic weapons were employed. Later in the day, the Secretary of State and Herter met with the nation's top military leaders. Taylor confirmed what Twining had said about the gun emplacements,

and Burke pressed hard for Navy convoys of supp

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There was a slight possibility a destroyer might be hit by artillery shells, he conceded, but since the Chicoms had not yet massed fishing junks to transport invasion forces and since the Nationalists had planes and napalm enough to smash an assault, U.S. casualties would be negligible. All the JCS agreed that if Peking threw everything available at Quemoy, only nuclear weapons would really do the job.8 Even if the Chicoms did not go all-out, Dulles feared that the U.S. would lose ships to enemy air attack, stunning the American electorate. But Burke remarked that since this fight was not just about the offshore islands but the very survival of Taiwan and ultimately the entire U.S. position in the Far East including Japan, it was worth the risk. White agreed and said that strong action in the Straits might even have a beneficial effect on the NATO allies, showing American resolve even to the point of going atomic. However, Taylor complained that had the U.S. funded the flexible forces he had long advocated, they would not now be facing a situation in which atomic weapons might be required. That brought a remonstrance from Twining that the U.S. could not afford flexible forces, from White and Burke that air and naval fleets were already stretched very thin around the world and could not be replaced easily if losses occurred, and finally from Dulles that the U.S. could never match the manpower of combined Sino-Soviet forces on the Eurasian land mass. The Secretary of State agreed with Burke that if a line were not drawn and held, the Communists would continue gobbling up territory. Nothing seemed worth going to World War III over until the consequences of doing nothing were examined.9 While Dulles did not want the military to go off half-cocked, neither did he want the President to lose enthusiasm for drawing a line against further Communist acquisitions. In a memo presented personally to Eisenhower in Newport, Rhode Island on September 4, he asserted that the Chicoms were acting with full Soviet knowledge and support. Ultimately, Peking intended to take Taiwan. Already the enemy had massed sufficient forces to storm Quemoy and Matsu, albeit with heavy loss, unless U.S. forces intervened. The key to deterring them was to make it plain that the President would use nuclear weapons if necessary. However, he did admit the possibility that the Chicoms would not back off and that the U.S. would have to resort to nuclear weapons. If that occurred, strong popular revulsion against the U.S. would arise around the world and especially in Asia and Japan, but it would fade quickly if only small air burst weapons were used. Since those bombs purportedly killed with some blast but mostly a fraction of a second bath of neutron and gamma rays with no appreciable long-term strontium 90 fall-out, no notable civilian casualties would result, and the matter could be resolved swiftly in the Nationalists' favor. What he wanted to emphasize was that the U.S. military was now so geared to use of nuclear weapons that if because of fear of an adverse world reaction they were not given the green light when the chips were down, the U.S. would have to revise its entire defense structure. In order to resolve the crisis, the President had to be willing to risk general war.10

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Eisenhower replied that it was not just a theoretical risk they were talking about. If the Chicoms struck at Quemoy and Matsu from airfields well back from the coast, and if he gave the military the go-ahead to retaliate against those bases with nuclear weapons, a strike so deep into Chinese territory would greatly increase the likelihood that the Soviets would intervene. And yet he agreed that he had no choice but to issue a public warning. In the Newport Declaration of that same day, he authorized Dulles to remind the world that Taiwan and the offshore islands had never been under Communist authority, and that the U.S. defense treaty with Taiwan as well as the Formosa Declaration of January 29, 1955 provided for the defense of Taiwan and "for the securing and protecting of related positions such as Quemoy and Matsu." While as yet the President had made no definitive finding that U.S. military intervention was needed to defend Taiwan, it was clear that the offshore islands were "increasingly related" to the Nationalist enclave's security. Although it was Washington's hope that Peking would refrain from further aggression, if an invasion was attempted it would "forecast a widespread use of force in the Far East which would endanger vital Free World positions and the security of the United States.11 After the Newport Declaration, Khrushchev got sweaty palms. He sent Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko to Peking on September 5 to caution Mao against directly challenging American power. The next day, Chou En Lai issued a statement that the PRC was willing to negotiate a settlement over the offshore islands. Relieved, Eisenhower wanted to accept at once, but Twining, Burke, and the other JCS asked for presidential authority in advance to intervene with air strikes if the Chicoms used the pretext of negotiations to launch a sudden attack. The President again refused to place that kind of power in the hands of CINCPAC and the Seventh Fleet commander. The JCS had previously told him that any Chicom invasion would require a massing of forces which American intelligence would detect. There would be time to consider a next step, therefore, if and when warning bells were sounded. He did approve Seventh Fleet convoys of supplies to Quemoy, however. A letter from Khrushchev on September 7 warning that an attack on the PRC would be considered by Moscow as an attack on the Soviet Union added to the tense atmosphere.12 The first convoy protected by the U.S. Navy ships delivered supplies without interference on September 7. The second the next day encountered artillery bombardment of landing beaches but no naval or air action. With American military forces so close to a shooting war with Mao's soldiers, Gray suggested to the President that perhaps now was the time to disabuse Chiang of the notion that the Nationalists, despite the deployment of more than 100,000 men on the offshore islands, could ever again contest with the Communists for control of the mainland. Eisenhower refused, saying that the Nationalists needed to have hope to carry on in their precarious position and that besides a slim possibility did exist that some day internal dissension and revolution would

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unhinge Chicom power. Privately, he had been discussing with Dulles an idea to trade Chiang's agreement to an evacuation for a significant number of American amphibious landing craft capable of transporting as many as 15,00020,000 Nationalist troops in one move. The deal would have to wait until Chicom pressure had ended so Chiang would not lose face.13 Despite early success for the convoy plan, the JCS was getting antsy. The crisis over the offshore islands was the perfect situation to use nuclear weapons because the U.S. was so overextended and faced such an overwhelming force of enemy manpower and air strength that only by going nuclear could the military hope to defeat a determined attack. But suddenly fearful that the Commander-in-Chief would never summon the intestinal fortitude to make this momentous decision, Twining and his colleagues reversed course on September 11 and told Neil H. McElroy, who had replaced Wilson as Secretary of Defense a year before, that strictly from the military point of view, Quemoy, Matsu, and the other offshore islands should be evacuated. When Eisenhower quickly concurred, Dulles reminded him that for all the reasons previously stated the U.S. could not leave the Taiwan Straits under any circumstances. He persuaded the President to promise in his speech to the nation that night that there would be no appeasement of Peking's naked aggression. Eisenhower finally stated publicly that Quemoy and Matsu were related to the defense of Taiwan.14 Talks with the Chinese undertaken in Poland by Ambassador Jacob D. Beam achieved no breakthrough, however, and the artillery bombardment and convoying of supplies continued. By mid-September it became clear to American intelligence officials that Peking would not risk escalating the crisis unless Washington or Taipei made the first move. They posited that the U.S. could even use nuclear weapons in Chinese coastal areas and provoke no Soviet response. The deeper into the mainland air strikes went, the more likely the Soviets were to retaliate. Khrushchev's second letter to Eisenhower, received on September 20, reminded the President that the Soviets too had nuclear weapons.15 Actually, the peak of the crisis came and went without American officials realizing it. F-100 Supersabres armed with Sidewinder missiles routed Chinese MiGs over the Straits, and Mao never ordered the massive redeployment of air power to the Amoy vicinity necessary to protect an invasion force from Seventh Fleet retaliation. Although glum about the long-term prospects of holding Quemoy and Matsu, Eisenhower was encouraged enough by U-2 flights showing no Chicom concentration of forces and by the success of naval convoys to assure British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd on September 21 that he opposed any use of tactical atomic weapons in the Taiwan Straits. Eight days later, Twining informed the President that the supply crisis had passed. Eisenhower could now concentrate on schemes to convince Chiang that once the Chicoms backed off, the Nationalists should consider evacuating Quemoy, Matsu, and the other islands.16 On October 6, 1958, Peking offered to end the artillery bombardment if the

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U.S. ended its convoys. Though Eisenhower did not agree, the shelling did end briefly before being resumed on alternating days. Slowly the crisis petered out. In March 1959 the Chicoms ceased artillery attacks on the offshore islands altogether. To this day, the Nationalists have held on to their footholds off the mainland coast. CONCLUSION The second Taiwan Straits crisis did not last very long but made a great impression on the Secretary of State and military. Realizing that Eisenhower was most unwilling to resort to nuclear weapons in limited war scenarios, Dulles concluded that the nuclear arsenal was a "wasting asset" and that the JCS should develop a new military doctrine and weaponry to carry out Taylor's Flexible Response idea. Top officers among the Army and Navy made the same judgment and began to grumble that U.S. emergency war plans relied too heavily on use of nuclear weapons. Only Air Force brass insisted that Massive Retaliation remained valid. Twining told Dulles in a post-mortem report that small atomic airbursts could have been used over Chicom airfields and artillery positions to neutralize those military targets with little or no fallout to nearby civilian areas. Whether the Secretary of State believed him was unclear, as Dulles had gone back and forth on the practicality of tactical atomic weapons since the first Taiwan Straits crisis. He soon had far more serious problems to consider in central Europe.17 Assertions that Eisenhower had been too hesitant to authorize use of nuclear weapons to defend the offshore islands obscured the real issue. The central problem was that the U.S. had overreached again to hold territory not vital to American national security. Regardless of statements linking the fate of Quemoy and Matsu to the overall free world position in the Far East, naturally the President would hold back from giving the military a free hand if he believed those little islands of no more importance in 1958 than they had been in 195455. The great tragedy was that military officials and civilian strategists came away from this final Far East crisis before Indochina convinced that the U.S. needed flexible forces to fight wars not important enough to warrant nuclear weapons. Had they reasoned instead that military force of any kind was inappropriate and unwise for defense of non-vital interests, they might have spared the U.S. the soul-corrupting experience of Vietnam.

12 THE AUTOBAHN TO ARMAGEDDON If the Russians want war over Berlin, they can have it. — Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 22, 19581

Comparison between the offshore islands situation and West Berlin was inevitable. Both were within the physical environs of major Communist powers, both had become symbols of American determination to resist Sino-Soviet aggression, and both were untenable militarily unless defended by nuclear weapons. But a fight over Berlin would prove much more dangerous than a ruckus in the Formosa Straits because any exchange of gunfire between Soviet and American forces could set off general war in a matter of hours. As the second offshore islands crisis developed, the Army augmented SACEUR's firepower with 8-inch howitzers capable of firing atomic shells. The real Soviet concern was Norstad's plan to provide atomic weaponry for other NATO forces, especially the Bundeswehr. SACEUR wanted the West Germans armed with atomic missiles as well as F-84F and F-104 fighterbombers. Although details of payment, delivery, training, and access to warheads needed to be worked out, by fall 1958 the Germans had ordered and were receiving three NIKE battalions armed with 60 non-nuclear Ajax and 40 atomic-capable Hercules missiles and two Honest John missile battalions. A Matador battalion and 225 F-84Fs were scheduled for delivery beginning in August 1959.2 Up to that point, the U.S. had stockpiled no atomic warheads or bombs on German soil for use by West German forces. A considerable number had been put into bunkers for British Corporal missile regiments and British Canberra squadrons, however, about which Norstad was not altogether pleased because the arrangement was a bilateral U.S.-U.K. affair and Norstad wanted all nuclear weapons systems on the continent under SACEUR command and within the NATO atomic stockpile structure. He therefore sought authority to deal directly with NATO ministries of defense on detailed arrangements for the delivery of

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Honest John battalions and set up of stockpile facilities. Although government level agreements were required per the 1954 act to permit exchange of restricted data for training purposes with atomic warheads, and military level agreements were needed to cover construction cost of facilities, custody and security of weapons, and maintenance and logistical support of U.S. forces, Norstad pushed ahead under operation WAGON TRAIN with establishment of stockpile sites on German soil for use by West German forces prior to conclusion of such agreements. Pilots for the first nuclear-capable German fighter-bomber squadron were trained prematurely as well, so that before the end of the year and still prior to the required agreements, the West German squadron acquired a nuclear capability. However, only the British Canberras, under SACEUR control, were officially assigned warheads.3 MAIN ARENA Throughout 1958, the Soviets had increased harassment of Western access to Berlin. This campaign had included searches of military trains, convoys, and trucks, interference with military and civilian overflights of East German territory, and new tolls for river and canal traffic. On the other hand, U.S. reconnaissance activities over the USSR as well as accidental violations of Soviet air space had resulted in conflict. On September 2, for example, a C-130 transport plane drifted over the Soviet border from Turkey and was shot down with six dead and eleven missing, presumed captured. The Soviets denied having the survivors in custody, and their fate became a continuing point of contention between the two superpowers. Even so, Khrushchev's statement on November 10 that because the West had allegedly violated provisions of the 1945 Potsdam agreement it had forfeited its legal rights in Berlin was received in NATO capitals with the same tensing of the spine as the arrival of an unwelcome house guest. Western leaders did not know how long the crisis had come to stay but feared it would be indefinitely. Soviet statements that they intended to hand over administrative control of the city to German Democratic Republic (GDR) officials caused a rash of meetings and memos in Washington.4 Dulles' reaction was less unyielding than had been the case over Quemoy. He agreed with the British Foreign Office that Khrushchev's motives ranged from attempting to strengthen his internal position for the upcoming 21st Communist Party Congress to creating a crisis atmosphere to enhance the attractiveness to Western European opinion of the plan presented to the U.N. October 2, 1957 by Adam Rapacki. The Polish foreign minister had proposed the denuclearization of the two Germanies, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to allay fears that West German forces would gain access to American nuclear weapons. Dulles ordered the State Department to put out a public statement that the U.S. would defend the rights of Western powers in West Berlin militarily if necessary, but privately agreed with the British that accepting the new GDR role

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might be more practical. For one thing, it would avoid Khrushchev's trap of heightening tensions as a pretext for a second blockade. The British made the salient point that Soviet radar jamming and other dirty tricks would make sustaining an airlift for longer than a year very difficult.5 The U.S. military in Europe was gung-ho for a fight. Norstad told Dulles on November 18 that he wanted an armed convoy to keep the land route to Berlin open along the autobahn. His air deputy Lieutenant General Leon W. Johnson dismissed reports of Soviet tactical air power around the city with the comment that fear of American nuclear weapons would prevent Khrushchev from making good his threats. But the JCS had to look at the larger picture. Over half a million Soviet and GDR troops controlled East Germany, backed up by 20 Soviet divisions (315,000 men) elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In a confrontation, Red Army tanks would crush the West Berlin garrison and keep rolling. If more Allied forces were thrown into their path too far forward, they too would be destroyed, adversely affecting NATO's ability to fight and the capability of the U.S. to deploy forces for a general war. On the other hand, the overall superiority of American nuclear weaponry made it very unlikely that the Soviets would provoke global war at this time. Assuming the President approved Norstad's plan for an armed convoy, the military believed there was a high likelihood that the Kremlin would back down.6 As with the offshore islands crisis, Eisenhower's mood alternated. After hearing Dulles' report of the courses of action and inaction favored by Norstad and the British on November 18, he expressed regret that the U.S. had ever committed so deeply to Berlin. However, since Truman had pushed Uncle Sam's chips into the pot along with American prestige, there was nothing to do now but stand firm. The support of the British, French, and West Germans was critical. Four days later he talked the situation over with Herter, who would take on additional responsibilities as Dulles, diagnosed with cancer, declined dramatically in health over the next several months. Eisenhower told the Under Secretary of State that his first instinct was to make a public announcement that if the Soviets wanted war over Berlin, they could have it. He joked that he would hold off scaring the hell out of everyone pending further developments.7 He did not have long to wait. On November 27, Khrushchev announced to the world that Berlin must become a demilitarized city in six months or he would force the issue by turning authority for the city over to GDR officials. Western rights of occupation under the Potsdam agreement would be unilaterally abrogated. A Soviet diplomatic note of the same day reiterated the six-month deadline—May 27, 1959—but also expressed a willingness to open negotiations. Activity on the diplomatic front became frantic. A week later in Moscow, Khrushchev harangued Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D., Minnesota) with a long monologue of threats. He would fight U.S. tanks with Soviet tanks, if that was what Eisenhower wanted, he said. Not only land armies but long-range rockets would attack Berlin from Soviet territory. Since the city lay inside GDR territory, any retaliation against the

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GDR meant war. This time the Soviet Union would not back down. Not outwardly intimidated, the U.S., Britain, and France rejected on December 14 any attempt to curtail their rights, including freedom of access to the city. Two weeks later, they called for talks that would consider Berlin within the overall context of European security and German reunification. In spite of Khrushchev's bluster, tension was partially alleviated by the unofficial visit of Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan to Washington beginning January 4, 1959.8 Behind the scenes, a reassessment of the military balance was going on. Intelligence reports warned that the Soviets would have an IOC of 100 ICBMs in mid-1959 to supplement the several hundred IRBMs already deployed in the USSR. On December 15, 1958, West German Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss requested immediate creation of a stockpile of American nuclear weapons to arm the first squadron of German F-84F fighter-bombers. In response, the State Department lifted all objection to speedy completion of the arrangement so long as the necessary legal documents per American law were agreed and signed. However, Strauss' petition that the U.S. also deploy two squadrons of Thor IRBMs on German soil and incorporate German officers and scientists into nuclear weapons research and development as well as advanced missile programs in the U.S. so that Bonn could start "from where you are now" and avoid preliminary research met with far less enthusiasm. American officials suggested that the Germans could not afford nor sustain adequate infrastructure for IRBM sites. They were concerned as well not to provide the Soviets with justification for a blockade. They were willing to accept a visit by German officials in the spring to gather information quietly about missiles and supersonic planes the Federal Republic should purchase. Although Norstad and Quarles promised deployment of second generation Pershing IRBMs and possibly even Polaris missiles when they were ready, Thors were ruled out.9 When informed in early February that the U.S. would definitely not commit IRBMs to German soil, West German Permanent Representative to NATO Herbert A. von Blankenhom charged that the U.S. was planning to pull out of Europe. He became so distraught in a meeting with Norstad that SACEUR lobbied Dulles to lift State Department objections to IRBMs in Greece and Turkey over the same budgetary and technical issues used as an excuse with the Germans. He had all but promised the Turks at the NATO meeting in December that the deployment would be made, he told the Secretary of State. If Dulles would throw his weight behind the plan, he would drop the planned deployment from six squadrons to four. In his opinion, IRBMs were better than ICBMs as a military weapon for Europe because they would be closer to the action and an immediate threat to Soviet missiles. Even if based only in Italy and Turkey, they would allay German paranoia that their greatest benefactor was about to skedaddle.10

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BERLIN CONTINGENCY PLANS So far as the thinking of the American military was involved, German fears of abandonment over Berlin were groundless. In fact Twining and the JCS were unanimous that the Western position there should be held even at risk of general war. It was to prepare the President and the NSC for that eventuality that shortly after Khrushchev's November 10 statement they petitioned for a revision of NSC 5410/1, U.S. Objectives in the Event of General War with the Soviet Bloc. They wanted to expand the policy to anticipate a major war initiated by the PRC or some other member of the Sino-Soviet bloc so that the military could attack the Soviet Union even if there was no overt Soviet aggression.11 At a debate of the matter on January 22, 1959, Dulles countered that the NSC should go to the other extreme and look at the possibilities of fighting limited war scenarios, as well as challenging the assumption that victory could be achieved in general war. He thought that in light of the capability of the U.S. and USSR to destroy each other in the foreseeable future, the U.S. should reconsider whether to respond to a Soviet attack by smashing the Soviet Union completely or whether to consider a Soviet offer to cut short an exchange of nuclear weapons at a point advantageous to the U.S. That might necessitate leaving the Soviets still in control of the USSR and even their satellites, he conceded. It might also spare the U.S. considerable death and destruction.12 Eisenhower responded that perhaps they should be guided by the Clauswitzian principle of destroying the enemy's will to fight, not necessarily annihilating his last capacity to do so. On the other hand, once a nuclear exchange occurred, it might be impossible to stop fighting until the Soviets had no more weapons of mass destruction to hurl westward. Now that he gave the matter some thought, he was inclined to accept surrender terms only if they effectively ended the Communist threat. If general war came, Soviet Communism must not be permitted to survive. Dulles countered that even after Kremlin power was destroyed, the Communist threat would live on in its enduring ideology. Twining snapped that what the Secretary of State was really talking about was fighting with one hand tied behind his back. In his opinion, if nuclear war started, the U.S. should fight all-out. Three times the JCS had war-gamed general war with the Sino-Soviet bloc and each time the U.S. had survived, despite the now fashionable theory of mutual assured destruction. Perhaps it might be possible, once all strategic forces had been launched against Soviet targets, to consider surrender terms, but he wanted no plan to negotiate in the midst of "shooting the works." He asked the President again to set forth clear and detailed objectives for a general war.13 To which both Dulles and Eisenhower responded with a burst of laughter. However, Dulles' mirth faded when the President said that the only realistic objective in event of general war was to hit the Soviets just as hard as possible and take a look around when the dust settled. He reiterated that peace negotiations would only be acceptable once the enemy raised a white flag. He

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agreed with Allen Dulles that the U.S. would never again revive the doctrine of Unconditional Surrender because it had prolonged World War II, possibly by a full year. Against Dulles' better judgment, the NSC concluded that in the event of general war, the U.S. would conduct all-out warfare. There would be no negotiated settlement in the midst of a nuclear exchange because the Soviets would not keep their promises anyway.14 Determined not to have a repeat of Taiwan Straits pussyfooting, Twining moved quickly to obtain the President's commitment to military action in the event of a new blockade. Norstad had already drafted Plan 103 to move two small U.S. task forces, one composed of five tanks, the other of a reinforced battalion of 700-800 infantry, into East German territory to probe Soviet intentions. In a meeting on January 29, the JCS pressed a more elaborate scheme to move up the autobahn with a full division. However, the President disliked the idea at once because a single division was entirely inadequate to conquer the GDR and would result in a great many casualties. Dulles added that the JCS plan could lead only to military defeat and national humiliation. Aroused, Twining spoke in the most forceful terms that if the U.S bluffed and Khrushchev demanded to see their cards, they might as well pull out of Europe because the Soviets would never fear them again. The President stroked his worry beads—the need for Allied support and cooperation—and remarked that Adenauer in particular might balk at a "Berlin or Bust" approach.15 Dulles suggested that a single obstruction of Western access to Berlin by GDR officials would hardly warrant a movement up the autobahn with 15,000 or so troops. Perhaps if a second obstruction occurred and a pattern developed, division-size action would be appropriate, followed by additional forces if the enemy did not cease hostile action. Twining objected that with only six divisions deployed in Europe, the U.S. could not hope to fight a limited war against the Soviets and their GDR satellite. In his opinion, the President would have no choice but to respond to any blockage of a probing force by going to general nuclear war. However, Eisenhower commented that he doubted the Soviets would directly interfere with American military units; rather, as Dulles suggested, they would continue to harass Western military vehicles and personnel, requiring stamping of travel documents and the like. On the other hand, if the Soviets did resort to force, his course would be clear. He would issue an ultimatum to Khrushchev to back down, then go to nuclear war if the Soviets did not comply. In the meantime, the U.S. must carefully cultivate world opinion by preaching about Western rights in Berlin and the responsibility of the U.S. to protect the freedom of two million Berliners. He preferred to have the public push the use of force upon him rather than attempt to lead an unwilling nation to war.16 Dulles said he knew how to rally the nation and the allies. The U.S. would proceed through a series of gradual steps to demonstrate the escalating seriousness of the crisis. First, the American ambassador in Moscow would be withdrawn. Next, the U.S. would break diplomatic relations with the Soviets

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etc., etc., etc. Then, and only then, would come military force, also in escalating steps. By the time the U.S. resorted to nuclear weapons, the world would understand that there had been no other way.17 By early March, continued Soviet provocations and the pressure of Khrushchev's approaching deadline caused the President to give in on the JCS plan for a one-division move into GDR territory. Using more force—the three or four corps needed to fight a major campaign and defeat Soviet forces in East Germany—would make general war certain and was ruled out. If necessary, the U.S. would jump right from the one-division attack to nuclear war. On the other hand, Eisenhower had no intention of publicizing his decision. He turned down Twining's request that he build public support by bringing before the American people the seriousness of the situation. He assured agreeable congressional leaders that in a real emergency over Berlin, he would go nuclear without delaying to consult Congress. Although the JCS insisted that loss of Berlin would be both a political and military disaster, as with Quemoy and Matsu the President refused to commit American prestige any further than was already the case. Still, the possibility that he would reverse course and let the Soviets bully the Western powers out of the former German capital was slim.18 ALLIED DISSENSION In early 1959 allied support was as changeable as the Berlin weather. According to Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson and other embassy officials in Moscow, the Kremlin was betting that the U.S. would have no backing at all to uphold Western rights in the city. French forces were committed to another losing colonial war, this time in Algeria, the Germany army was still too small for Adenauer to risk a fight, and the British would simply not shed blood over Berlin as a matter of principle. First Sea Lord Admiral Louis F. Mountbatten had confirmed as much to Norstad after Khrushchev had announced the May 27 deadline. To him and other British military leaders, SACEUR's Plan 103 would make a confrontation more likely because of the use of tanks. They much preferred a small airlift of supplies to the West Berlin garrison while negotiations were pursued to find a satisfactory solution. Had they been permitted to see the JCS plan for a one-division attack up the autobahn, there might have been an immediate split in NATO. Meanwhile, Macmillan made a trip to Moscow on February 21 to hash things out with Khrushchev. The suspicion in Washington was that the prime minister would cave on the Soviet leader's demand for a summit at which a deal could be struck to keep Germany divided and deny the Federal Republic access to atomic weapons. At the very least, the Kremlin would interpret Macmillan's presence in Moscow as a sign of weakness and an indication that the plan to separate the U.S. from its allies was working.+19 Even more exasperating to American officials than British trepidation was Gaullist insouciance. Bogged down in North Africa, the Fourth Republic was

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finally extinguished by the return to power of de Gaulle, after January 1959 under a constitution that gave him unprecedented powers. In one respect, that boded well for a strong position over Berlin. Despite fear among the French populace of nuclear war, the French president wanted to yield not one inch of territory, not one iota of Western authority in the divided city. On the other hand, he gave no specific commitment to any particular course of action and insisted that Paris would make decisions only in light of circumstances that prevailed at the time action was required. In fact, de Gaulle would maintain a curious detachment toward the danger of nuclear conflict right throughout the Eisenhower presidency and into John F. Kennedy's management of the problem. In large measure, this was due to his belief that the Soviets were bluffing. In part, it manifested a deep displeasure and anger with the Americans for failing to consult on plans to use nuclear weapons if the Berlin standoff resulted in war.20 Norstad had gotten off to a bad start with de Gaulle in September 1958 when the French leader had asked him bluntly in the presence of other French officials where U.S. nuclear weapons were based in France and against which sites in the USSR they were targeted. After de Gaulle had cleared the room at Norstad's request, SACEUR had still denied the great Frenchman this information. To make matters worse, Eisenhower had reacted as if someone had thrown a stink bomb into the room when de Gaulle proposed on September 17 a Directory of the U.S., Britain, and France to displace the NAC as the most important decision-making authority in Western Europe. To retaliate for the Norstad snub and Eisenhower's stiff-arm, de Gaulle refused permission for the U.S. to base nuclear weapons in France for nine squadrons of F-100 fighterbombers SACEUR was counting on to repel a Soviet invasion.21 He also dug in his heels against signing agreements required by the 1954 Atomic Energy act to permit consummation of efforts to assist the French in developing nuclear-powered submarines and to arrange atomic warheads storage on French soil for use with NIKE and Honest John battalions the French had already ordered. By February 1959, Norstad was very concerned that air defense and tactical atomic support for central army group operations in Germany would not be in place for a Berlin showdown. The situation was alleviated to a certain degree by ruling that storage of atomic weapons on German soil for use by French units did not require Franco-American agreements. Nevertheless, atomic-capable battalions on French soil could not be assigned warheads, and Norstad warned Paris on March 21 that if permission was not forthcoming shortly to stockpile nuclear weapons on French soil for the nine F-100 squadrons, they would be moved. Unimpressed, de Gaulle made the decision to withdraw French military forces from the NATO command structure. La Belle France, the French president had decided, would achieve greatness again on her own.22 In Bonn, Chancellor Adenauer had begun to realize that German access to nuclear weapons carried with it the gravest risk. He confessed to Dulles on

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February 8, 1959 that he was frightened what nuclear war would do to his country and yet anxious lest the U.S. back down to Soviet threats and abandon Berlin. He wanted unity among the U.S., Britain, France, and West Germany but dreaded a conference to settle German issues for fear failure would intensify the crisis. Nor would it be wise to probe with military forces only to be forced to withdraw later. Not only would such a retreat damage Western prestige in the eyes of German and world opinion, it might create a situation from which war would develop. Above all else, the U.S. must not let a situation develop in which nuclear weapons would be used. That would mean the destruction of the German nation.23 Although sympathetic to West Germany's position between the Communist rock and NATO's hard place, Dulles insisted that they must all face up to the possibility of general war. Since it would be disastrous to take on the Soviets with conventional forces alone, they must be prepared to implement a plan to send an armored division into GDR territory, then resort to nuclear weapons if necessary. After all, the U.S. would be the main target of Soviet strategic forces. Nuclear weapons would be targeted on Washington as well as Bonn. Somewhat muddled, Adenauer responded that he only meant to convey the concept that nuclear weapons must not be used on German territory alone following probing operations but also at targets elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In any event, a united front would deter the Soviets from pushing matters to a head.24 After Macmillan went to Moscow, Adenauer became intensely suspicious that the British leader had made overtures to sell out Berlin and/or the Federal Republic's right to have nuclear weapons. He was not reassured by Macmillan's visit to Bonn in March because the Prime Minister asked support for a summit meeting with Khrushchev even while asserting that the British government was prepared to take risks in a very dangerous situation. Suspicion turned to outright fury once Macmillan briefed Eisenhower and American officials on his talks in late March and Ambassador David K. E. Bruce relayed an account. It seemed that Macmillan had not only agreed to a summit but made a proposal to freeze military forces on both sides of the Iron Curtain, permitting those nations in possession of nuclear weapons to keep them, preventing those without from ever obtaining them. Himself a hardliner on Berlin, Bruce advocated that "we must be prepared and ready, if all else fails, to wage nuclear war against the Soviets."25 In Paris, Norstad was extremely concerned by cracks in the alliance. On March 17, the same day Berlin contingency plans were presented to Eisenhower for his consideration, he complained to the JCS that there was no tripartite planning with the British and French to respond to a new blockade. In short order, he was permitted to establish the LIVE OAK planning group, which did not include the West Germans because of British objections that Adenauer was too skittish. In truth, they wanted to keep the Germans out so they would not be accused of a sell-out when opposing ambitious American plans to keep open

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a land route to Berlin. Despite British and French staff officer participation in LIVE OAK, Norstad remained the engine of activity and the allies the brakes.26 On March 20, Macmillan began his series of meetings with Eisenhower at the White House, then at Camp David to report on contentious Moscow talks with Khrushchev and push negotiations to avoid war. Khrushchev considered Berlin a "cancer" that must be excised, he related, but might be willing to accept the status quo for a number of years. Echoing Truman's sentiments at the December 1950 meeting with Attlee, the President insisted that there be no concessions over Berlin unless as part of an overall agreement for the reunification of Germany. Under no circumstances would he "throw the West Berliners to the wolves." Macmillan, who had begun the morning meeting by dramatically announcing his willingness to mobilize for war if necessary and remove all young children from the U.K. to Canada so as to keep the British race alive in the event of total nuclear devastation of the British Isles, found that kind of comment insulting. He became even more emotional after coming back from an evening drive with the President, telling Eisenhower that not just the fate of Berlin but the entire future of mankind was at stake. "World War I—the war which nobody wanted—came because of the failure of the leaders at that time to meet at the Summit," he lectured. British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey "instead had gone fishing and the war came in which the United Kingdom lost two million young men."27 Little impressed, the President responded that summit meetings prior to World War II had failed miserably and he saw nothing in the Berlin situation that would encourage more hope for success. The prime minister retorted that Hitler had been an impossible man to deal with but that Khrushchev was different. Moreover, Britain needed time to make civil defense and mobilization preparations and to draw up plans to evacuate to Australia and Canada a substantial part of the British population. Only eight hydrogen bombs dropped on Britain's largest cities would kill 20-30 million Englishmen, he kept repeating. It was his duty to the British nation to prevent that calamity. Eisenhower refused to be dragooned into a summit. The U.S. would get clobbered too in a nuclear war, he reminded the prime minister. In an all-out exchange, there would be 67 million dead Americans, but he would not give in to blackmail.28 The President came away from his meeting with Macmillan convinced that the best way to deter Khrushchev over Berlin was to be fully prepared to use nuclear weapons. Therefore, he permitted shipment of Redstone missiles and warheads for NIKE Hercules units to Europe and authorized agreements with the West Germans, per U.S. law, to equip the Bundeswehr with nuclear-capable howitzers, Honest John and Matador missiles, and more fighter-bombers. Determined that German forces have all the weaponry provided U.S. forces, Strauss pressed Quarles for 175-mm artillery pieces with range of 32 kilometers as well. The Deputy Secretary of Defense replied accommodatingly that the Germans could take their pick of that weapon or Honest John and Little John

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missiles, though the U.S. military considered the latter better systems. Scanning his shopping list, Strauss remarked happily that the Federal Republic would also select twelve squadrons of Sergeant missiles for deployment in 1961. At least on paper, Bonn was building up a sizable battlefield nuclear capability.29 Of particular West German concern at this time was whether the Soviets had moved medium-range SSMs with range of 700-800 miles into Eastern Europe. U.S. intelligence sources turned up only some indirect proof that short-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) with range of 100 miles might have left the Soviet Union. This was a minor dispute in comparison to differences Norstad was having with the French, growing more stubborn daily as the May 27, 1959 deadline approached. De Gaulle's refusal to permit storage of American nuclear weapons on French soil for F-100 squadrons and the French military pull-out from the NATO command structure threatened to undercut an effective defense of Western Europe, he told Washington. In fact, some American officials suspected that de Gaulle was attempting to sabotage NATO completely so that a French-dominated defense organization or system of alliances could take its place. Eisenhower was concerned enough to send a strong letter of protest and persuasion to de Gaulle on May 2 prior to the visit of the French president to Washington. It did no good.30 Meanwhile, the germ of suspicion about British intentions that had infected Adenauer's mind spread to Dulles, dying in Walter Reed Army hospital. He told Herter that in Moscow Macmillan had accomplished nothing positive with Khrushchev and may even have cut his own deal to gain trade privileges and protection for British interests in the Near East in exchange for British neutrality over Berlin. He advised the Acting Secretary of State that if the allies did not recover their manhood soon, American leaders might have to conduct an "agonizing reappraisal" of their own. In a more lucid moment, he expounded on the philosophical differences between British and American approaches in dealing with Khrushchev. Whereas the British viewed the Soviets as a Great Power much like nineteen-century Russia with whom Her Majesty's Government had been able to parlay, the U.S. knew the Kremlin to befilledwith ideological Communists, ruthless and untrustworthy. Of one thing could Herter be certain in negotiations or at a summit meeting: the Soviets would never bargain in good faith.31 A more balanced evaluation of the British was given Herter by Ambassador John Hay Whitney in London. Contrary to assertions in some quarters, the prime minister and his cabinet were not in a Munich mood and Macmillan's trip to Moscow to discuss Berlin could not be compared to Neville Chamberlain's sellout of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Despite grave misgivings and genuine fear of war, John Bull would rally to Uncle Sam's side when the chips were down. It was just that with such a small land mass to govern, British officials were acutely aware that nuclear war with hydrogen bombs would finish off the British Isles once and for all. Whitney assured Herter that Macmillan, Selwyn Lloyd,

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and other responsible British officials were fundamentally committed to the Anglo-American alliance.32 CONCLUSION In April and May 1959 the U.S. military came to peak readiness for war. The Northern Task Force was sent to the Northern Army Group to provide atomic support for the CROSSED SWORDS HI exercise with two Corporal, two Honest John, and two 280-mm gun battalions and maintained at least one battalion in the area until the crisis abated. In the Mediterranean, the BIG DEAL exercise by the Sixth Fleet simulated a full nuclear strike in the direction of the Soviet Union. At Sandia national laboratory in New Mexico, scientists hastened to provide the Army with an atomic battlefield capability to tide it over until the Davy Crockett, a jeep mounted recoilless rifle, operable by three men, could be perfected. Fortunately, simulations and exercises were all that took place. Talks between the foreign ministers of the major powers commenced in Geneva on May 11 and alleviated tensions, just as the British had predicted. Believing he might get his way through negotiations, Khrushchev backed off his deadline. For the moment at least, the march down the road to Armageddon had taken five.33

13 COCKED GUN You have surrounded us with bases, but our rockets can destroy them. If you start a war, we may die but the rockets will fly automatically! — Nikita S. Khrushchev, June 23, 19591

In just six months, Khrushchev's ultimatum on Berlin had driven deep fissures into the ranks of the major NATO powers. Although the deadline had been cancelled, implicit in the minds of Western leaders was that it could be reimposed at any time. Shrewdly the Soviets continued to promote division between the allies by raising fears of German revanchism. At Geneva on May 21 and 22, 1959, Gromyko charged to French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville that even if NATO nuclear weapons were supposed to remain in American custody, the Germans could seize and keep them in a crisis.2 For the moment, however, the French were more concerned about American power in Europe than German. De Gaulle wrote Eisenhower on May 25 that since the U.S. reserved to itself the decision on use of nuclear weapons, and because this exposed France to immediate and total destruction upon the whim of the American president, the U.S. would not be permitted to stockpile those weapons on French soil until Paris was permitted to participate fully in the decision-making process. Furious, Eisenhower called Norstad home for consultations. While conceding that de Gaulle's long-range plan was to secure veto power over American nuclear decision making, including SAC, Norstad advised the President to downplay the controversy. Over the next six months he planned to move the nine squadrons of F-lOOs from French air bases to West Germany and Britain. Since the French had no support among NATO powers for their disruptiveness, the entire dispute was best handled quietly. Eisenhower complained that in negotiations the U.S. had been willing to give up everything but control of warheads. As evidence of de Gaulle's crazy unreasonableness, he recalled the French leader's threat to withdraw French forces from SHAPE during the German Ardennes offensive in World War II when tens of thousands

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of lives were at stake. To force de Gaulle back into line, he had been compelled to threaten in front of Churchill to withhold supplies from French forces.3 Eventually, Eisenhower shrugged off his personal pique and authorized Herter to make a formal offer to Paris on June 27 of NIKE Hercules and Honest John missile systems to be stationed on German soil and with nuclear warheads in U.S. custody. The offer applied to a previous Honest John squadron as well, tentatively accepted by the French and scheduled for a late July 1959 delivery. All that was required by U.S. law was conclusion of a 144(b) agreement to safeguard any nuclear information transferred and allow training with nuclear warheads. Without a French signature on such a document, only limited training could take place, effectively precluding France from participating in NATO nuclear operations.4 MORE CRACKS IN THE ALLIANCE On June 23, 1959, Khrushchev rattled his nuclear rockets. In a meeting in Moscow with former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union W. Averell Harriman, he boasted that in the event of war, Soviet missiles would smash Bonn, the Ruhr industrial area in West Germany, Paris, and London. Even if Moscow was reduced to ashes, the Soviets would fight on from cities in Siberia, he said. He had already shipped nuclear rockets to Peking to devastate the Seventh Fleet.5 That was untrue. Not only had U-2 flights turned up no evidence of offensive missile sites in China, but deployment of operational ICBMs in the USSR was limited to a handful at Plesetsk and Tyuratom. Just as important, the Soviet falling-out with the Chicoms over Mao's pretensions to world Communist leadership had become very serious. At the last minute, Khrushchev cancelled a planned shipment of a Soviet atomic bomb prototype to Peking and abrogated the Sino-Soviet nuclear agreement.6 Unaware that the two great Communist powers were quarreling to such an extant, the JCS was more displeased than ever that a showdown over Berlin had been delayed. In Geneva, Herter proposed a moratorium of anywhere from two to five years over the fate of the divided city with the ultimate objective being a "guaranteed free city." Arleigh Burke wrote for his colleagues on July 10 that even a two-year delay would be enough time for the Soviets to catch up in strategic nuclear systems. The JCS wanted to force a settlement of Berlin now while the U.S. was in position to "prevail in general war." While the CIA agreed that as Soviet power waxed, the Western position in Berlin became ever more untenable and that it would be better to conclude an agreement sooner rather than later because of Allied fears of American vulnerability to a Soviet nuclear attack, Langley's estimate of the situation did not foresee an inevitable war. Except in the almost impossible scenario of complete strategic surprise,

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the Soviets could not be certain of victory. It was far more likely that Khrushchev would avoid maximum pressure on Berlin while attempting to get what he wanted through negotiations.7 Eisenhower was skeptical that the Soviets would catch up in nuclear weaponry any time soon. He rebuked the JCS for attempting to meddle in Berlin negotiations and insisted that DOD officials keep their noses out of State Department business. However, he did share JCS concerns about the British. In LIVE OAK meetings, British staff officers at first had contended that if an initial probe of a small military force failed to drive through to Berlin, the result would be all-out nuclear war. Even after Norstad won their grudging approval, Macmillan refused to accede to the plan. The President suspected a British stonewall until the U.S. agreed to a summit meeting with Khrushchev. He told Gray this development was a very serious breach of Allied solidarity.8 In Bonn, Adenauer was fearful that Macmillan planned a program of appeasement. He warned John J. McCloy, former U.S. High Commissioner in postwar Germany, that some American officials were of the same conniving disposition, though not Herter, now Secretary of State after Dulles' death on May 24. He advised that the U.S. move rapidly to forge a rapprochement with de Gaulle because the French president, though at times a headache, was a strong, resolute leader. McCloy responded that when the chips were down, the British were the best allies to have, not the French. He urged the chancellor to meet with the prime minister to resolve their differences.9 Where Berlin was concerned, the British were not appeasers, but neither were they the Rock of Gibraltar. Undoubtedly, Macmillan was willing to make concessions to the point of yielding effective control of the city to the GDR. He and other top British leaders did not consider the former German capital vital to NATO and certainly not to the security of the British Isles. On the other hand, if Red Army tanks took Berlin, then clanked across the border into West Germany, the British would undoubtedly fight, much as they had in September 1939 when, after sacrificing Czechoslovakia, they went to war over Poland. Given the nuclear wild card floating around the deck of postwar Europe and London's legitimate fear that Berlin contingency plans could touch off the powderkeg of war, it is difficult to fault them for excessive caution. Most troubling to British leaders was Norstad's preference for a plan that included automatic execution of military steps once the Soviets acted to block an initial probe. Although they could live with a move of several hundred infantrymen toward Berlin, they feared that overzealousness on the part of military commanders would cause an immediate escalation to nuclear combat. Thus they insisted on tripartite government approval of military actions in light of circumstances prevailing at the time. Eisenhower and Herter correctly interpreted this as a bid for a veto over American actions, including resort to nuclear weapons. One thing they would not give any ally was a veto.10 At the NSC meeting on July 16, the NSC discussed what to do about British procrastination. Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon explained that

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London believed the Soviets would not move against Berlin while negotiations continued at Geneva and that ultimately a summit would be necessary. For that reason, Macmillan refused any final agreement about contingency plans and even dragged his feet on JCS proposals to take quiet precautionary measures. Eisenhower said that even if a summit took place, that did not guarantee a solution. The Western powers would still need to make military preparations.11 In Geneva the West put forward a proposal on Berlin which included a pledge of no nuclear weapons in the city. On July 24, Gromyko responded with a counterproposal that would define precisely what weaponry would be permitted, cut the Western garrison down to three or four thousand troops, and prohibit any propaganda or subversive activity, which the Soviets and GDR believed encouraged East Germans to flee to the West in increasing numbers. This drain of manpower, especially young Germans, was creating a very unstable situation. It encouraged others in Eastern Europe to stir up trouble, even to the point of plotting the ouster of Communist governments. As for a solution to the overall German question, the Soviets proposed that officials of the Federal Republic and the GDR sit down face-to-face for negotiations over a period of 18 to 24 months. Of course, the JCS viewed this as just another scheme to prolong the crisis with all its deleterious effects upon Western solidarity. They warned that when negotiations eventually broke down, the balance of power would have shifted to the Soviet Union. Vice President Nixon journeyed to Moscow at this time on an unofficial visit. On July 24, he engaged in the famous Kitchen Debate with Khrushchev at the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park, according to his later description a verbal firefight on Soviet-American tensions carried on throughout the exhibit. He then met the Soviet premier two days later at his summer house in Ogorevo while their wives looked on. The diminutive Russian was full of confidence, bragging that the Soviets had tested an ICBM a week earlier which had traveled 7,000 kilometers and struck ground with a CEP of only 1.7 kilometers. Although another test several weeks before had overshot its mark by 2,000 kilometers, fortunately it had landed in the ocean short of Alaska. The point was that the Soviet Union had ample number of IRBMs and ICBMs to destroy all of Western Europe and the major cities in the U.S. Still, he denied that he had told Harriman he had given nuclear rockets to Peking and insisted that American nuclear bases around the periphery of the USSR were the primary source of Soviet-American tension. He threatened that if the U.S. put nuclear missiles into Italy and Turkey, the Soviet Union would retaliate by basing rockets in Albania and Bulgaria. As for Berlin, he had decided to let the pot simmer for a while. In the long run, there were more important issues—disarmament, nuclear testing, trade—than who controlled Hitler's capital.12 The pot simmered about ten seconds before boiling again. Khrushchev warned that if the U.S. attempted to preserve its occupation status, this might provoke war because with American troops coming and going, incidents were bound to occur. Western planes over the city might collide with Soviet planes

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or even violate Communist air space and be shot down. Whether a summit meeting took place or not, the Kremlin could never accept a perpetual Western presence in Berlin. The only concessions he would make would be to guarantee freedom of access and the existing social order. It was his intention to preserve the status quo of two Germanies.13 While discussing disarmament and a nuclear test ban, Khrushchev let slip that the Soviets had not yet developed tactical atomic weapons because of the expense involved and the probability that heavy loads of TNT could do the same job. If true, that meant that SACEUR possessed a battlefield advantage over the Soviets which could greatly escalate the danger. If, in response to blockage of a probe or division-size action, NATO went atomic on GDR territory, the Soviets would have nothing local and limited with which to counter except more conventional forces. They would be forced to respond with IRBMs or nuclearcapable planes based inside the USSR or lose East Germany. Be that as it may, in August 1959, Norstad finally persuaded British and French planners to accept a revised contingency plan that satisfied no one because the Americans wanted even more aggressive measures than were sanctioned and the British only approved because refusal would have provoked a break with Norstad. The Americans consoled themselves that the document at least recognized that a limited ground probe backed up by threat of nuclear weapons would compel the Soviets to face the unmistakable imminence of general war. The British still insisted on governmental decision before military steps were taken.14 The Geneva talks ended on August 5, without any resolution of the basic dispute. Pleased by the conciliatory nature of talks held with Frol R. Kozlov, First Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers on July 1, Eisenhower had already issued on August 3 a public invitation to Khrushchev to visit the U.S. Khrushchev accepted, and his trip was arranged for September 15 through 27. In preparation, the President journeyed to London, France, and West Germany from August 26 to September 7 to forge a common position with the allies. The most difficult meeting of the tour came on September 3 at Rambouillet, de Gaulle's residence near Paris. The French president was intent upon wooing the Germans into alliance with France and away from NATO with promises of Franco-German cooperation on nuclear weapons development. Futilely, Eisenhower attempted to dissuade him from proceeding with an independent nuclear force by decrying the wasted time, effort, and money involved in the enterprise. The program would proceed to its logical conclusion, de Gaulle said. Indeed, a date had already been set—February 13, 1960—for testing France's first atomic bomb in the Sahara Desert of North Africa. He told the President that although he was certain Eisenhower himself was committed to the defense of Western Europe, some future American leader might be intimidated by a Soviet threat to attack North American cities. For that reason, France must have the capability of deterring the Soviet Union itself.15

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SUMMIT MEETINGS Khrushchev arrived in the U.S. on September 15, 1959. It was the first visit by a Soviet premier and a well-publicized event that raised hopes throughout the West that Cold War tensions would soon be reduced. Not much of substance was discussed in a White House meeting before the Russian went off on a prearranged tour of the country with Ambassador to the U.N. Henry Cabot Lodge, however. The real summit would await Khrushchev's return to Washington in ten days.16 On his train and plane tour to New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, then back to Washington by way of Iowa cornfields and Pittsburgh steel mills, Khrushchev spoke frankly, sometimes angrily, about the world situation. The Soviet Union had ICBMs, while the U.S. had none, he boasted on September 17. The speed of ballistic missiles made the USSR the strongest power on earth. That was why no hydrogen bombs had been stationed in East Germany. The Soviet Union could swiftly destroy the Federal Republic from bases in Mother Russia. Lodge countered that SAC's bombers and Navy aircraft carriers would retaliate for any attack on Western Europe or North America. Even without ICBMs, the U.S. could pound the USSR into dust. However, since war would be suicidal for both nations, mature leaders must proceed with negotiations. He got Khrushchev to agree that NATO had arisen as much as a reaction to Stalin's postwar policies as from Truman's aggressiveness. On the other hand, the Soviet leader insisted that American nuclear bases in West Germany, Spain, and Morocco posed an immediate and grave threat to his country. There could be no permanent peace so long as this encirclement persisted.17 When Khrushchev returned on September 26 from the trip Eisenhower had hoped would awe him with American industrial and economic vitality, he was joined by Gromyko and other officials for two days of talks with the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and others at Camp David. Quite sensibly, everyone agreed that Berlin was a symbol for both sides and its fate a question of prestige, but Eisenhower maintained that vital security issues were also at stake because if Western rights were terminated, the repercussions would undermine the entire American position in Western Europe. Khrushchev responded that he had only set a deadline because of Western refusal to negotiate. He was willing to settle the matter now on a friendly basis so long as the occupation of Berlin was not prolonged into a permanent state of affairs. He continued to insist that German unification was not realistic and that a formal peace treaty was required to end the state of war and resolve outstanding issues between the two Germanies. Eisenhower's concession that the occupation should not be regarded as permanent prompted the premier to agree not to reimpose a time limit for negotiations leading to a settlement. However, he refused to permit the no-deadline language to appear in the final communique of the summit. The President was permitted to mention it only at his press conference on September 28 after the Soviet delegation had departed.18

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In the afternoon of September 26, Eisenhower took Khrushchev to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for a more relaxed conversation. Genuinely touched, Khrushchev nevertheless turned away the President's attempt to get him to agree to a ban on the production and testing of nuclear weapons, enforced by international inspection, by admitting what Eisenhower already knew. American nuclear weapons and bombers were still far superior to comparable Soviet weaponry and the U.S. was still effectively out of range of Soviet bombers. In order to counterbalance American strength, the Kremlin needed freedom from restrictions to pursue ballistic missile development. A potent Soviet ICBM force would soon redress the imbalance in strategic weapons.19 The next day, Khrushchev was infuriated that Dillon pressed him to settle the Soviet lend-lease bill from World War II before the U.S. would consider extending trade credits. It did not improve his mood that Eisenhower firmly rejected his attempt to discuss the offshore islands dispute and the PRC's claim to Formosa. All the points of contention between the Soviet bloc and the West remained unresolved. No matter, the President came away from the summit convinced that the situation in Europe was no longer an emergency and satisfied that he could push ahead with plans to reduce the American troop commitment to NATO and replace it with greater Allied forces without weakening the Western position on Berlin. He told Norstad in early November that the time had come for the Europeans to stop making a "sucker out of Uncle Sam" by concentrating on their economy while the U.S. picked up the tab for NATO's defense. Washington's contribution would eventually be limited to providing the alliance's nuclear umbrella.20 Eisenhower intended to get this point across to the allies in the debate on new NATO strategy for the next five years. In light of growing Soviet nuclear power and Allied doubts that the U.S. would go nuclear to defend Western Europe, there were two principal alternatives. The President favored a "trip wire" plan of positioning limited conventional forces in forward areas, which would result in early resort to strategic nuclear retaliation once the Soviet bloc attacked. Norstad wanted a "shield" concept, set forth in MC 70, of stationing strong and balanced conventional and tactical nuclear forces in West Germany to insure that any major Soviet attack would result in a situation so serious as to require massive retaliation by the "sword" of strategic nuclear forces. To implement MC 70, Norstad had in mind a multinational atomic authority for all fifteen NATO countries, which might have the added benefit of persuading France and other nations so inclined to give up their national atomic programs. Thus when Eisenhower told him about his decision to cut back American forces in Europe, SACEUR objected because such a withdrawal would preclude the sword and shield strategy and dictate by default the trip wire resort to nuclear weapons. A pause between initiation of a Soviet conventional thrust across the West German border and the time of decision on nuclear weapons was much to his preference, he said. Any cutback in American forces in Europe would only encourage a similar reduction by the allies. State Department officials too

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objected to the President's conception for fear of charges that the U.S. intended to build a Fortress America. Both they and Norstad began working on proposals for a NATO nuclear force that would give the allies a greater feeling of participation in nuclear decision making. A primary objective of both variations was to counteract national nuclear tendencies.21 Eisenhower let these protests pass over his head. On December 19, he flew to France for three days of talks with de Gaulle, Macmillan, and Adenauer, determined to sell his new NATO defense concept. The chancellor's old heart must nearly have stopped when the President told him that the Bundeswehr should set a target of 40 German divisions, an increase of 28. In a separate discussion that did not include Adenauer, de Gaulle deflected an appeal by Eisenhower and Macmillan to reincorporate French forces into the NATO command structure, especially the air defense network. French national pride was at stake, he insisted. Cfest++mpossible that French forces could come agai under SACEUR's command. In addition, the French atomic program would soon produce an atomic bomb far more powerful than the device that had destroyed Hiroshima. He rejected once again Eisenhower's proposal to conclude an agreement under a "key to the cupboard" arrangement to place IRBMs and other nuclear systems on French soil.22 The Allied summit was a failure. Not only had Eisenhower not moved de Gaulle one inch in the direction of NATO solidarity, but he also angered Canada, Italy, and other NATO members who resented being shut out of highlevel meetings at which NATO issues, including the fate of Berlin, were discussed. Fortunately, Khrushchev more or less kept his pledge to calm the crisis atmosphere, in the Soviet interest anyway while negotiations went forward to settle the lend-lease and trade credit issues. Harassment incidents continued, however, causing anxiety about access by Western forces to their garrisons in Berlin. The President avoided giving the Soviets a pretext for more dangerous incidents by denying JCS requests for high-altitude flights to the city, which had been voluntarily discontinued as a precautionary measure. The situation stabilized. A major factor in Soviet caution was the faltering of their long-range missile program. Intelligence officials guessed at the beginning of 1960 that the Soviets had about 35 ICBMs deployed, with a prospective buildup to 250 by mid-1960, but those numbers were very much in doubt, and a sharp split occurred between low-end skeptics in the Navy and high-end alarmists in the Air Force—with the CIA, State Department, and Army somewhere in between. As U-2 pictures and other evidence proliferated, a consensus did develop that the Soviets would not undertake a crash deployment of first generation ICBMs. The U.S., on the other hand, had six Atlas ICBMs operational by December 31, 1959, would triple that number in another year's time, jump to 63 in 1961, and face the Cuban Missile crisis with well over 200 land-based missiles. Polaris submarines began to come on line in 1960 as well, carrying sixteen missiles apiece.23 As the balance of forces moved rapidly in favor of the U.S., not the

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reverse, Khrushchev struggled to contain his patience. His language in a March 1960 protest of public statements Eisenhower had made the month before that the U.S. was proceeding with plans to turn over to allies secrets of nuclear weapons was respectful if foreboding. If the U.S. continued to flout the nonproliferation ideal, he wrote, he would arm Soviet allies with nuclear weapons. Indeed, he would have no other choice because providing the Federal Republic with the secret of the atom might encourage those in Germany who dreamed of revenge for World War II. The President responded that nuclear weapons within the NATO structure was a legitimate defense measure, not a provocation. Even so, the U.S. had no intention of transferring actual nuclear weapons or information about the design and manufacture of same to any ally other than Britain. If Khrushchev were really interested in nonproliferation, he should instruct his negotiators at Geneva to agree to halt all production of fissile material. There was no breakthrough at talks that began on March 15, however, and Macmillan pressed the President to agree to a Big Four summit.24 He finally got his wish when a meeting of himself, Eisenhower, de Gaulle, and Khrushchev was arranged for Paris in mid-May 1960. Even so, Eisenhower insisted that if the summit failed and the Soviets then blockaded Berlin, NATO would go ahead with the armed convoy idea to force Khrushchev's hand. The British were not pleased but were in no position to gainsay the President. By spring 1960, Anglo-American nuclear cooperation was very extensive, with information about numerous types of atomic warheads freely discussed at meetings of British and American officials and London pressing for acquisition of the American Skybolt air-to-surface missile to extend the operational life of their V-bomber force. For the long run, Macmillan counted on the Polaris missile system to preserve the British nuclear deterrent force through the 1970s. An agreement in principle by Eisenhower on March 29, 1960 at Camp David to meet British strategic requirements permitted the prime minister to announce a decision before the House of Commons on April 13 to cancel Britain's Blue Streak IRBM.25 An informal quid pro quo for Skybolt was the right to base American Polaris submarines in Scotland. That would be the source of considerable hard feeling later when the Kennedy administration cancelled Skybolt and the British insisted on Polaris as a substitute. Overall, however, the dependence of London on U.S. strategic systems and forces for British security made it virtually inevitable that if Washington decided to deliver a nuclear haymaker over the Berlin crisis, the British—if only out of fear the Soviets would retaliate with undestroyed nuclear weapons at London—would have to come along. Neutrality was not a practical policy when ballistic missiles were only several minutes' flying time away. The British prayed that the Paris summit would at last produce a settlement.26 On the eve of the conference, the JCS told Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, Jr. that the American military posture was such that the Berlin Contingency Plan could be implemented and the risk of general war accepted. As of

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April 4, the plan was a compromise of British and American desires. A military probe would head up the autobahn from the West German border to Berlin. If it were stopped, further military preparations would go forward automatically, but tripartite decision would be required to initiate a second action. Norstad's intention was to continue escalating with all dispatch, even to use of tactical atomic weapons. The British envisioned a delay of many months.27 On May 1, 1960, a U-2 spy plane piloted by U.S. Air Force Major Gary F. Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union. Believing the pilot killed, Eisenhower denied the U.S. had been spying. He was subsequently forced to admit his lie when Khrushchev announced on May 7 that Powers was alive. Preparations for the summit meeting continued but with very uncertain prospects. Sure enough, in Paris on May 15, Khrushchev played up the incident for all it was worth, demanding a public apology and blustering that Soviet missile commanders had been given orders that if any more U-2s crossed into Soviet air space, they were to launch an immediate nuclear attack on the bases from which the U-2s had flown. Although American officials did not believe the threat because the idea was fixed in their minds that the Soviets would only go nuclear as part of a well-conceived, prearranged plan, in the middle of the summit at two minutes to midnight on May 15, Gates decided—with Eisenhower's permission—to order a test of the new U.S. Defense Condition (DEFCON) alert system. He neglected to inform the JCS and Unified and Specified commanders, who since January 15 had predelegated authority to launch if under attack by Soviet forces and communications with the President were cut, that the alert was not the result of some Soviet provocation. When the press got hold of the story, the summit's collapse combined with an American nuclear alert turned faces pale all over Europe.28 For example, Selwyn Lloyd exploded at Herter about the danger to Britain from military conflict over Berlin. It was unthinkable, he said, that the British government should ask their people to go to war over a question of formality of access to West Berlin when the Federal Republic was dealing on such a large scale commercially with the GDR. Macmillan asked Eisenhower "do you want to go to war for two million of the people we twice fought wars against and who almost destroyed us?" More than ever, the President and his top advisors viewed the British as an uncertain ally at best and feared that if the U.S. backed down now, the Communists would muscle in on American interests and allies all around the globe. Eisenhower responded to the failure of the Paris summit by authorizing production of eighteen more squadrons of Atlas ICBMs.29 COCKED GUN State Department intelligence officials speculated that internal political squabbles, poor harvests in Kazakhstan's "virgin lands," hardliner opposition to

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a 1.2 million man cutback in the Red Army, and Chinese pressure to stand up to the West caused Khrushchev to sabotage the Paris summit. Proof of PRC belligerence was an attack in early June on a ship in the Quemoy-Amoy channel and a new buildup of forces near the offshore islands. Whatever Khrushchev's true motivations, he kicked off another round of bluster and harassment over Berlin in late June, threatening again to launch rockets at U-2 bases, threatening a preemptive attack if the Germans were ever given Polaris missiles. He also tossed out a "figurative" threat to hand nuclear missiles to the Cubans and so end the Monroe Doctrine against interference in the Western Hemisphere by outside powers. Over the course of the next month, he repeated these fulminations and sanctioned violence, such as Soviet forces shooting down an American RB-47 reconnaissance plane over the Barents Sea in international waters on July 1. Herter's demand that the President respond vigorously prompted meetings, such as on July 19, at which another DEFCON alert and increased spending on ICBMs to send the Soviets a signal that the U.S. would not be intimidated were discussed. Although SAC commander Power was eager for another airborne exercise to shake up Khrushchev, surprisingly both White and LeMay were opposed. Eisenhower decided to mull over his next move while Herter and Gates studied whether to add to or speed up the missile program yet again. With only six months to go in his presidency, he was trying without success to put the brakes on what in his farewell address on January 17, 1961 he would call the "military-industrial complex."30 One possible motive for Khrushchev's reference to missiles for Cuba was that the Soviet ICBM program had now definitely stalled. On July 15, CIA Director Dulles reported on shipments of unidentified crates to a sealed military base on the island, which he speculated jokingly might be a short-range missile base Khrushchev was putting up "just for fun." Although the CIA in an August 1 estimate still held to the earlier guess that the Soviets had 30-35 ICBMS deployed, the launch of the Discoverer XIV satellite on August 18 radically changed the picture. Circumnavigating the earth 17 times, it photographed one million square miles of Soviet landscape and proved that the Soviet ICBM threat was marginal at best. Khrushchev's threats, at least insofar as an attack on American territory was concerned, were all but empty.31 American strategic forces, on the other hand, were in the best shape ever. In fact, they were tantamount to a cocked gun in the hand of the President to blow out the Kremlin's brains, its arms and legs, its torso, and every other part of the Soviet body. More specifically, American planners had been working on the Single Integrated Operations Plan (SIOP) for a coordinated, all-out nuclear attack on Communist power. As early as February 1959, Eisenhower had contemplated the effect of a 3,500 megaton or greater attack by thefiveto seven thousand U.S. nuclear weapons in the strategic forces and worried about strontium 90 fall-out across the Northern Hemisphere. Like ravenous predators eying a vulnerable prey, the military services were more concerned about getting in on the kill than devising an efficient plan. As with the B-36/supercarrier

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controversy of the late 1940s, the principle antagonists were the Air Force and Navy.32 The Air Force wanted priority for an attack on Soviet military installations, particularly missile and long-range bomber bases. This was called a counterforce strategy and implied preemption because it would be useless to target missile sites (unless reloadable) and bomber bases once launch had occurred. It would also reduce the Navy's role because submarine-launched Polaris missiles, with range of 1,500 miles and much smaller atomic warheads than the Air Force's one megaton ICBMs, were not yet accurate enough to insure destruction of dispersed military targets. To prevent the Air Force from monopolizing the SIOP, the Navy, backed by the Army, insisted that urban/industrial complexes as well as command and control centers have priority on the target list. Called countervalue—or finite deterrence because the number of targets would not increase substantially as counterforce targets would as the Soviets added missile bases and other military sites—this strategy implied retaliation for Soviet attack with massive forces. In addition to Navy missiles and planes, the Army could contribute Jupiter IRBMs soon to be deployed in Italy and Turkey, medium-range missiles, and short-range battlefield nuclear weapons controlled by SACEUR and CINCFE.33 By late September 1960, Eisenhower was so fed up with Khrushchev's threats, most recently in a speech before the U.N. on September 23, that he wished there was no moral restriction against "pushing the proper button" some night and launching everything in the nuclear arsenal at the Communists. Two months later, as Kennedy was defeating Nixon for the right to succeed Eisenhower as president, SIOP 62 was ready. The U.S. had assembled the greatest force for destruction in the history of mankind, perhaps enough to eradicate civilized society on earth. An alert force of 1,459 nuclear weapons on 880 bombers and missiles would stand ready to attack 654 targets in the Soviet Union, Red China, and Eastern Europe, killing an estimated 175 million people. Included in that assault would be 12 Atlas D and 32 Polaris missiles, with more coming on line all the time. Warhead strength would range from 10 kilotons to 23 megatons. If time permitted, the full force of 3,423 bombs and warheads would be launched at 1,050 targets to kill upwards of 360 to 425 million people.34 Science advisor George Kistiakowsky informed the President that an overkill of four to five times had been figured in. There were twenty-three nuclear weapons targeted on six specific sites in the Moscow area alone, for example. Although the alert force attack was much more efficient in this respect, the overall plan was wasteful and spasmodic. Worse, in the event of a purely Soviet aggression in Europe, Red China would automatically be attacked. Among the JCS, only Marine Corps Commandant David M. Shoup objected that it was not the American way to attack a country, Communist or not, that had not declared war or otherwise initiated hostilities against the United States.35

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TANGLED WEB Throughout the last year of the Eisenhower administration, Norstad and the State Department worked vigorously on a plan to create a NATO medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) force to head off French atomic pretensions and provide an outlet for German nuclear aspirations. A definite objective of the State Department was to prevent in the long run proliferation of nuclear weaponry not controlled by the U.S. in Western Europe. However, the number of warheads on the continent was already programmed to rise dramatically as Honest John missiles, 280-mm artillery pieces, F-104G strike aircraft, Matador and MACE SSMs, NIKE Hercules air defense missiles, and maritime aircraft for atomic anti-submarine warfare arrived for Allied use. The land-based MRBMs Norstad wanted would complement, not replace, these systems. Even so, warheads would be controlled under the dual-key arrangement used for the Thors based in Britain. Although precise financial terms and the extent of technical assistance the U.S. would render needed to be worked out, a vital feature of MRBM plans was SACEUR control of missiles, their targeting and use. The missiles would either be purchased by NATO nations from the U.S. or produced by them with American assistance.36 On August 2, 1960, Norstad and his political advisor Raymond L. Thurston met in Washington with Herter, Dillon, Bowie, McCone, Twining, and others to discuss nuclear sharing with the allies. While defending the current nuclear stockpile arrangements as the best possible, SACEUR declared that he now opposed any cooperation on nuclear matters with the French, whether on assisting development of nuclear submarines or a proposal to provide the French with a 15-year supply of weapons grade U-235, because they had proven unwilling to cooperate with NATO. If State Department officials were in accord with SACEUR on snubbing the French, they diverged sharply with respect to the form and substance of the proposed NATO nuclear force. Norstad wanted land-based MRBMs, possibly Polaris missiles, because they could be acquired at an early date by increasing volume from existing production lines and would remain firmly under his control. In a meeting with the President on August 16, Bowie outlined a proposal for a two-stage assignment of five Polaris submarines with 80 missiles to NATO, first under U.S. control, eventually boosted to 200 missiles in a multilateral, multinational force with mixed crews. This would presumably reinvigorate NATO by providing a fully integrated Allied role in nuclear decision making while creating a viable substitute for the development of French, German, Italian, and other national nuclear forces. State Department thinking was greatly influenced by the growing nuclear might of the Soviet Union, which would allegedly reduce the credibility of the tactical atomic "shield" and SAC "sword" against a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. The long-range goal of the U.S. should be to persuade the allies to build up their conventional forces to a total of 30 divisions under SACEUR control so that a decision to resort to nuclear weapons could be delayed as long as possible. It

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was recognized that the French government might not be happy that the U.S. would propose an alternative to the force de frappe de Gaulle planned to construct.37 The President did not endorse the Bowie Report, but the State Department proceeded to act as if he had. Together with inspection tours by members of the JCAE which set the stage for closer Washington supervision of his NATO fiefdom, that paper stirred Norstad to fight off an attack on the long-established strategy of early resort to nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet invasion. However, believing a NATO MRBM force would give Europeans a greater "voice" in use of nuclear weapons for their own defense and a guarantee that the U.S. could not arbitrarily withdraw weapons from SACEUR's stockpiles, Adenauer and Secretary General Paul-Henri Spaak told Norstad in a meeting at Lake Como in Italy on September 9 that they were enthusiastic about the general outline of the plan. Pleasing to the State Department, Adenauer also viewed a NATO force as a way to satisfy French nuclear requirements in the long run and dampen demands within Germany for an independent nuclear capability. Norstad had to act quickly to stop a snowball effect from developing.38 To win NAC support for his concept of the MRBM force, he raised the possibility of a two-track system of land-based tactical atomic weapons and medium-range missiles. Specifically, he wanted to assure the allies that minimum numbers and types of tactical atomic weapons would be maintained and immediately available for NATO defense for the duration of the alliance, that the NAC would have greater authority to approve procedures for using those weapons as well as a full say in MRBM decision making, and that even physical custody of warheads would become the responsibility, after a change in American law, of a mixed force of U.S. and non-U.S. personnel. Further, he endorsed a five-submarine Polaris force assigned to SACEUR by 1963 as a viable first step toward a NATO nuclear force of land-based MRBMs. However, he was adamantly opposed to giving up the U.S. veto on the use of NATO nuclear weapons.39 After Kennedy's election in November, Norstad was shocked to hear that the State Department was determined to rush before the NAC on December 16 its plan for a conventional buildup of NATO forces to couple with a sea-based MRBM force to deter Soviet aggression in the long run. He thought the proposed statement would elicit a very negative response and result in unnecessary upheaval in the alliance. In fact, the entire idea of relying on conventional forces for any substantial length of time was "militarily unacceptable." He only passed on the MRBM part of the plan because the State and Defense Departments had agreed that the Polaris force of 80 missiles would be used as an inducement to persuade NATO governments to pay for another 100 MRBMs by the end of 1964, also under his control. Unfortunately, these too would be Polaris missiles based at sea. The U.S. would specifically pledge to keep nuclear warheads in NATO so long as the alliance endured, albeit under U.S. control.40

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To get an MRBM force for NATO, Norstad was willing to cut back on some land-based tactical atomic systems, including the Davy Crockett. With the success of Polaris, Atlas, and Titan missiles, SAC's Thor IRBMs based in Britain and SACEUR's Jupiters in Italy and soon Turkey were considered obsolete. Since the 15 Jupiters for Ankara would be extremely vulnerable to Soviet attack, Norstad was willing to let them go. He acknowledged that the Jupiter program had been an expensive one that had produced a political and psychological benefit more than an effective military capability. On the other hand, he wanted the MRBM force to be more than just for show and regretted that a Polaris submarine force would have lesser warhead yields and accuracy. A land-based force, by comparison, especially if composed of new Pershing missiles, would provide flexibility to attack MRBMs and other targets inside the Soviet Union which threatened NATO. In that respect, even a sea-based MRBM force would blur the line between tactical and strategic systems. Norstad wanted to retain his quick reaction aircraft (QRA) as well for interdiction attacks behind enemy lines with megaton-size warheads.41 Basic National Security Policy still stated that the U.S. would "place main, but not sole, reliance on nuclear weapons." However, lulled by the Bowie briefing in August and its emphasis on the psychological and political aspects of a conventional force buildup, Eisenhower signed off on Herter's December 16 presentation of the NATO MRBM plan and new long-range strategy to the NAC. Weariness at the end of eight years also contributed to his failure to ascertain that the State Department initiative contradicted his New Look defense philosophy and emphasis on Massive Retaliation. Perhaps he knew as well that the Western Europeans would never agree to build up conventional forces to levels required to raise the nuclear threshold so that warfare against Soviet forces could be conducted without resorting at the very least to tactical atomic weapons. In any event, the tangled web of NATO strategy and nuclear force issues would soon be Kennedy's problem to resolve, not his. FREE STYLE AND TRADE WIND Meanwhile, the JCS felt supremely confident at last that the U.S. was ready for the final showdown with Ivan. After a step-up in harassment incidents over Berlin, including travel restrictions on West Germans in and to East Berlin, which culminated in GDR authorities closing the East Berlin border in early September 1960, they told Gates that the U.S. should take the toughest stand possible. The military significance of Berlin was "incomparably high," they wrote on September 29. The allies and all the free nations of the world were watching.42 Indeed they were, but Britain, arguably the most important ally of all, wanted no part in a war over the divided city. At Norstad's command, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine (CINCBAOR) had

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developed plans code-named FREE STYLE for a tripartite convoy of armored personnel carriers to probe along the autobahn from Helmstedt toward Berlin within seven days of a blockade. If that force were obstructed, it would withdraw so that forces in battalion strength, code-named TRADE WIND, could fight up the autobahn. However, the British Chiefs of Staff predicted disaster when reviewing the TRADE WIND operation. Strictly from a military standpoint, the battalion attack, not the probe, should be launched in less than seven days and have permission to leave the autobahn for maneuver, which risked widening the conflict. Even then, the Soviets could simply blow bridges over the Elbe River and counterattack to bring the movement to a halt. The result would be a "military debacle" and failure to open the way to Berlin. In no way, shape, or form would the Soviets believe that a battalion-size attack presaged general war—and that was the whole point of TRADE WIND.43 Logically, then, the British chiefs should have opposed FREE STYLE and TRADE WIND. On the contrary, they approved Norstad's orders to CINCBAOR to prepare for the initial probe and the battalion attack so as not to be accused of "infirmity of purpose" and lose the opportunity to influence and moderate SACEUR's planning. They counted on the Foreign Office to devise a method of getting across British objections to Washington and the British government to block any actual decision to implement military operations if and when the Soviets blockaded Berlin and the Americans wanted to move. As a consequence, SACEUR concluded that the true British objection was to the division-size force he preferred, not the TRADE WIND concept itself.44 Although there was more than enough information in the diplomatic and military pipeline to give substantial indication of the depth of British fear over Berlin and the high likelihood that London would take obstructive action to head off a shootout, Norstad proceeded with plans for a dress rehearsal of contingency plans. Specifically, he wanted to push a full division toward Berlin, stopping just short of the East German border. Moreover, he wanted it understood that all LIVE OAK plans would be part of a single plan from initial probe through general warfare and so informed the British on October 18, 1960. Fearing automatic escalation to nuclear weapons before governments had a chance to make decisions, the British proposed to warn the Soviets, much as Acheson and the State Department had suggested years earlier, before the initial probe crossed the border. They insisted on careful planning at all steps to slow the process and buy time for tripartite government sanction. They wanted to avoid a misunderstanding that NATO intended to do more than open the road to Berlin.45 CONCLUSION With NATO conventional forces woefully inadequate to stop an invasion, let alone fight through to Berlin, the U.S. had little choice if push came to shove but to resort to nuclear weapons. The fundamental question to be answered

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before Eisenhower or his successor, Kennedy, made that decision was whether Berlin was really vital to American national security. Since in itself the city was of negligible military value, the real issue was whether its loss would undermine the viability of NATO and the defense of Western Europe. In 1948 the case had been much stronger that holding Berlin was a vital interest worth defending at the risk of general war. Western Europe had been in a shambles; there had been a real possibility that Marshall Plan aid would not succeed in rebuilding economies and propping up the old social and political order in time to beat off subversive attacks by Communist forces, especially in France and Italy. Berlin had been a critical symbol of American resolve to stand by free peoples for the long haul. By 1960, however, the situation was much improved. The NATO alliance, admittedly too dependent upon American nuclear and conventional power, had taken root and been greatly strengthened by the accession of West Germany. A Soviet takeover of Berlin would have shaken NATO and unnerved the Germans but most likely not resulted in collapse. Rather, the Federal Republic would have opted for large-scale mobilization and rearmament, and the U.S. could probably have gotten away with retaliating indirectly through a naval blockade of the Dardanelles and Skagerrak, as well as other economic, diplomatic, and political measures to save face. Certainly, this is what the British preferred. Undoubtedly a Soviet conquest of Berlin would have stiffened, not weakened, their resolve to defend West German territorial integrity. Because of de Gaulle's pretensions to la gloire,+++ French reaction is more difficult to gage. However, French desire to create a Franco-German alliance, even as a wedge to break up NATO, would probably have caused the French president to make military preparations to fight for the Federal Republic. On balance, it is a close call whether Berlin in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a vital American interest warranting resort to nuclear weapons. Had not the city ultimately become the focal point for the collapse of the Soviet empire, the temptation would be to concentrate purely on the military insignificance of the city and not its political importance and suggest that the U.S. was overreaching. Still, to risk general nuclear war and the destruction of the birthplace of western civilization over one isolated city, no matter its political and psychological importance, is a great stretch. One reason why Eisenhower, then Kennedy, got away with the gamble was because, as American strategists rightly surmised, Berlin was not vital enough to the Soviets to risk destruction. Another was that awesome strategic power backed up what was a perilously overstretched hand. Just how overstretched would become clear once Kennedy took office. The new President's inexperience, and the failure of his "best and brightest" advisors to live up to their advance billing, would bring the U.S. nearer to nuclear war than ever should have been the case in the era of American nuclear superiority. Khrushchev would take a gamble in Cuba that he never would have tried with Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House.

14 AMATEUR HOUR Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of Liberty. — John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961l

Although a war hero, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts for eight years, and a congressmen for six before that, President John F. Kennedy had no background in foreign policy, no special training or education in military strategy, and no in-depth understanding of nuclear matters. Unlike Eisenhower, he needed the expertise of advisors to fill gaps of knowledge in national security matters all presidents should possess before assuming the most powerful position in the world. And yet he deluded himself into believing he could craft his own foreign policy and thus did not require a strong secretary of state and experienced secretary of defense. As a consequence, his selection of career bureaucrat Dean Rusk for the former position was not distinguished. His nomination of Ford Motor Company executive Robert S. McNamara for the latter was one of the worst decisions of his presidency.2 Personnel problems were exaggerated by policy process mistakes. New National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy persuaded Kennedy to throw out the NSC Planning Board and the Eisenhower administration's admittedly tedious and time-consuming process of drawing up policy papers. Reorganizing the NSC to clear out dead wood was a good idea. Replacing Basic National Security Policy documents as the ultimate statement of American policy with National Security Action Memoranda (NSAMs), which were too often slapped together with little foresight was not. The NSAMs did nothing to require interested agencies, particularly the JCS, to agree on new approaches to major strategic issues and failed to define what was vital to American national security. As we have seen, Eisenhower and his advisors often muddled together true vital interests with lesser ones. Eisenhower himself always managed to make a

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proper distinction in the end and avoid deploying combat troops to marginal areas. Unfortunately, Kennedy possessed a lesser ability to distinguish what was vital from what was not. The absence of an on-site educational process and rigorous policy review caused him too often to listen to the last, or at least loudest, voice he heard. The insistence of his advisors upon trying to solve all the country's national security problems in one fell swoop quickly overwhelmed their limited capacity for coming to grips with their new global responsibilities.3 NERVOUS NELLIES McNamara ruffled military feathers at once with his planning-programmingbudgeting system and systems analysis approach to getting the best bang for the buck out of military weapons, nuclear and otherwise. White and LeMay, in particular, had no come back to in-depth investigation of the high-altitude, supersonic B-70 bomber which was far less cost-effective than other systems. They looked on with alarm as a review of missile requirements scaled back the number of planned ICBMs from 3,000 to one-third that number. While Naval officers applauded affirmation of the Eisenhower administration goal of building a 40 Polaris submarine force, while Army generals were pleased by adoption of Flexible Response and an eventual return to the traditional division structure of World War II and Korea, they resented as deeply as Air Force brass the arrogance and immaturity of McNamara's advisors. For example, when asked what he did at the Pentagon, Adam Yarmolinsky joked that his job was to break officers of flag and general rank. The opposition that would naturally have resulted from a radical overhaul in DOD thinking was only exacerbated by blatant disrespect of this nature.4 From McNamara's perspective, the situation in the military was seriously amiss. Four days after Kennedy took office, a B-52 crashed in North Carolina. One of the two 24 megaton bombs on board fell to earth with only one of six safety devices preventing a nuclear detonation. Days later, a massive false alarm at NORAD so unnerved the Secretary of Defense that he reputedly advised the President that in the event of another report of Soviet attack, Kennedy should inspect the damage personally before retaliating. The thought of the President of the United States flying off in the midst of a nuclear war to look at bomb craters apparently did not seem ludicrous to McNamara. Over time, it would become clear that he had severe qualms about using even the smallest atomic bomb.5 Necessarily, then, he would clash with top military officials who had no such qualms. The first opportunity was a briefing on SIOP 62 at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska on February 3. In the company of JCS Chairman Lymin L. Lemnitzer and Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric, he was shocked to hear that the SIOP plan was really a preemptive strike with four times overkill and automatic carrier strikes against Chinese cities

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even if Peking was not involved in hostilities. Moreover, policy papers carried over from Eisenhower's administration, such as one on Continental Defense dated July 14, 1960, made clear that the military had authority in an emergency to launch nuclear weapons and possibly even the entire SIOP itself if civilian leaders were killed in a surprise Soviet first strike. Bundy warned the President that the most acute danger could arise because the Eisenhower administration had emphasized strategic forces for afirst strike posture with decision in advance to go to nuclear war in some scenarios, rather than consideration of alternatives in light of circumstances at the time. "These three forces in combination," he wrote on January 30, "have created a situation today in which a subordinate commander faced with a substantial Russian military action could start the thermonuclear holocaust on his own initiative if he could not reach you (by failure of communication at either end of the line)."6 Bundy proposed to replace SIOP 62 with a new strategy and solidify presidential control of American strategic forces. However, he preferred to rely on his NSC staff and outside consultants—Kissinger, Killian, Gavin, etc.—rather than the JCS. "Full military consideration" would be afforded later, he alleged, with JCS "comment" before the President made decisions, but it was clear that he wanted to keep the Burkes and LeMays out of the review process so that the SIOP could be quickly revised and the danger of general war reduced. If necessary, he advised calling in civilian experts to challenge Air Force planning on technical grounds to prove that such a huge nuclear arsenal with massive overkill was not needed. Naturally, the indignation of top military leaders at attempts to change national strategy and shove them into the background only increased their resistance to reform. Bundy was so successful at freezing the JCS out of the policy review process that senior generals were not even aware of the existence of the NSAMs until almost two dozen had been promulgated.7 The Secretary of Defense also began looking about for alternative strategies, including the counterforce concept the Air Force had championed to limit Navy participation in the SIOP. He listened to explanations of assured destruction, which meant that no matter how many nuclear warheads the Soviets targeted against the U.S., the U.S. would always have enough weapons remaining to annihilate the Soviet Union. However, that strategy implied maintenance of massive strategic nuclear weapons systems to ride out a Soviet first strike. Eventually, he would gravitate to limited finite deterrence based upon fewer hardened missile silos and undetectable Polaris submarines. That strategy theorized that once the Soviets launched an attack with their bombers and missiles, the only high-value targets left to clobber would be cities, difficult to defend and easy to destroy with just a relatively few warheads. Fancifully, he hoped that Kremlin leaders would follow Washington's example and rid themselves of first strike weapons. When that did not occur, he wound up supporting strategic forces far more numerous and powerful than Eisenhower administration officials had ever imagined.8 But that was in the distant future. For the tense present, McNamara

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ordered the JCS to develop five SIOP attack options: against strategic forces only (air bases, missile silos, submarine pens), against air defense sites away from cities, against air defense sites close to cities, against command and control centers, and an all-out strike option at Soviet urban-industrial areas. He also wanted sub-options within the five main options, country withholds, and selective launch of Minuteman missiles with eight target selection features at an additional cost of $840 million. He also insisted that the JCS not assume the U.S. would strike first in a war but rather respond to a Soviet attack. That was inconsistent with his counterforce preference since the object of American retaliation would be missile sites that had already launched their rockets and air bases already emptied of bombers. In any event, he hoped a general war situation would never arise. Impressed by arguments made by Kissinger and others that the wave of the future was limited wars fought by conventional and counterinsurgency means, he instructed the JCS to produce papers on these scenarios as well as capabilities and forces required to fight one or more limited wars in the Far East and the Europe/Africa theater.9 Reworking the SIOP to eliminate overkill, provide options short of all-out war, and spare countries—even Red China—that had not thrown in with the Kremlin was a worthy goal, especially after satellite intelligence revealed the Soviet ICBM threat to be little more than a hoax. Not only were numbers of missiles deployed small, but neither long-range weapons nor shorter-range IRBMs had warheads mated to the missiles. Instead, KGB officers maintained custody, and not until the mid-1960s would an alert force of bombers and missiles be established with nuclear warheads on board. Further, first generation ICBMs were unreliable liquid-fueled rockets requiring at least six hours to raise to vertical, fuel, and fire. American intelligence officers learned about this deficiency from satellite pictures as well as the efforts of Kremlin spy Colonel Oleg V. Penkovsky, who turned over 5,000 microfilm copies of top secret documents until his arrest in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the most critical hours of that and the Berlin standoff, the JCS knew that the Soviets had no bombers on alert, that almost all their nuclear submarines remained in port, that those at sea had to surface to launch nuclear missiles, and that the Soviet early warning network was so riddled with gaps that a SAC bomber force could slip through to attempt a surgical first strike. Thus a counterforce strategy seemed very feasible, but of course that implied a preemptive strike which McNamara professed to oppose.10 Even while admitting as the Secretary of Defense did to reporters on February 6, 1961 that missile gap talk during the 1960 campaign had been erroneous, Bundy, presidential advisor Theodore C. Sorenson, and others wanted to remove terminology like "prevail in a general war" from policy papers. Instead, they wanted military leaders to focus on deterring nuclear war and otherwise plan for use of conventional forces and even tactical nuclear weapons to handle lesser situations. They wanted the President to announce in a public speech that "in the terrible event of general atomic war" the U.S. would

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have sufficient capability "to act rationally to advance the national interest by exerting pressure and offering choices to the enemy." But they also intended to reassure the Soviets that the administration did not intend to build up strategic forces whose objective was to launch a preventive or preemptive war.11 ACHESON RETURNS Faced in the early days of his administration with crises in Laos and Cuba and overwhelmed by his own administration's ambition to review all foreign policy, defense, and nuclear issues, Kennedy realized that he needed more help to navigate the tortuous currents of the international scene. Acheson was recruited as a consultant to head task forces on Berlin and NATO and pinch-hit for Rusk in key meetings. Acerbic, arrogant, and embittered because of total exclusion from power during the Eisenhower years, the former secretary of state quickly latched onto the Bowie Report as the basis for his review of NATO policy even as Khrushchev was yanking on the Berlin chain to rattle Western leaders out of their complacency. In mid-February, a Soviet aide-memoire to the Federal Republic warned that conclusion of a peace treaty was required to resolve outstanding German questions and could not be delayed until new West German elections in the late summer and fall. While considering the longerterm approach the U.S. should take toward NATO, therefore, Acheson had to advise on a prudent response to short-term Soviet pressures in central Europe. The two objectives turned out to be substantially incompatible. However, he went about his work with scant reference to General Norstad, who had very decided opinions about NATO and Berlin. Willing to place more emphasis on balanced forces so that increased conventional capabilities could add to the credibility of the nuclear deterrent, SACEUR did not believe that fighting a limited war in Europe was possible because the area was too critical. Although it might be possible to launch a few nuclear weapons precisely and selectively as a response to a Soviet blockade and as a demonstration of NATO will to use the most destructive weaponry in defense of its rights and interests, any substantial exchange would result in quick escalation to general war. Well aware that Acheson was doing a study of NATO policy, he cabled McNamara on February 11 that Adenauer had inquired about the status of their Lake Como conversation. Not only did the German chancellor intend to urge more responsibility and authority for NATO on nuclear decision making, but German Defense Minister Strauss was complaining again that the Federal Republic was not being treated as an equal member of the alliance—for example, Washington had turned down Bonn's offer to pay for two Polaris submarines while allegedly offering same to Paris—and that Kissinger's theories on limited warfare and the Bowie Report, about which he had heard hints, evidenced a dangerous shift in American thinking. Up to that time, American atomic units such as the Northern Task Force had been delegated to support non-nuclear NATO forces

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without full integration into operational commands. Strauss proposed that this policy be reversed and that the U.S. specifically commit to a nuclear defense of Bonn's eastern border. Mindful of JCAE complaints—now echoed by McNamara and his advisors—that nuclear warhead command and control was lax, SACEUR tightened arrangements to prevent unauthorized release of atomic warheads while still providing for a German and/or British QRA squadron to support the Northern Army Group at all times. His attempt at cooperation with Washington earned only another State Department request for inspection of nuclear storage sites.12 As part of the NATO review, Acheson was considering a recommendation to the President that Norstad be removed as SACEUR and replaced by Taylor so that a general presumably in favor of a conventional defense of Western Europe be in place to sell the Germans, British, French, and other NATO members on the concept. Norstad was spared because the Berlin crisis was considered too dangerous to risk removal of a man well respected by the allies. Beginning in April and continuing with increasing frequency over the next two years, SACEUR had to put up with visits by State, Defense, and AEC officials looking into security for American nuclear warheads, command and control arrangements, and communication links to Washington. As these intrusions evolved into discussions with European leaders over NATO strategy, Norstad began to refer to Washington visitors with no little derision as carpetbaggers.13 However, Acheson was no dabbler in national security strategy, as he proved with a grimmer than grim prediction over Berlin on April 3, 1961. If the former capital of the Third Reich came fully under Kremlin control, West Germany would slide quickly into the Soviet camp, all Europe would then capitulate, and Asia and Africa would fall like dominoes to the Reds. The U.S. would be left with just North America, United Fruit Company bananas, and Brazilian coffee beans. However, unlike Ike, the U.S. should not threaten massive retaliation over access to the divided city for fear of inviting a Soviet preemptive attack and otherwise alienating the allies and neutral opinion. The contest should remain localized, at least initially, with full consultation with Western European leaders to obtain their agreement in advance to fight over Berlin. While the U.S. should do its best to play down the crisis, military preparations should go forward. If the Soviets then provoked a crisis, "a bold and dangerous course" might be best.14 How bold and dangerous? Acheson wanted to ape John Foster Dulles by pushing matters right to the brink of nuclear war to force the Soviets either to assume the risk that the U.S. would unleash Armageddon or back down. The method would be an attack up the autobahn by a force of such size that the Soviets would have to commit substantial forces to stop it. Acheson was not at this point arguing that the President must necessarily resort to nuclear weapons. He only wanted preparations and preliminary actions that would lodge a strong suspicion in Kremlin minds that Berlin was so important to the U.S.—more important in fact than seizing it was to them—that sweat would start trickling

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down their faces at the mere thought of blocking a Western probing action or airlift of supplies to the city. The real purpose of Acheson's mind-game with Moscow was not to save Berlin but to use the crisis for the larger objective of solidifying allied support for the NATO alliance, much as the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in spring 1948 and the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 had done. He would be satisfied if the West put up a "really determined fight" for Berlin before finally yielding the city at the behest of frantic allies so long as the overall position in Western Europe was improved. The probability that the U.S. would suffer several thousand casualties was a meaningless incidental. The only soldier the former secretary of state concerned himself about was Field Marshal Dean Acheson.15 No hint of this devious course escaped to the capitals of Western Europe. However, officials in Bonn did hear confusing reports of a new U.S. strategy for NATO that seemed to indicate the Federal Republic would not have access to nuclear weapons after all. Strauss told Ambassador Walter C. Dowling das ist verboten! that West Germany should not be treated as a full and equal member of the alliance. It was particularly irksome that a graduated deterrent theory advanced by Kissinger and Bowie had gained credence in the President's counsels. Since everyone knew talk of strengthening NATO's conventional forces was just empty drivel, he and Adenauer insisted NATO's nuclear deterrent begin right at the East German border. He demanded to know whether the rejection of the Federal Republic's offer to provide an Honest John unit for a mobile atomic fire brigade Norstad had proposed meant that the Kennedy administration had already made up its mind to back away from agreed NATO military doctrine. Dowling reassured him that any increase in conventional forces would not come at expense of nuclear weaponry.16 Listening to allies but not comprehending what they were saying and/or the depth of their feeling was a common failing of Kennedy administration officials and would reach epidemic proportions over the next three years as they attempted to impose a new strategic concept on NATO. Not only German but French, British, and other allied leaders believed that large increases in conventional forces were not politically feasible in Western European countries plagued by fears of economic dislocation and substantially influenced by peace movements. Moreover, the allies generally opposed the notion that it was possible to counter vast Soviet armies without resort to nuclear weapons. None liked the idea of a sword and shield concept in which European manpower served as cannon-fodder for SACEUR while the U.S. sat back unscathed to wait for the right time to cut Europe to pieces with its nuclear sword. When it became clear that the Kennedy administration wanted to take away even the little nuclear daggers the British and French had forged, resistance in London and Paris would peak. Actually, the French already knew what the Americans wanted because Eisenhower had told de Gaulle. Macmillan did not comprehend that this was what Kennedy had in mind until more than a year had passed. Common sense

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alone should have told the President and his advisors that the British, like the French, would never agree. Too much national treasure had been spent, too much national prestige had been sunk into the idea that possession of the ultimate military weapon would automatically convey Great Power rank to reverse course. But mulish and maladroit in their handling of the allies throughout, Potomac strategists needed to beat their heads against the wall of NATO resistance for two or three years before they saw the light. For some like George Ball, Under Secretary of State after December 1961, common sense never took hold. SALESMANSHIP The campaign to convince the allies that a new NATO strategy was needed began in Washington the morning of April 5, 1961. Realizing Rusk did not have the credentials or skill for this kind of subtle maneuvering, Kennedy asked Acheson to brief Macmillan on the concept of Flexible Response while the Secretary of State listened. Not only would this require a buildup of conventional forces to a minimum of twenty divisions to introduce a pause before resort to nuclear weapons, Acheson explained, but a new seaborne MRBM force under NATO command must be created to remove nuclear weapons from dangerous forward areas and provide stricter command and control by Washington. Pending agreement by the NAC of a set of principles for use of nuclear weapons, the President would continue to decide on the use of nuclear weapons alone.17 Caught off-guard, Foreign Secretary Alexander F. Home muttered something about keeping under constant study the development and role of nuclear weapons. Macmillan remarked more cogently that Washington would have difficulty getting de Gaulle to agree to bring his forces again under SACEUR command. As for nuclear weaponry, the French were extremely envious of the Anglo-American special relationship—not because both were Anglo-Saxon powers but because "we had discovered how to work sensibly together." The prime minister had no idea that the smiling men across the table wanted to incorporate British nuclear forces as well as French under NATO command.18 Intentions were somewhat more plainly spoken at an afternoon meeting and again the next day. Once more Acheson took the point, suggesting that a new Soviet squeeze play on Berlin could be met in one of three ways: by an airlift that would be vulnerable to Soviet SAM attack, by a ground probe of a small battalion or brigade backed by larger conventional forces, or by resort to nuclear weapons, which was too reckless and had already been ruled out. Realizing suddenly that Kennedy meant to continue along the same road Eisenhower's advisors had trod—up the autobahn with as much as a division of troops—Macmillan suggested more contingency planning, perhaps even bringing

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the Germans into discussions with LIVE OAK planners before the entire process was taken under advisement by NATO. He dismissed the idea that prestige was sufficient reason to resist an accommodation that would make a free city of Berlin or some other arrangement. He worried that after Adenauer died in five to ten years the Soviets might offer the Federal Republic reunification with East Germany on the basis of neutrality and so effect a German withdrawal from NATO.19 In the meeting on April 6, Macmillan opined that the Soviet aide-memoire on a peace treaty with Germany was an attempt by Khrushchev to set up another summit meeting. Undoubtedly, the prime minister hoped to be a part of such a conference as had been the case with the aborted summit in Paris the year before, but when a meeting was arranged for June in Vienna neither the British nor the French nor the Germans were invited. It would be a face-to-face talk by Kennedy and Khrushchev alone. If the British had specific ideas to contribute, they must pass them along in Washington, or run the risk of undermining the President with private intrigues in London and Moscow. In the interim, the President hosted Adenauer on April 12 and 13 in get-toknow-you meetings while his advisors put the finishing touches on NSAM 40—NATO and the Atlantic Nations. While confirming that the Atlantic Alliance would continue to be "the foundation of U.S. foreign policy," NSAM 40 called for conventional force buildups and regrouping of all nuclear weapons in Western Europe under SACEUR's command. As a way of inducing the British to cooperate, the U.S. would commit some of its own strategic forces to the multilateral force (MLF) that emerged, including five Polaris submarines and at least some of SAC's B-47 bombers in Britain. In the long run, the British would be phased out of the nuclear deterrent business altogether—even sooner if Skybolt did not measure up to McNamara's systems analysis evaluation. Since de Gaulle would not cooperate, the U.S. would maintain the policy of no assistance to the French nuclear program. The rest of NATO, West Germany included, would be effectively frozen out of contributing to the MLF until after their conventional force increases were completed in 1966.20 In the first meeting with Macmillan on April 5, Acheson had referred to presidential decision to decide NATO use of nuclear weapons until the NAC agreed to guiding principles. NSAM 40 reiterated this idea both in response to "an unmistakable nuclear attack" and overwhelming assault by non-nuclear forces. However, the document went on to state that it was "vital that the major part of U.S. nuclear power not be subject to veto. It is not essential that the part of that power deployed in Europe be veto-free. It is, however, most important to the U.S. that use of nuclear weapons by the forces of other powers in Europe should be subject to U.S. veto and control. Therefore, the concept of a veto by another than ourselves in Europe is not contrary to our interests." On the other hand, such a veto would be irrelevant if the President could direct other nuclear forces outside of SACEUR's command to attack the Soviet Union.21

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In Paris on April 26, 1961, U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO and former secretary of the Air Force Thomas K. Finletter briefed Western European officials about the MLF plan and the proposed NATO strategy of raising the nuclear threshold with big increases of conventional forces. Furious, Strauss charged that the U.S. plan would leave West Germany without any nuclear protection at all. He demanded that Honest John units already in West Germany be placed under direct control of Bundeswehr++ivisional commanders. Although he did not go so far as to insist German officials decide their use, he reiterated the long-standing principle that German forces have identical military equipment as American.22 He need not have worried about a radical restructuring of the NATO defense establishment any time soon. Not only had the NAC to sign off on the shift to a Flexible Response strategy, a process that would take years, not months, but the renewal of the Berlin crisis after the upcoming Vienna summit would cause the U.S. to pour more nuclear forces into West Germany, not take them out. McNamara would advise the President to add to the several thousand nuclear weapons already in Europe with more B-47s to beef up strategic forces in Britain, more F-100 squadrons to supplement SACEUR's tactical air power, and a new weapon, the Davy Crockett, to provide American forces on the battlefield with stopping power even against Soviet tank concentrations. Called a "nuclear hand-grenade," the Davy Crockett was actually a 31-inch long, 11inch wide recoilless rifle mounted on jeep and operated by three men with range of four kilometers and a nuclear warhead of only 0.25 kiloton strength. Since it was a true battlefield weapon, it further complicated the task of providing presidential command and control of nuclear weapons. The exigencies of the Berlin crisis dictated, however, that whatever the NAC decided in the long run about Flexible Response, in the short term NATO would bristle with nuclear firepower.23 After Rusk told the NAC meeting in Oslo on May 5 that the U.S. considered all regions of the world vital, the British began to get the range about what the U.S. really intended as their role in NATO. In fact, it was very much in line with traditional British strategy dating from the eighteenth century but with an ironic twist. When the first empire, including the thirteen American colonies, had been won, British strategists had adopted a policy of getting allies to do the bulk of the fighting on the continent while they provided economic and logistical support and kept sea lines of communication open with their powerful fleet. Now the Americans wanted the Western Europeans—including Britain—to deploy conventional forces on the continent while they provided air and other nuclear air power, naval strength, and a logistical lifeline to North America. The British did not appreciate the irony one bit. They complained that the conventional force requirements under Flexible Response were impractical and that strategic force modernization must continue even as a conventional buildup was attempted. They wanted to know how Norstad felt about Kennedy administration plans to cut back the medium- and intermediate-range missile

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force he had been counting on to counter Soviet MRBMs and IRBMs. Nitze responded that there were only "nuances of differences" between SACEUR and Washington. When pressed, he made the absurd allegation that Norstad had become an "international commander" who no longer saw through U.S. eyes.24 While the Germans and British became irate and suspicious, the French viewed the entire matter of NATO strategy and Berlin contingency plans with cool contempt. On the way to the Vienna summit, Kennedy stopped in Paris on June 1 and 2, 1961 to introduce de Gaulle to new American policies. He had been forewarned by Finletter that selling the Europeans on Washington's thinking would be difficult because of an innate resistance to change and pragmatic reluctance to spend more on defense. Nevertheless, he was jarred by the French leader's pronouncement that a situation of nuclear parity had now come to exist so that an American decision to use nuclear weapons to blunt a conventional Soviet attack was in doubt. Therefore, it was necessary for France and other large European powers—the British, of course, but the Germans and Italians as well—to see to their own national defense by means including nuclear weapons. Although of course the Germans were still prohibited from producing ABC weapons, they might acquire atomic bombs in association with other European powers. When Kennedy countered that the same doubts about American use of nuclear weapons because of Soviet nuclear retaliation applied to French resort to the force de frappe to defend West Germany, de Gaulle insisted that France was more committed to Germany than the U.S. was to France. Given Washington's intention to raise the nuclear threshold in Western Europe, no one could really say for certain when nuclear weapons would be used. Raising the threshold, Kennedy explained, was only to gain better control over nuclear weapons in a crisis. The fact that some U.S. Army companies and battalions now possessed battlefield atomic weapons proved that Washington's commitment to NATO was unshaken by growing Soviet power. If necessary, he would order nuclear retaliation for Communist aggression.25 Before they parted company, de Gaulle pushed for tripartite planning not only on Berlin but on use of nuclear weapons in crises that might arise around the world. He mentioned the offshore islands, other danger areas in the Far East, and Cuba. Kennedy replied routinely that he would like more consultation with allies, especially with British and French leaders to whose views he gave great weight, but provided no specific encouragement that such talks would commence. As with his advisors, time would prove that the President had not really heard what de Gaulle had been saying. An opportunity to ameliorate the French president's resentment and bitterness had been missed.26 THE NEW GUY FLOPS Kennedy's performance at Vienna on June 4 was disastrous. He came off as defensive and uncertain, a weak leader in the eyes of a man who was reacting

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with the cunning of a hungry predator. He admitted himself that Khrushchev had "beat the hell" out of him, railing against Hitler's generals holding high commands in NATO, insisting that the Soviet Union would sign a peace treaty with the GDR unilaterally terminating U.S. rights in Berlin, warning that access to the city would be blocked so that the U.S. would have to start a war or back down, and handing over an aide-memoire establishing a December 1961 deadline for settling the matter once and for all. Khrushchev must have left with little doubt that were this Massachusetts politician alone—not hardline, Communisthating congressional and American military leaders— his adversary, Berlin would drop into his hand like a ripe apple. He had taken the measure of the new President and found him not even tall enough to see over the top of Eisenhower's old Army boots.27 Rattled, Kennedy fled to London to elicit a reluctant commitment from Macmillan to stand firm on Berlin, while Rusk went to Paris to pretend to the NAC that the President had held his own with the blustering Russian. From Moscow, Thompson cabled Rusk that Khrushchev meant what he said about forcing a Berlin resolution and that the U.S. and NATO had best make all-out military preparations at once. Specifically, he wanted efforts to secure French and British support for a new airlift. Military plans should include use of tactical nuclear weapons if the Red Army marched.28 The mood in Washington was just as pessimistic. Kennedy could not hide in a meeting with congressional leaders on June 6 that Khrushchev had bested him. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D., Montana) appealed to the President to use military force as a last resort and only in limited fashion, plainly intimating that losing Berlin would not be such a great loss if nuclear war could be avoided. Distressed by the President's perceived weakness, Acheson complained to his old boss Harry Truman that the current crop of American leaders, even the JCS, did not stack up to the Cold Warriors of their day. He said much the same thing about State Department and NSC officials at the Foreign Service Association luncheon in mid-June. That ungenerous critique and an alarming report he was readying about Berlin would leave him open to attack by political adversaries within the Kennedy administration.29 CONCLUSION Khrushchev was now flying high. At the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow on July 2, he told British Ambassador Frank Roberts that it was futile to resist him over Berlin because only six hydrogen bombs could flatten Britain and only nine could reduce the glory that was France to rubble. But Kennedy and all his top advisors now knew the truth about Soviet nuclear inferiority and took further measures to give confidence that the American eagle would fly higher than Khrushchev if the Russian bear prowled again in central Europe. Fifty percent of SAC went on ground alert. Later at the peak of the crisis, twelve B-52s

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would be placed on airborne alert. As of mid-summer, the U.S. had 188 ballistic missiles deployed, including 80 on five Polaris submarines. If the Soviets made an aggressive move, and if Kennedy's nerves held, a showdown would result in the nuclear destruction of the Soviet Union.30 The only real question in such an event was whether the President would order a preemptive attack to destroy as many Soviet strategic forces as possible and spare Western Europe from complete annihilation or wait, per McNamara's preference, for the Soviets to hit first. To some within the military, a final and victorious showdown with Communism in all its evil manifestations would be well worth whatever incidental damage the continental U.S. suffered. Moscow, Peking, and all other nests of Marxist-Leninism would be eradicated in one massive attack by the SIOP forces. The only problem was that, from the President's perspective, a few million dead Americans was not incidental damage. He did not relish going down in history as the greatest killer of all time.

15 HAREBRAINED SCHEMES To the survival and to the creative future of this city (Berlin) we Americans have pledged, in effect, what our ancestors pledged in forming the United States: "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." — Lyndon B. Johnson, August 18, 1961'

In the Kennedy administration, anyone who had an idea about military policy and strategy could pursue it. At least it sometimes seemed that way in the summer of 1961 as Khrushchev stormed over Berlin like a blast of turbulent air and American leaders hunched up their storm coats at the expected squall. The result was a hodgepodge of contingency plans, ever more outlandish and off-thecuff as civilian officials interjected themselves in what had been the exclusive preserve of professional military men. Acheson indulged himself as much as anyone. He wanted to make crystal clear to the Soviets that the U.S. and its allies were willing to initiate nuclear war over Berlin and believed that the wilder the conception, the more likely Kremlin leaders were to believe it. However, the more daft the scheme, the less likely the allies would come along willingly. Strains within the NATO alliance grew worse.2 POODLE BLANKET The Berlin contingency plan evolved into a more grandiose scenario due to the efforts of Army Colonel Dewitt Armstrong in the Pentagon's Office for International Security Affairs (ISA). He worked up a comprehensive scheme of escalating military moves to indicate to the Soviets that the U.S. would not under any circumstances be forced out of Berlin. Code-named HORSE BLANKET, the document was condensed in spring 1961 at Assistant Secretary of Defense for ISA Nitze's order to more manageable length—PONY BLANKET—before being brought to Acheson's and finally McNamara's attention.

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After much refinement and consideration, it was approved by Kennedy in October as POODLE BLANKET and eventually presented to the allies in diluted form for their approval. They did not see the full plan until well into 1962.3 POODLE BLANKET had four phases. Per Norstad's original conception, a minimal ground force of no more than platoon size, still code-named FREE STYLE, would respond to a blockade by advancing up the autobahn from the West German border toward Berlin. Simultaneously, naval maneuvers would take place and an airlift, code-named JACK PINE, would be initiated with fighter protection if the Soviets shot down any transport planes. If FREE STYLE were obstructed, a Phase II buildup of additional conventional forces would be ordered so that a more substantial force—still called TRADE WIND but of division or larger size—could be deployed for a Phase III attack into the GDR. Only if a substantial counterattack were launched would a Phase IV resort to selective nuclear strikes commence, followed by general war with strategic nuclear forces if the Soviets responded in kind. The entire scenario would unfold with extensive preparations so that events would presumably not tumble out of control.4 Top military leaders wanted a much more rapid progression to nuclear conflict. Norstad was particularly concerned that his command have authorization to use tactical nuclear weapons with the TRADE WIND operation because 85% of the targets threatening NATO were covered by the SIOP only in second wave attacks of bombers that survived a first assault on the USSR and returned to base for reloading. That would take hours, if not days, to accomplish. Much of Norstad's command and allied cities too might be annihilated in the interim. The JCS also disliked the delay inherent in graduated escalation and quoted language from an old policy paper on Berlin, NSC 5803, to justify their position. Dated February 7, 1958, the document stated that the U.S. would "be prepared to go immediately to nuclear war after using only limited military force to attempt to reopen access to Berlin." Thus, like Norstad, they resisted plans to deploy substantially larger conventional forces to Western Europe to implement graduated escalation and gave no urgency to drafting a new SIOP. Naturally, McNamara and his advisors were outraged that orders to the military were in effect being ignored. Although the JCS responded to complaints with the explanation that the Soviets might not play by counterforce rules the civilians were drawing up in their Pentagon offices, military obstructionism only gave added impetus to NSC and DOD efforts to come up with do-it-yourself contingency plans and nuclear attack scenarios.5 Meanwhile the British chiefs wanted to avoid ground fighting altogether. Their preference was for a JACK PINE airlift combined with an economic counterblockade, short of naval attacks on Soviet shipping. Although they had as yet imperfect knowledge of the POODLE BLANKET scenario, they objected to Norstad's intention to order CINCBAOR to begin live training for TRADE WIND because the Soviets would never believe the U.S. would go to war so swiftly after a renewed blockade and a FREE STYLE skirmish on the autobahn.

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By June 20, they had learned that SACEUR had increased TRADE WIND'S force to corps level (two divisions plus) and intended to attack up the autobahn in Phase III to the East German city of Magdeburg to open a salient 25 miles deep and wide. To make matters worse, Foreign Office officials sniffed out even riskier scenarios in Washington which might involve many more divisions. Mountbatten advised that a blunt expression of British opposition to LIVE OAK plans should now be made, either to Norstad directly or by higher government authority across the pond.6 In actuality, the JCS had no illusions about Norstad's TRADE WIND opening the way to Berlin. After they met with SACEUR and Acheson in Washington on June 14, they told McNamara the contingency plan was militarily infeasible. The U.S. would require a minimum of 7 divisions just to defeat the 6 divisions the GDR could hurl in the path of an invasion; 50 divisions would be needed to overcome the combined 55 divisions the Soviets and East Germans could sustain in battle west of the Oder-Neisse line. If lost, troops could not be replaced any time soon because the President's order of May 25 expanding the army from 870,000 to one million men and abandoning pentomic units in favor of full divisions could not be implemented any time soon. Early resort to nuclear weapons seemed the only practical alternative, then. Only pressure by McNamara in meetings on June 26 and 27 caused the JCS to give in on reinforcements for SACEUR. Even so, Burke wrote that a better plan would be for the British and the French to contribute more troops while the U.S. Navy deployed additional seapower to the Atlantic and Mediterranean areas, as well as Southeast Asia, the Taiwan Straits, and the Caribbean. "The chief unknown is whether the Soviets would use force sufficient to crush our ground operations, which they are capable of doing if they so choose. So we must get ready for the [final worldwide] show-down."1

DRANG NACH BERLIN If the JCS and the British believed an attack up the autobahn foolhardy, Acheson thought it a wonderful idea for the very same reason. Marching 100,000 men toward Berlin was just the ticket to show the Soviets how deadly serious Washington was to maintain its rights in the former German capital, he wrote the President on June 28, 1961. "[Berlin] has become an issue of resolution between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., the outcome of which will go far to determine the confidence of Europe—indeed, of the world—in the United States. It is not too much to say that the whole position of the United States is in the balance." In order to disabuse Khrushchev of the notion that the U.S. would not go to nuclear war over Berlin, it was necessary to restore the credibility of the deterrent. The method would be a program of extensive military preparations, creating the capability to carry out in full the POODLE BLANKET scenario. Although one or two divisions up the autobahn would

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suffice to respond to a blockade, much larger forces would be needed if Soviet or GDR forces counterattacked. Above all else, the President must not shrink from the possibility that resort to nuclear weapons might become an ultimate necessity. In the meantime, a method had to be devised to convince the allies, the American people, and Congress that the danger of war was very real.8 What Acheson was contemplating was a declaration of a state of national emergency. This had been the case during the Korean War; he believed the same dramatic action would work a second time to galvanize the NATO alliance to expand its conventional military capability. The next day, at a meeting of the NSC, he presented his program with such theatrical effect that Kennedy at once ordered Dillon, now Secretary of the Treasury, to study the economic impact on the country of living under a situation of mounting crisis and the possible need for legislation to give him wider powers. He then delegated to McNamara the task of producing in one week's time a full feasibility study of the military aspect of Acheson's plan, assuming an attack up the autobahn with two, four, six, or even twelve divisions. It must be plainly understood that nuclear weapons currently under SACEUR's control could not be used without presidential authorization, he said. His greatest worry for the present was that a military buildup would bring a similar response from the Soviets.9 Although Acheson had seemingly accomplished his goal of lighting a fire under the President's feet, his harebrained scheme for sending the cream of the Army marching down the autobahn to Armageddon caused as much anxiety among Kennedy intimates as impulsive enthusiasm from the President. Like hyenas smelling blood, they gathered in a pack to nip at the former secretary of state's heels with a flurry of biting memos. Kennedy intimate Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., State Department legal advisor Abram Chayes, and Kissinger wrote on July 7, 1961 that an all-or-nothing approach would likely result in nuclear war, which Kissinger feared the military would provoke once ground fighting began. Bundy and Sorenson urged that negotiations be pursued first in combination with economic pressures to finesse the Russian bear to remove his paws from Berlin rather than blast them off. NSC staffer Carl Kaysen warned that a Soviet nuclear attack on the U.S. would produce anywhere from 10 to 100 million casualties, depending upon whether an extensive civil defense and nuclear shelter plan, still on the drawing board, could be implemented in time. These figures so startled Kennedy that on July 8 at his summer place in Hyannisport, Massachusetts he upbraided McNamara for failing to meet his oneweek deadline for evaluating Acheson's plan and Rusk for not yet drafting a response to the aide-memoire Khrushchev had produced at Vienna. He wanted both within ten days, he said. The time had come to shove some strong beams under the Berlin policy before its weak roof collapsed.10 As of July 1, Maxwell Taylor became Kennedy's Military Advisor. This was both a knock at Bundy's performance with the NSC and an attempt to bring into the White House someone with the understanding of military-strategic issues. As a byproduct, the President hoped Taylor would facilitate a better

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working relationship with the JCS. However, the presence of a former Army Chief of Staff at Kennedy's right hand—Taylor was invited to take the sun at Hyannisport with McNamara and Rusk—was interpreted as yet another rebuff to the JCS role as principle provider of military advice to the Commander-inChief. Certainly, Taylor was far more politically sensitive to crosscurrents in the administration than cigar-chewing thunderers like LeMay, now Air Force Chief of Staff. His immediate impact was to add weight to Acheson's call for a state of national emergency and an end to the paper war launched by Acheson's critics.11 Taylor pointed out to the President in a memo on July 12 that Acheson's entire program of using a Berlin crisis to build up NATO forces looked remarkably like a repeat of the NSC 68 military buildup made possible by the Korean War. With any luck, the current crisis would have as salutary an effect on the allies as had the past. However, he criticized the former secretary of state for postponing negotiation alternatives and wondered whether it would be within NATO's capability to sustain large scale, non-nuclear ground combat in Europe even after the buildup was complete. Contrary to popular belief, the general who had propelled the Flexible Response strategy to prominence was not an opponent of using tactical nuclear weapons if required to defeat overwhelming conventional attack. Rusk was. The next day, in the NSC, he denounced the national emergency and open preparations idea for fear it would sound too much like a full mobilization to the Soviets, requiring a similar response. Acheson's opinion of Rusk's intestinal fortitude continued to plummet.12 Kennedy was in a pickle. Not knowledgeable enough to choose between conflicting opinions, he could not even listen to the last voice he heard because all his advisors were shouting at the same time. Worse, if he made the wrong move he might wind up in a showdown with the Soviets and lose the allies. Already NATO representatives from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Turkey, and Canada had complained about being shut out of tripartite planning. On July 8, they called for alliance-wide consultations on Berlin. On July 12, the Federal Republic rejected the Soviet aide-memoire outright, giving the U.S., Britain, and France no other alternative but to do likewise on July 17. Of more immediate concern, once the British discovered that Norstad wanted tactical nuclear weapons for his TRADE WIND force, they refused to consider anything more potent than a FREE STYLE probe up the autobahn. Allied agreement on a plan for a new blockade of Berlin never seemed further away.13 Since the Army Command and General Staff College had war-gamed corpssize attacks with as many as 78 tactical nuclear weapons from the early 1950s onward, Norstad's plan was hardly revolutionary. In fact, that same month the Soviets conducted military exercises in the Carpathian mountains in which an army group of 25 divisions attacked simulated NATO forces on a 250 mile front with 60 to 75 nuclear weapons. The normal complement for a Soviet army group was anywhere from 150 to 300. American intelligence believed that the Soviets had finally developed warheads for large-caliber mortars, artillery

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pieces, certain free rockets, and guided missiles with range up to 300 nautical miles. Yields varied from 5 kilotons to several megatons.14 Although Bruce cabled from London on July 17 that the British would back the U.S. over Berlin even if the President went to nuclear war, this would only be the case if Kennedy tried negotiations first, possibly in a Big Four summit, and exhausted all non-military means of resolving the crisis. Particularly difficult for the British to accept was the idea of fighting in defense of people whom they still considered "Huns." The heirs of William the Conqueror and Henry V, Oliver Cromwell and the Duke of Wellington considered themselves to be the true Herrenvolk (master race), not the Germans, wrote Bruce. They greatly resented the fact that despite winning two world wars, their standard of living had stagnated while West Germany's soared.15 In mid-July the President huddled repeatedly with advisors to discuss Acheson's program. In a meeting on July 18, Lemnitzer and LeMay conceded that, if reinforced, SACEUR could hold his own for a while in non-nuclear combat with Soviet bloc forces. That decided the President to approve a military buildup but not a declaration of national emergency. Another $4.3 billion would be solicited from Congress, 150,000 reservists would be called up, more ships and planes would be activated, and a program of civil defense would be announced in a televised speech on July 25. Since Khrushchev's deadline did not expire until December, a national emergency could be put off until September or even October.16 Acheson was more disgruntled than ever. He clashed with McNamara at the NSC meeting on July 20 and was only partially mollified by the President's assurance that the buildup would eventually produce a reserve force in the continental U.S. of six Army and two Marine divisions for deployment to Europe in an emergency. The NATO allies had still not been convinced to build up their conventional forces, however. With the French still heavily committed to Algeria and the British complaining about balance of payments difficulties that could be worsened by deployment of more troops to the continent, American forces would have to carry the brunt of any fighting. Too expensive, warned Dillon. If Acheson's full design were carried out, Washington might have trouble with its own balance of payments. Wishing he were secretary of state again and fighting the Korean War with Truman, Acheson wrote his old boss that he was disgusted with Rusk and concerned that nothing ever really got decided by the young President. He kept a stiff upper lip for the allies, however, writing Eden that the West "must take great risks to avoid greater ones." Like the JCS, he had grave doubts that Kennedy would ever summon enough courage to stand jaw to jaw with Khrushchev and not gulp.17 LONG, HOT SUMMER On July 15, Nitze took it upon himself to pour a little gasoline on the fire

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by confronting Soviet Ambassador Mikail A. Menshikov with a thinly veiled threat of nuclear destruction. In the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey in 1945 and 1946, he had supervised five hundred engineers and technicians, he told the Russian. They had assessed the effect of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with great thoroughness. Therefore, it was not difficult for him to imagine what would be the effect on the Soviet Union of, say, a 1,000 megaton attack—in fact, his imagination was so vivid he could envision as much as 7,000 or 10,000 or even 20,000 megatons of Communist-destroying power laying waste cities and military targets from the Elbe River to Vladivostok. If Moscow drew first over Berlin, he warned, Washington would shoot to kill.18 If Menshikov was frightened by threats from an old Cold Warrior whose finger was not on the nuclear trigger, Khrushchev went out of his way to demonstrate he was not intimidated at all by warnings from a man whose was. Three days after Kennedy's speech of July 25, he raged at McCloy, now Kennedy's advisor on disarmament, that even if the U.S. struck at the Soviet Union with its full nuclear might, Europe would be destroyed. Nor did the U.S. have Allied support for its reckless course. De Gaulle favored the status quo of two Germanies, and this state of affairs could not be changed unless by negotiations, by which he meant concessions. He would lance the Berlin boil whatever course Kennedy adopted, he boasted. Soviet rocket superiority gave him the strength to do so. Ambassador Thompson subsequently reported that Khrushchev was so far out on a limb with his Kremlin colleagues that he could not back down without concessions, possibly outside of Europe. Back in Washington, congressional leaders were beginning to believe the same thing. J. William Fulbright (D., Arkansas), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that the U.S. should agree to pull out of central Europe, ban nuclear weapons in Germany, establish Berlin as a free city, and let the Soviets staunch the flow of refugees streaming out of East Germany if that was required to keep the peace. He became about as popular in West Germany as bad sauerbraten.19 By this time Kennedy had begun to consider nuclear scenarios. Thomas C. Schelling, a consultant from Harvard, had written a memo on July 5 which the President read while exercising his chronically bad back during another weekend at Hyannisport July 22-23. Like Norstad, Schelling believed that any substantial use of tactical nuclear warheads would necessarily provoke general war. "Nuclears should therefore be used—if they are used at all in Europe—not mainly to destroy tactical targets but to influence the Soviet command." More precisely, the President should make "selective and threatening use of nuclears rather than large-scale tactical use" to persuade the Soviets to negotiate. "If nuclear weapons should be resorted to, particular weapons will be fired from particular locations to particular targets at particular times. Messages may need to accompany the weapons; if so, they must carry particular language. The concept of selective, strategic bargaining use is not enough; there must be plans for how to do this." Schelling himself put forward such a plan. He wanted to

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detonate a nuclear warning shot over the Arctic Circle island of Novalya Zemlya or some other isolated place. He anticipated some sort of nuclear response by the Kremlin, but neither he nor anyone else could fathom what that might be.20 Bundy believed that Schelling's proposal made a great impression on the President because it fit in with his notion about controlling actions minute by minute on the nuclear battlefield. However, in a meeting with the JCS, Kennedy confided a far different viewpoint. He let his senior military leaders know he was fully aware of the difficulties of sustaining non-nuclear combat for any length of time. Undoubtedly, a point would come when he would have to make a decision to resort to nuclear weapons secretly and without letting the enemy know what the U.S. was about to do. To prepare for that eventuality, the JCS should send letters to Allied military leaders, especially British, French, and Canadian, soliciting their agreement in advance that the U.S. could launch nuclear attacks from overseas bases in an emergency. LeMay pointed out that American bombers could already fly from bases in Spain without advance notification to the government of General Francisco Franco. If the NATO allies got cold feet, SAC could always concentrate its power in a warmer climate.21 Meanwhile, Robert W. Komer of the NSC staff backed Schelling's demonstration idea and even suggested a threat to give nuclear weapons to Bonn to intimidate Moscow. However, Nitze considered Schelling's entire concept too risky because the Soviets would feel compelled to eradicate some isolated NATO or American target like Spitzbergen or Nome, Alaska. The U.S. would then have to retaliate, followed by a second Soviet response until things finally got completely and irrevocably out of hand. The end result of Schelling's game of nuclear chicken would be city-busting and all-out war. As an alternative, he had his deputy Henry S. Rowen work with Kaysen and Major General David A. Burchinal of the Air Force Staff on precise locations of Soviet bomber and missile targets as well as how many SAC bombers and bombs in what types would be needed to destroy them in a surprise first strike. The conclusion was that it was possible to eliminate all 190 Soviet strategic bombers and the few ICBMs at Plesetsk and Tyuratom with a 99% chance of success. Nitze's boss McNamara was dubious of the plan but did broach the possibility of using nuclear weapons with Mountbatten as the crisis intensified. The chief of the British Defence staff reportedly replied "are you insane?"22 Whether precisely accurate or not, such words succinctly summed up London's point of view about nuclear war over Berlin. The British Isles would be a logical target of Soviet retaliation if the U.S. used tactical nuclear weapons to rip up the Red Army in East Germany or even tried to cold-cock Soviet strategic forces in Mother Russia. On the other hand, satellite pictures and intelligence information from Penkovsky had just about proven conclusively that hysterical Air Force fears of 300 Soviet ICBMs hidden in grain silos, barns, even under haystacks was just that. CIA, Army, and State Department analysts were prepared to tell the President that no more than 50 to 100 existed. The Navy scoffed at even these numbers and guessed that no more than ten long-

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range missiles were in the Soviet arsenal. The Navy was approximately correct. The Soviets had given up on their first generation SS-6 ICBM and proceeded with research and development of second generation missiles they hoped would be easier to deploy and more reliable. Even so, their medium- and intermediaterange SS-4 and SS-5 rockets provided a potent threat to European cities. By summer 1961, 250 to 300 had been deployed with ranges of 700 to 1,100 nautical miles, some in the GDR. The CIA suspected that nuclear warheads had accompanied the missiles but had discovered as yet no nuclear warhead storage sites on East German soil.23 Meanwhile, Rusk prepared for an early August trip to Paris for the NATO Foreign Minister meeting with deep foreboding. Because the administration had settled on a negotiating stance that emphasized self-determination for Germany, not reunification as had the Eisenhower administration, he feared that Bonn would accuse Washington of trying to make a separate deal over Berlin. On the other hand, he did not want to risk a showdown. He told the President on August 3 that military action should be a last resort, not an initial reflex action. He was prepared to permit the British to take the lead in negotiating an agreement with the Soviets if that would make compromise more politically palatable. As Kissinger had pointed out in a July 21 memo to Bundy, nobody except the Germans really wanted to see German unification. Rusk did not see that it really mattered if GDR officials assumed minor administrative functions like document stamping.24 With Kennedy's blessing, the Secretary of State briefed Home, Couve de Murville, and von Brentano two days later in the French capital. The French foreign minister, not the German, maintained the most uncompromising attitude toward any concessions to the Soviets. Even when Home warned that their governments had to make decisions on how to deal with use of tactical nuclear weapons and Russian missile retaliation before Norstad attempted a probe up the autobahn, Couve remained indifferent. Any shooting would obviate the necessity of NAC or government intercession, he insisted. General war would quickly follow. Rusk wound up trying to convince a skeptical Home that SACEUR be permitted to proceed with a large ground probe to test Khrushchev's intentions if all non-military measures failed.25 On August 8, American policy received a condescending pat on the back from de Gaulle. The French president told Rusk that he saw no need for negotiation over Berlin and that the U.S. must meet force with force if the Soviets infringed on Western rights. However, while assuring the Secretary of State that France would support a strong American stand, he gave no specific commitment of assistance. A nervous Rusk told his European ambassadors that he much preferred an airlift, which would put the adversary in the position of taking the first aggressive step, to armed probes into East Germany. If more determined steps became necessary, it would be wise to hold off on nuclear warfare because of the danger to allied territory while pursuing actions in a broader theater of operations. For example, a naval blockade of the Dardanelles

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and the Skagerrak held possibilities for bringing economic pressure to bear on the Soviets. He wanted to increase Khrushchev's opportunity to back away from conflict by not limiting American choices to nuclear war or surrender.26 By the second week in August, East Germans were literally flooding out of their workers' paradise. Signs abounded that the Soviets and GDR authorities were planning something dramatic to dam the tide, but U.S. intelligence officials did not provide the President with advance warning until the event occurred. On August 13, 1961, a wall of barbed wire and other obstacles began to go up across the dividing line between East and West Berlin. Although in the immediate aftermath a series of incidents heightened tensions, in a pragmatic sense the pressure on Khrushchev to force an early confrontation had passed. Unless he decided to blockade the Western zone or U.S. leaders reacted too harshly to Communist harassment, there was not going to be nuclear war over Berlin. However, McNamara did order Norstad to draw up a parallel set of plans to LIVE OAK for unilateral U.S. action if the allies failed to stand firm over Berlin in an emergency.27 For political reasons, Kennedy could not stand pat and do nothing. He decided over McNamara's objection to reinforce the West Berlin garrison with a 1,500 man battle group from the 8th Infantry Division, albeit with orders to halt if attacked by superior enemy forces and withdraw if in danger of being cut off. Although Norstad advised a smaller force composed of an engineer company and forty vehicles, the battle group sped up the autobahn on August 19, 1961 without incident. That same day, Kennedy dispatched General Clay to take up station as his personal representative and de facto warlord of fortress Berlin. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson went along to provide moral support to the frightened Berliners and was rewarded with a frenzied reception in the Potsdamer Platz by half a million people. He trumpeted an American commitment to defend West Berlin to the death. At least for public consumption, Uncle Sam's nuclear umbrella opened wide over central Europe.28 With the situation still tense, McNamara and Rusk leaned on the JCS to accept the policy of nuclear weapons as a last resort only. To safeguard against unauthorized use, the President ordered the Secretary of Defense to set up a command and control task force with special urgency to review procedures on use and security measures. Rusk and McNamara also moved to placate nervous allies by meeting with Western European ambassadors and military advisors in Washington on August 26 to explain the status of contingency planning and appeal for greater cooperation in readying the gradual escalation plan. Perhaps the battle group to Berlin placated Lemnitzer and the JCS somewhat. Even after the GDR reduced the number of sector crossings to seven for Berlin residents and only one, along the Friedrichstrasse, for Western officials, they ordered SACEUR not to insist on access to East Berlin but to instruct garrison troops to defend themselves only if fired upon in the Eastern sector and withdraw promptly into the West. Norstad complied but alarmed the British by stepping up planning on LIVE OAK for more extensive military operations. He wanted

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FREE STYLE ready in case Khrushchev suddenly imposed a blockade and TRADE WIND behind it with a tactical nuclear capability. However, by the time SACEUR met with Adenauer in early September to reassure him that the U.S. was still determined to use nuclear weapons to defend Western Europe, it was clear that the President would do nothing about the Berlin Wall.29 CONCLUSION In late August the Air Force war-gamed the Berlin situation and determined that if SACEUR used tactical nuclear weapons on selected military targets short of an all-out attack, he could force the Soviets to negotiate—or at least force the Americans playing Kremlin leaders to negotiate. The reason seemed obvious. To the Soviets, trading their homeland for Western Europe was not an even deal, especially when the U.S. would emerge with only its hair "mussed," as General Buck Turgidson would say in Doctor Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film about an American nuclear attack on Russia provoked by a deranged SAC commander. That exercise followed a July war game that "proved" that adding additional conventional forces to the units already in Europe would not help the U.S. attain its objective of forcing the Soviets to back down over Berlin. Only nuclear weapons could accomplish that goal, the Air Force believed.30 However, the White House commissioned Schelling to run his own war game at Camp David. This took place September 8 to 11 and was attended by second echelon administration officials apparently including Kaysen, Kissinger, and others from the State Department, JCS, and NSC. Kennedy was away again, boating on Nantucket Sound, but Kaysen wrote a full report of the experience and Taylor added a memo summing up lessons from the exercise. The scenario had involved a revolt in East Berlin that Western forces had failed to assist, much to the chagrin of some participants. It had been extraordinarily difficult to get across to the "Soviets" American intentions at every phase because of the noise of war and the fact that the inactive Berlin garrison did not convey a credible threat. It had turned out to be better to grab territory that belonged to the enemy and hold it than keep out of East Berlin (or East Germany) because that forced the enemy to risk a move he did not want to take to raise the level of violence. Whichever side reached a decision point in which it had to initiate an action neither side wanted—that is, using nuclear weapons—was deterred from going any further. Any action taken off center stage, such as a naval blockade, was viewed by the other side as evasive. It was much better to concentrate on the European theater than buzz about witlessly on the periphery of the Soviet Union.31 In essence, Taylor was describing a situation a bit like musical chairs. Adversaries kept circling until the music stopped, then tried to find a safe place to sit down. When the music started up again, if there was no chair left,

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whichever side was left standing lost the game. The problem was that in a real confrontation, the unlucky player might not choose to walk away. He might kick over the last remaining chair, with his opponent in it, and start fighting. A second war game September 27-29 involving the same scenario placed the American side in precisely that position. After U.S. troops assisting an East Berlin uprising were decimated and thrust back into West Berlin, the American team had to decide whether to kick over the table and use nuclear weapons. They did not, and West Berlin was placed in a more precarious position than before. The unmistakable lesson that emerged from these war games was that it was extraordinarily difficult to threaten nuclear war over a city deep inside enemy territory and be believed. Another way had to be found to defend the Western position in the former German capital.32

16 MUDDLING THROUGH I fully appreciate and support the need to create a position from which we would be able to respond, within reasonable limits, to any form of Soviet aggression in the NATO area, forcefully, but in such a way as to minimize the risk of general war. I believe, however, that realistic planning must seek to exploit our strengths without overlooking our weaknesses; above all, it must weigh immediate needs against interests of the long-term defense posture of the West. While preparing to exploit any favorable developments, we must avoid convincing ourselves that the possible is probable. We must not confuse the wish with the fact. — Lauris N. Norstad, September 16, 1961 *

While Kennedy's advisors played nuclear warrior, the President searched for every avenue out of the crisis. A back channel message came through George Kennan, now Ambassador to Yugoslavia, that the minimum Soviet demands for a resolution of Berlin was a peace treaty and de facto recognition of the GDR under a formula that preserved the status quo of two Germanies. Kennedy pursued this and other unofficial contacts while approving efforts by Rusk to open a direct dialogue. He also met with McNamara, Taylor, Lemnitzer, Acheson, and others on September 7 to talk out what might occur if no diplomatic solution could be achieved. Ever eager to sacrifice lives to uphold American prestige, Acheson urged a permanent increase of four U.S. divisions in Western Europe and an attack up the autobahn with five or more if that were necessary to establish the credibility of the nuclear deterrent. And if nuclear war did come, the U.S. should promulgate it to a victorious conclusion and worry about picking up the pieces of a wrecked Europe afterward. Jolted, Kennedy ordered McNamara and Rusk to study how the Soviets and allies would react to a mobilization of six more divisions for Western Europe and how much it would cost. He had already approved the movement of ten fighter squadrons and six more B-47 wings (including 20 planes to Spain to augment the 33 already there) to Europe

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as well as a call-up of four additional Army National Guard divisions by midNovember for a total of 227,000 reservists undergoing training. In the next two months, 37,000 Army personnel would be shipped to Europe to bring the Seventh Army and other units up to full strength, 25,000 men of the 4th Army Division would reinforce SACEUR, and another carrier would join the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. After the Soviets broke the nuclear test moratorium on September 10, the President announced civil defense measures as well and ordered accelerated production of the advanced NIKE-Zeus air defense system. Regardless, Acheson wrote Truman that he was more pessimistic than ever about Kennedy's resolve to stand up to Khrushchev. He expected a "humiliating defeat over Berlin" in the fall.2 SECOND THOUGHTS That possibility was on the President's mind too. He drew up a memo asking whether adding six U.S. divisions to NATO's defenses would really revitalize NATO for the long run and convince Khrushchev the U.S. would fight to defend West Berlin. He also questioned whether 30 divisions could really stop a massive Soviet conventional attack and whether the TRADE WIND move toward Berlin, if routed, would so weaken NATO's ground shield as to make early resort to nuclear weapons a necessity. It worried him greatly that the allies had taken only minimal steps to match the U.S. buildup. Although the Germans had brought nine divisions up to strength, the French were so far bringing only one division home from Algeria, and the British had plans to withdraw troops from the continent once the crisis was resolved. The balance of payments problem was the reason London gave for failing to beef up CINCBAOR's command. Kennedy directed Dillon to calculate just how much it would cost the U.S. in gold to deploy Acheson's six divisions and support troops after January 1, 1962.3 He worried as well about the negotiating position Rusk and the State Department intended to stake out with the Soviets. The British favored a detailed paper like the Western Peace Plan of 1959. The President preferred a statement of principles to avoid getting hung up on demands for free elections in Berlin and unification for Germany, negotiation-stoppers that would bring on a showdown much faster. At the same time, he accepted Bundy's suggestion that the Federal Republic be brought fully into the negotiating process so that they would stop criticizing eveiy proposal that came down the autobahn. Rusk was to work through Thompson in Moscow to call for a peace conference and propose parallel peace treaties with the two Germanies.4 On September 14, Dillon got back to the President about the cost of the buildup. The U.S. would have to spend $350 million in FY 62 to send 220,000 men and 26,000 support troops to Europe and $760 million in FY 63 to maintain the deployment. He proposed that after the upcoming elections in West

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Germany, the Federal Republic be asked to pick up most of the tab. The remaining expense could be covered by bringing home U.S. dependents. Taylor had a different idea. He advised Kennedy to go through with the call-up of four more Army National Guard divisions but not to commit to the six division deployment to Western Europe. The presence of a large strategic reserve in the continental U.S. would be sufficient to show the Soviets Uncle Sam meant business, he reasoned. Aside from the fact that some of those divisions might be needed to support a SEATO intervention in Indochina or an invasion of Cuba, in his opinion even a 30 division force would only provide a limited offensive capability to carry out Phase III of the POODLE BLANKET scenario. He suggested that shipping six divisions to SACEUR after January 1, 1962 be made contingent upon a concomitant Allied buildup.5 JCS Chairman Lemnitzer wondered why the President was bothering about conventional military preparations at all. On September 13, he told Kennedy to trust in the SIOP 62 war plan and forget about limited war scenarios. Although some Soviet long-range nuclear weapons systems might survive to retaliate, the U.S. was sure to prevail in the end and expunge the Communist threat forever. More or less in agreement, Norstad wrote McNamara that he doubted "our ability to enforce a gradual, controlled development of the battle, and not overestimate the extent to which we can dictate the Soviet response, particularly in a situation where it is unlikely that we would have the initiative. To assume that we could exercise independent, unilateral control over the battle would be as wrong in 1961 as it was wrong in 1953 to speak of 'a time and place of our own choosing.'" He advised the Secretary of Defense and Maxwell Taylor that the U.S. should prepare for an "explosive escalation to general war" and not put its faith in an inconsequential buildup of American and NATO forces.6 On September 15, Kennedy met with the British, French, and West German foreign ministers to push a NATO buildup without success. Five days later he called in the JCS to go over the Berlin contingency plan and discuss the SEATO Plan 5 intervention contingency for Indochina as well. He ordered that details of ground probes, naval blockades, and plans to use nuclear weapons be firmed up, coordinated with Norstad, and put to the allies for final approval. He also wanted an estimate of the relative nuclear strengths of the U.S. and Soviet Union. However, the Chiefs collectively had no more enthusiasm for POODLE BLANKET than had Lemnitzer alone and irritated the President with differing opinions about what course of action should be followed. New CNO George W. Anderson warned that a naval blockade would be taken by the Soviets as an act of war with the possibility Moscow could launch an all-out submarine attack on Allied shipping. LeMay counseled against ground probes because a land war could not be easily broken off without a serious loss of national prestige. He thought air and naval escalation wiser but doubted that U.S. and NATO air power could "take the USSR for very long." The other Chiefs disagreed that a ground battle necessarily meant that the U.S. was committed to all-out military action, winding up ultimately with nuclear combat. Despite assurances from

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McNamara that a NATO buildup to 32 divisions, including 11 American, was a feasible goal that, contrary to Norstad's opinion, would buy significant time before a decision to go nuclear would become necessary, Kennedy decided to obtain more firsthand knowledge about the capabilities of the armed forces. He went over the SIOP with CINCSAC Power, then visited Fort Bragg on October 12 to review an Army division. Some of the doubt and distrust engendered by the Bay of Pigs fiasco began to dissipate.7 On September 21, Rusk met Gromyko in New York to persuade the Soviets to back off Khrushchev's December deadline. Additional meetings on September 27 and 30 identified four fundamental Soviet demands: recognition of German borders resulting from World War II as permanent, respect for GDR sovereignty, no nuclear weapons in the hands of Germans, and free city status for Berlin with a provision for stationing "token" Soviet forces in West Berlin. A Kennedy-Gromyko parlay in Washington was arranged for October 6. Prior to that, Norstad was called home to answer charges that he might not implement the Berlin contingency plan in the preferred sequence set forth under POODLE BLANKET. Kissinger and Nitze feared he would used a minimal show of conventional forces only as a trigger for nuclear weapons and that his plan to force a salient into East German territory was so designed as to make it impossible for the President to "control" military operations after hostilities started. Of course it was ridiculous on its face to believe that the President, even with state-of-the-art communications equipment, could follow events on the battlefield and prevent attacks and counterattacks from spiraling out of control. Nevertheless, Kissinger wanted the President to have confidence "that a war can be kept conventional as long as he chooses." Nitze pointed out that without a rapid buildup of non-nuclear forces in Europe, the graduated escalation scenario had no chance of success.8 Kennedy had Norstad in to explain himself on October 3, 1961 with Rusk, McNamara, Taylor, and Bundy in attendance. Complaining that his views were being distorted, SACEUR reminded the Commander-in-Chief that he had been the first one to use the terms pause and threshold++ut defended his criticism of graduation++nd++scalation++ecause they implied an unrealistic "serial progres in which we move easily and by prepared steps from one stage to another of a development within our own control." He repeated his opinion that escalation was bound to be explosive and lead to early use of nuclear weapons. He resisted all pressure to accept large reinforcements because the contest with the Soviets was really a poker game in which cards must be played at the right time. If the President pushed the conventional buildup card into the pile too soon, it would imply to the Europeans that the U.S. was shifting away from its pledge to use nuclear weapons to defend Western Europe. He thought Kennedy should wait until the situation was about to deteriorate, then ship over the extra divisions. Their arrival at the last practical moment might well act as a sobering slap in the face to the Soviets.9 Kennedy was edgy now, more so because he felt unable to remove Norstad

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from his command for fear of the deleterious effect it would have on the allies and the Soviets. He could take some comfort from the work of the National Command and Control Task Force headed by General Earle E. Partridge (USAF ret.) and authorized by him on August 31. Partridge's task force had discovered that NATO rules and procedures then in existence made extremely remote the chance of accidental nuclear detonation or unauthorized seizure of warheads. Other procedures recently instituted by Norstad made employment of nuclear weapons without presidential authority unlikely, though problems of communication links persisted. Partridge and the task force would continue to study means of strengthening command and control, including additional safety features built into weapons into the next year.10 In the meeting with Gromyko on October 6, Kennedy finally reacted with chest-bumping intensity to the Soviet foreign minister's haughty reiteration of the Kremlin's four demands. What the Soviets were suggesting was not a compromise but a Western retreat. The idea that Moscow could turn over East Berlin to the East Germans and expect then to station "token" forces in West Berlin was out of the question. The proposal that the West and in particular West Germany would agree to abandon the concept of German unification in exchange for "free city" status for Berlin was like "trading an apple for an orchard." The Soviets had no right to terminate Western rights in the city unilaterally.11 Cooling off, Kennedy wrote Clay in Berlin to think before taking the prompt and tough actions the general had been advocating in response to any blockade of ground access to the city. He wrote Norstad as well, urging him to convince the allies of the soundness of administration policy. Then, late on the night of October 10, he approved deployment of eleven Air National Guard units to replace seven TAC squadrons, authorized the JCS to rotate forces so that two combat ready battle groups reinforced SACEUR's normal complement of American troops at all times, and sent the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to West Germany over Norstad's objection. He might not be able to replace the recalcitrant commander because of political reasons. He could certainly place into his hands the capabilities to raise the nuclear threshold and buy time, if SACEUR would only follow orders.12 That night he also discussed with his key advisors details of the Berlin contingency plan Norstad was supposed to implement. Phase IV had been broken down into three separate components. First would come selective nuclear attacks for demonstrative purposes to influence Soviet leadership thinking, per Schelling's July memo. Next would follow limited employment of tactical nuclear weapons to prevent SACEUR's forces from being overwhelmed by the Red Army. Finally would come an all-out nuclear blitz to win a general war. While Taylor was concerned that battlefield commanders in possession of tactical nuclear weapons have freedom of action to make use of them when in danger of destruction, Nitze debated McNamara about the advisability of holding back the Sunday Punch while demonstration strikes and

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limited battlefield attacks took place. Fighting with one arm tied behind Uncle Sam's back would merely tempt the Soviets to throw a full, roundhouse nuclear right cross, he complained. If the U.S. cut loose immediately with both fists, the Soviets would go down for the count before landing any solid blows. Sounding almost defeatist, McNamara fretted that neither side could really be certain of winning once mushroom clouds popped up across Europe like dandelions in the spring. The devastation would just be enormous.13 But in his innermost thoughts, McNamara too pondered a role as nuclear savior of the Western world. With Nitze, he met with Major General Jerry D. Page, SAC liaison officer to the Pentagon, to devise a plan that would surgically remove the sharpest fangs of the Russian bear. The idea was to sneak two or three Polaris submarines under the polar ice cap and in coordination with a few B-52s surprise attack three key Soviet airfields and three other forward bomber bases near the Arctic Circle. That would dramatically reduce the Soviet ability to retaliate directly against American territory and thus might induce them to raise a white flag without calling down upon themselves further destruction. On the other hand, Moscow might react like a wounded bear and lash out with all remaining forces, eradicating Western Europe. When informed what the Secretary of Defense had in mind, LeMay demanded that an even larger force of bombers be assembled for the strike. Like Lemnitzer, the inclination of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force was to cut through all the crap and launch the full SIOP as soon as possible. Attacking the Soviet Union did not make sense to him unless SAC at long last would get a shot at lighting up Moscow.14 In October, intelligence officials picked up indications that the Soviets and GDR intended to close the Friedrichstrasse into East Berlin, still the only available crossing to Western occupation officials. Clay, backed by the JCS, wanted to move American tanks to Checkpoint Charlie when this occurred and physically demolish any barriers. As in 1948, he insisted the Soviets were bluffing and would back down when challenged. However, if they blocked a ground probe up the autobahn, he advised the President to resort immediately to nuclear weapons. The situation had only deteriorated so far because the U.S. had not responded to Soviet provocations in the past with iron-fisted actions. Like Acheson, he feared national humiliation more than nuclear war.15 Kennedy tried a carrot first, writing Khrushchev on October 16 from Hyannisport to offer talks not only on Berlin but Laos where pressure by the Pathet Lao had splintered opposition to Communist aggression. Khrushchev's remarks at the 22nd Communist Party Congress seemed conciliatory, but there was no change in the fundamental situation in and around Berlin. Reluctantly the President gave Clay authority to run two or three tanks up to the Friedrichstrasse crossing point to demolish barriers GDR officials might erect or as an intimidation against unacceptable East German demands for documentation from Western officials crossing into East Berlin. Then he called in the JCS on October 20 to debate with his key civilian advisors the wisdom of building up conventional forces in Europe. LeMay and Anderson were opposed, but the

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Chairman himself and Army Chief of Staff George H. Decker were in favor. Gilpatric, Rusk, and Acheson complained that even if more divisions were provided, Norstad would go nuclear too quickly. Almost frantic to move the President out of his comfortable rocker and into action, the former secretary of state insisted that Kennedy begin making decisions for Norstad and even the allies because leaders in London, Paris, and Bonn needed the loud clang of a Washington leadership bell to give them direction. He proposed specifically that the President send another letter to Norstad ordering that non-military actions be tried before military moves and that if a situation developed whereby Phase IV of POODLE BLANKET came about, air nuclear action (against selective targets for demonstrative purposes) would be employed before tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. To Acheson's great relief, Kennedy concurred and sent out a detailed order to SACEUR along the lines the former secretary of state detailed. Although there would be a worldwide naval counterblockade to pressure the Soviets to negotiate, he insisted that Norstad wrap himself in the POODLE BLANKET scenario.16 The next day came the stick. Gilpatric gave a speech before the Business Council in Hot Springs, Virginia in which he took a page from Khrushchev's book of bluster. American nuclear strength included 600 heavy bombers, hundreds of medium bombers, six Polaris submarines with a total of 96 missiles, and substantial numbers of ICBMs, he revealed to the world. The U.S. also deployed nuclear-equipped planes on aircraft carriers and land-based nuclear forces in Europe which added hundreds of megatons of power to an arsenal that amounted to tens of thousands of strategic vehicles, some with more than one warhead per vehicle. By comparison, the Soviets were no better than nuclear neanderthals and unsophisticated bullies. Their crowing about 50-megaton nuclear tests was of no practical military value and unimpressive when compared to operational nuclear systems.17 The actual American strategic force at this time consisted of 571 heavy bombers, about 950 medium bombers, 96 Polaris missiles, and 64 Atlas and Titan ICBMs. Whether the Soviets believed the numbers or not, it could not have helped Khrushchev's mood to be on the receiving end of a rattling saber for a change. Determined to demonstrate that he would not be intimidated, he permitted Soviet tanks to rumble up to Checkpoint Charlie on the night of October 27. When American tanks pointed their cannons at the Soviets, a Mexican standoff ensued. Neither side budged for sixteen hours. Finally the next morning, the Soviets drove away.18 CONCLUSION A crisis atmosphere endured as GDR officials tried to force U.S. military personnel to show identification cards when crossing into East Berlin, incidents in violation of Western occupation rights. With McNamara's permission, the

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DOD responded by sending Davy Crockett weapons to American troops in West Germany, which annoyed State Department officials and gave further proof to the British that the Americans could not be restrained in an emergency from resorting to nuclear weapons and blowing up the continent. However, Khrushchev held back from imposing a second blockade on Berlin, so that the situation dragged on in enervating fashion into the next year.19 Meanwhile, Norstad finally gave a little ground to his Commander-in-Chief by agreeing on November 2 to accept two more divisions and support the decision to the allies as a "sound military step." He even suggested that, somewhere in the POODLE BLANKET scenario, the President propose an emergency conference with Khrushchev as a dramatic move to halt the escalation to nuclear war. However, his continuing criticism of the graduated escalation strategy caused him to be summoned home in December for additional consultation and another plea to reassure shaky allies. One of the shakiest was Adenauer, as skittish as a cat during a visit to Washington in late November, so that Kennedy, following Kissinger's advice, assured him personally and off-therecord that the U.S. had plenty of hell-fire nuclear thunderbolts to hurl at the devil Soviets in case of need. The transition from conventional warfare to nuclear combat would proceed in an orderly fashion before too much German territory could be overrun or destroyed, the President insisted. Norstad would adhere to the four-phase graduated escalation.20 In Paris on December 11 to 13, Rusk announced to the British, French, and West German foreign ministers that the U.S. favored concessions if in the context of an overall settlement of the German question. De Gaulle turned up his nose at any such suggestion, even after a personal phone call from Kennedy. Just to make certain the American change of heart was genuine, Macmillan shunted aside his usual British reserve one more time at a Bermuda meeting with the President on December 21 to deliver yet another emotional harangue about the danger to Britain of nuclear war over Berlin. He came away satisfied that Kennedy "does not intend to risk war about Berlin, although outwardly and publicly he talks big."21 Dean Acheson, for all his deviousness and vanity, was an astute man. In his April 3, 1961 memo, he had recognized that the Berlin problem was an inherently dangerous situation with no better solution from Washington's point of view than the status quo unless Germany were somehow reunited under a pro-American government. Certainly the President and his advisors had no idea how the Berlin situation would pan out. They only knew what they wanted to avoid—nuclear war. Thus, as the new year came, they tried to get back on track to a less risky military strategy based upon flexible forces, limited war scenarios, and a multilateral NATO nuclear force effectively controlled by the President. The difficulty continued to be that the allies wanted no part of the plan.

17 MULTILATERAL FOLLY It's rather sad, because the Americans (who are naive and inexperienced) are up against centuries of diplomatic skill and finesse. — (Maurice) Harold Macmillan, June 19, 19621

With one near disastrous year of running American military and foreign policy under their belts, the top civilian officials of the Kennedy administration began to behave as if they were the lead actor in an episode of Father Knows Best. They wanted to pack up all their children—the military and the allies—in a big national security station wagon and drive off on an itinerary mapped with magic marker. Senior military commanders and leaders of key NATO countries had their own agendas, however. They did not intend to let wayward drivers like Kennedy, McNamara, and Rusk take the wheel. Already, of course, McNamara was having trouble making his word law with the JCS. Because of the Berlin and Laotian crises, his order to the Chiefs to revise the SIOP in spring 1961 had been shunted aside through the summer with the result, as we have seen, that every analyst with a globe, a slide rule, and a contact in the Pentagon had drawn up his own nuclear attack plan against the Soviet Union. Then in late September when the Joint Staff had at last come up with a draft, the services had all attacked the document as too theoretical and impractical in any event because it called for massive increases in forces and logistical support for all branches of the military. They much preferred a revision of Eisenhower's Basic National Security Policy, which Nitze and his staff with JCS assistance had been working on unofficially since the Kennedy administration took office. At the meeting on July 27, the JCS attempted to interest the President in the paper without success. Thus by November and December, they had to accept a revised plan, designated SIOP 63, that contained all the bells and whistles, options and sub-options the Secretary of Defense had demanded. Although Kennedy was briefed on January 17, 1962, a final target list and coordination with Norstad to make Phase IV of the Berlin contingency

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plan compatible with the plan was not completed until June.2 NEW STRATEGY, OLD ATTITUDES The Europeans never had much enthusiasm for the multilateral force idea for a sea-based NATO nuclear command once details leaked out of Washington. Even after Norstad and the State Department persuaded the DOD to make the assignment of Polaris missile submarines to NATO an inducement, not a precondition, for Allied purchase or production of 100 more MRBMs, the British and French remained adamant about retaining their independent deterrent capabilities. Equally as bothersome, the Germans, Italians, and Turks preferred land-based IRBMs under the same dual-key arrangement as Thor missiles in Britain as an ironclad guarantee of the American commitment to defend their soil with nuclear weapons. However, IRBMs for Germany had already been nixed by Eisenhower, and Jupiters for Rome and Ankara ran afoul of the NATO Task Force Kennedy had appointed to review the program. On March 29, 1961, Acheson told the NSC that missiles in Turkey would be too vulnerable to a Soviet first strike and that in a crisis situation the Turks might be tempted to seize the missiles. Over the protests of Norstad and Turkish Foreign Minister Selim Sarper, his opinion prevailed until the Vienna summit failed and the Berlin crisis was reignited. To put pressure on the Soviets, Rusk accepted the advice of Norstad and Nitze to go ahead with deployment so long as Norstad could guarantee that the Turks would not obtain full operating knowledge of the missiles.3 As much as possible without inhibiting preparations for the Berlin crisis, Kennedy and his advisors attempted to steer toward an MLF plan. Thus, while more nuclear weaponry was dispatched to U.S. forces in Europe in summer 1961, no further warheads were allocated for support of non-U.S. NATO forces. That did not please Norstad, who insisted QRA operations and nuclear arrangements for British and German squadrons could be monitored to prevent unauthorized release of warheads and use without presidential authority. By fall, he was as much an obstacle to the MLF concept as to White House plans to control escalation over Berlin with the POODLE BLANKET plan. For example, on November 1 he gossiped to the British about his recent trip home at which he had been grilled by McNamara, Taylor, and others about his resistance to the new strategic thinking corning out of Washington. He raised eyebrows with a boast that he had been successful in winning over the President to his point of view and that the Acheson plan for greater emphasis on conventional forces at the expense of nuclear was now dead. In his opinion, the way McNamara, Rusk, and other administration officials had sprung the Flexible Response/MLF surprise on the allies back in April had been a great mistake. They should have first put their proposals to experts like himself and paid heed to the realities of military strategy and nuclear politics.4

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The President did not agree with Norstad's views, of course. Now that the Berlin situation had quieted down, his administration geared up to push its new NATO strategy yet again. Bundy thought the U.S. could use an MRBM force as a carrot to persuade the allies to build up their conventional forces and adopt U.S. strategy for the defense of Berlin and Western Europe. To move the process along, he advised dropping the sea-based requirement in favor of landbased missiles because the latter were better and more accurate military weapons that required smaller yields for counterforce attacks and could be more easily controlled from Washington. However, Rusk insisted that the sea-based component was indispensable to the plan and with McNamara attempted to get the MLF ball rolling again before the NAC in December. This time around, the proposal did not involve European production of missiles. McNamara assured the allies that until MRBMs were deployed, their nuclear needs could be met with forces already in existence.5 On January 11, 1962, de Gaulle wrote Kennedy that he had no interest in a conventional force buildup and would not accept American help for the French nuclear program on the restrictive conditions Washington had proposed. For now that la belle France was about to extricate herself once and for all from Algeria, she had adopted a new strategic concept. Under the theory of proportional deterrence,++he Soviets would hesitate to rain nuclear destruction down upon French cities out of fear of a sizable French retaliation. Perhaps French nuclear weapons would not be so plentiful as to eradicate the Soviet Union; the force de frappe would at least tear off an arm or leg, leaving the Communist superpower permanently maimed and exposed to the Kremlin's other enemies. Dreading that outcome, the Soviets would never attack.6 The British too gave a cold shoulder to appeals from Washington. An advanced draft of the British White Paper on Defence to be issued February 20 said nothing about a conventional buildup on the continent. Nor did the document even pay lip service to MLF. On the contrary, Macmillan and his government pledged to continue the British nuclear program through the 1960s with the clear implication that a U.K. deterrent would remain in force so long as there was an England. Kennedy's letter to Macmillan of February 16 complained that British nuclear efforts would only reaffirm de Gaulle in his decision to pursue proportional deterrence, encourage the West Germans in the same direction, and ultimately result in a Franco-German alliance to undercut NATO.7 Adenauer was too committed to NATO to ever abandon Washington in favor of Paris. Nevertheless, he did become jumpy again after the Soviets began a campaign on February 7 to close air corridors to Berlin. He spoke passionately to American officials about the need for other responses to a Berlin blockade than probes and airlifts, and went so far as to suggest a naval counterblockade as a substitute for nuclear war. American officials had to reassure him that the President would neither resort too quickly to nuclear weapons nor back away suddenly from the commitment to German security.

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But after Khrushchev sent Kennedy a long, rambling letter on March 10 in which he called for another summit, after Rusk and Gromyko met two days later in Geneva, the U.S. on March 27 put forward a proposal that included language on non-diffusion of nuclear weapons in Europe, including Germany. Das ist verboten! the Chancellor wrote the President on April 14. His dread of nuclear war was temporarily surmounted by anger and fear that concessions on Berlin would place the Fatherland permanently at the mercy of its enemies.8 TOO MANY CHEFS Kennedy had long since become exasperated with Adenauer's seeming inability to grasp the fundamentals of U.S. policy. The chancellor's angst did not surprise Norstad, since a steady stream of Washington officials kept arriving in Europe to meddle in questions of military strategy and confuse the allies with new variations on NATO strategy, the MLF, and related matters. On March 8, 1962, he was outraged to discover that Nitze, Finletter, and State Department officials were intending to brief NATO leaders about contingency plans, nuclear weapons in the alliance, and even the results of war games of two-way tactical nuclear weapons exchanges in central Europe without obtaining his advice and permission. Although when Lemnitzer learned that the proposed briefing included a description of the SIOP itself he gave everyone involved hell, the conspirators still carried on with plans for their educational/informational program. On March 21, Finletter received approval from McNamara and Rusk to inform the NAC what they could expect to learn shortly about nuclear weapons and plans. The poor, witless allies only needed to be educated about American NATO strategy and the MLF, State and Defense Department officials believed, to cast off all doubt and accept the change.9 If the allies were not already confused by the Norstad-Finletter divergence, the arrival of yet another visitor from Washington further muddied the waters. Taylor met NATO representatives from France, Britain, and West Germany in Paris on March 20. Instead of providing confirmation that they would participate equally in decision on use of an MLF, he described guidelines for the release of nuclear weapons which would bind the President to do so under certain circumstances but also compel the Europeans to use them. It was his personal belief that SACEUR should have discretion to use tactical nuclear weapons when required to defend NATO, Taylor added. He was not concerned about forward deployment because plans called for early use before those weapons could be overrun.10 Taylor's assurances that NATO nuclear weapons were safe also did not jibe with an interim report on command and control in Europe put out by General Partridge's task force after much investigation of the problem. Not only were all NATO military headquarters, nuclear stockpiles, and individual weaponry highly vulnerable to Soviet attack because none was in a hardened site, but

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communication links through high frequency radios, submarine cables, and a tropospheric scatter system soon to be deployed could be disabled by sabotage, jamming, or nuclear blackout caused by electromagnetic pulse. QRA fifteenminute alert was not nearly as good as SAC's, further, and forward areas would have as little asfiveminutes tactical warning time in advance of a Soviet attack. If communications between Washington and launching pads were broken, SACEUR might have difficulty initiating nuclear retaliation because the go-word system under predelegation authority was cumbersome and time-consuming. As for an MRBM capability for NATO, that would be highly desirable because missiles would have much better penetration capabilities than QRA squadrons to strike deeper and more swiftly into enemy territory. The task force advised against electro-mechanical and combination lock permissive link devices on individual nuclear warheads because that would slow attack time.11 Back in Washington, the State Department proposed to win the allies over to the MLF by placing the five Polaris submarines assigned to NATO under multilateral control. When Defense and military officials objected, Rusk explained that State's idea was only to meet Allied concerns on an interim basis until the real MRBM plan could be executed. Per a State and Defense Department agreement of March 22, 1962, this would be a 200 missile force on vessels to be manned by mixed NATO crews. Targeting would be done by NATO officers with decision on use determined by some person or group designated by the NAC. Since American nuclear weapons would be transferred to this new NATO entity, U.S. law would have to be amended. However, actual custody would remain with Uncle Sam in the form of American custodians aboard each vessel. De Gaulle was not impressed. He continued to insist that the best guarantee for Paris against a Soviet attack was an independent French nuclear force. But technical difficulties in developing a warhead small enough to fit on an intermediate-range missile raised fears in Washington that de Gaulle would turn to the West Germans for help. Finletter wanted to head the French off by pushing ahead on the education/information plan, now styled the Defense Data Program.12 Kennedy sent Taylor the last two weeks in March to reconnoiter Allied opinions. The general reported on April 3 that it had been a grave mistake for the Eisenhower administration to have withheld assistance to the French nuclear program in the first place because that had further alienated de Gaulle. To rectify the situation, the President should offer technical assistance in exchange for concessions, such as bringing French forces back under NATO command. The best way to head off a Franco-German alliance was to adopt the Flexible Response/forward deployment strategy he had long advocated. Specific guarantees to Adenauer that the U.S. would use nuclear weapons in certain situations even after a conventional force buildup had been completed would put to rest German fears of abandonment.13 It was already far too late to curry favor with the French. Raymond Aron, influential French sociologist and writer and a leader of those in France opposed

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to the force de frappe, told Dr. Alain Enthoven of the DOD on April 4 that he had changed his mind. Since SACEUR was in the final analysis responsible to the President of the United States, and since it was undoubtedly true that Washington and Moscow had an unwritten agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and never attack each other's territory but wage nuclear war elsewhere if necessary, the only practical solution for Paris was development of an independent national deterrent force. Personally, he would still like to see a NATO MRBM force under multilateral control. Realistically, only a European-controlled force could defend Western European interests in the long run.14 When Norstad found out about the Rowen proposal and the latest bit of chicanery by the carpetbaggers from across the sea, he launched a preemptive strike to head off plans for the Defense Data Program briefing at the NAC meeting in Athens in May. First, he rallied Lemnitzer to oppose revealing technical information about NATO nuclear forces and briefing the NAC on American strategic forces and the SIOP. Then, on April 10, he gave a speech at the French Center for Political Studies in Paris in which he stated that NATO would require 65 divisions before he could dispense with plans to use tactical nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet bloc invasion. Since both Aron and Enthoven were in the audience, his defiance of Washington became instantly known on both sides of the Atlantic. Defense and State Department officials were incensed.15 With the President on their side, Rusk, Ball, and the State Department laid plans to put the MLF plan before the NAC. As a further inducement, the U.S. would promise to commit to NATO additional nuclear forces presently controlled by CINCSAC and other commanders. The 200 missile force would be multilaterally owned with cost-sharing (mostly by the allies) with agreed guidelines for decision making on use of the weapons and mixed-manning aboard vessels. However, since the U.S. would supply nuclear warheads, they would be controlled by U.S. custodians and subject to release only by agreed procedures. Targeting would be decided in light of the continuing consideration of NATO strategy, which the American initiative was propelling.16 Rusk and his advisors also took aim at Taylor's proposal to repair relations with Paris by using U.S. nuclear knowhow to win concessions on the MLF plan. That would only speed French acquisition of usable nuclear weapons, they argued, and make transition to a multilateral arrangement all the more complicated. In fact, the Secretary of State thought the time right to attack the bilateral nuclear partnership forged with the British on July 3, 1958 (which permitted exchange of information on the design, manufacture, and production of atomic weapons) as well. It had provoked intense French resentment and set the stage for their current difficulties with de Gaulle, he maintained. Any continued preferential treatment for London and any concessions to Paris would only outrage other allies, particularly the Germans, and encourage other independent nuclear efforts.17

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McNamara sided with Taylor. Through their own efforts, the French would produce usable atomic bombs for their aircraft by 1965 and thermonuclear warheads for missiles five years later, he told Rusk on April 16. The U.S. could prevent needless diversion of French time, effort, and money from conventional force improvements by providing nuclear technology now. With the French outside of NATO's military command, the U.S. had no influence over French nuclear decision making. He went on to point out that the MLF plan as set forth in the March 22 paper had been rightly criticized by the JCS for transferring too much nuclear weapons information and permitting a multilateral assignment of some Polaris missiles without guaranteed presidential control. Although he disagreed with the JCS and Norstad that a land-based MRBM force should be substituted because the Western Europeans would otherwise continue to stall on conventional force buildup, he did think MLF should be converted into an American-manned, American-financed force that would be part of the U.S. strategic family. MRBMs and IRBMs on the continent had no military justification, in his opinion.18 MULTILATERAL FAILURE While the Secretary of Defense wanted to conciliate the French, Rusk and his advisors wanted to cut the British off at the knees. In preparation for Macmillan's visit to Washington April 27 to 29, the State Department sketched a broad scenario- for shaking London loose from dependence on the special relationship, putting the U.K. into the Common Market, and generally stiffening the "vaunted British spine" in the face of Soviet pressure. Part of that process would involve getting the British "out of the nuclear deterrent business" so that they could build up their conventional forces. Although the conclusions of this paper were not raised at the Macmillan-Kennedy meetings, by May the Secretary of Defense too had decided not to support Polaris as a long-term solution for British nuclear needs. He more than hinted as much at the NAC meeting at Athens May 4 to 6, 1962, when he told the allies that "weak nuclear capabilities, operating independently, are expensive, prone to obsolescence, and lacking in credibility as a deterrent." The only strategy that made sense was counterforce/no cities, which only the U.S. with its strong, sophisticated strategic forces could implement.19 What Washington particularly feared from existence of independent Allied nuclear forces was what de Gaulle had implied with his explanation of proportional deterrence, that they might be used to "trigger" use of American nuclear weapons. However, the possibility that Paris might use the force de frappe to force the U.S. to come to Western Europe's defense with nuclear weapons was but a symptom of more fundamental Franco-American disagreements. On May 11, 1962, Kennedy complained to Andre Malraux, French Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, that what de Gaulle really wanted was to

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kick the U.S. out of Europe. The French president responded testily on the 16th that the real problem was an "excess" of American leadership and that there was no tripartite cooperation except on Berlin contingency planning. Ambassador Herve Alphand also denied to Rusk on May 31 that the French nuclear force was designed to trigger American nuclear use. It was merely an attempt by France to become a modern nation with a deterrent force against Soviet threats to France and French interests, he explained. Any Great Power could do no less.20 There was some sympathy in Bonn for the French position. Strauss told Rusk ten days later that everyone in Europe knew that when the Soviets reached nuclear parity with the U.S., sometime around 1966, the reliability of the American nuclear commitment to Europe would come into doubt. Furthermore, he agreed with de Gaulle that American insistence on presidential authority to release nuclear weapons in the MLF created a situation in which the Soviets might attempt to blackmail the President by warning that release of a certain number of weapons to defend certain territory would be a causus belli. The President might decide to let the Soviets make an incursion into NATO territory rather than risk Soviet retaliation against American territory. If they seized Hamburg or other West German territory without a U.S. response, for example, the effect on the alliance would be catastrophic.21 Although Strauss spoke more diplomatically to the President about NATO strategy and alliance politics on June 22, American officials were not blind to the possibility. As an inducement for the 200 missile plan, the President authorized the DOD to begin dispersing again more nuclear weapons to NATO for non-U.S. forces, though still under U.S. custody. This was necessary in any case to avoid protests from the allies as additional QRA squadrons, especially a German F-104G wing, came on line. That improvement was undercut in Norstad's eyes by an order prohibiting QRA aircraft based on the continent—American F-105s, F-104Gs, and F-lOOs at this point—from carrying twostage weapons of megaton yield. JCAE members had explicitly complained after their trip to Europe in 1960 that these planes could initiate nuclear strikes deep into Warsaw Pact territory with weapons of thermonuclear power. Their bombs were not as amenable to permissive link safeguards as other weapons, moreover. But Norstad complained that weakening his QRA capability would seriously degrade his ability to destroy enemy jet aircraft and above-ground facilities in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. He argued futilely that the mission of blunting a quick Soviet attempt to overrun Hamburg, Hannover, Nuremberg, and Munich warranted the risk of megaton warhead use.22 Where command and control issues were concerned, Norstad was swimming against an even stronger tide than NATO strategy and the MLF. The President intended to see electro-chemical permissive links (PLs) fitted to all bombs and warheads in the European theater as soon as was practicable. For types that could not be retrofitted such as warheads for Honest John and NIKE-Hercules missiles and 8-inch shells, combination locks would be used. PLs were

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especially important for weapons systems with quick reaction time, high yield, and long range capable of striking at or near Soviet soil—Jupiter missiles and QRA units. On June 6, therefore, he decided to install PLs on a crash basis on all nuclear weapons assigned to non-U.S. NATO forces and those for U.S. forces committed to and dispersed in NATO, including those based in Britain and assigned to naval attack aircraft on carriers based in European waters. The only American nuclear weapon systems escaping retrofitting by August 1964 would be SAC planes and Davy Crockett warheads. The former would be needed to attack the Soviet Union quickly in the event of general war. The latter were too small to accommodate PLs. Besides, their forward deployment meant they would have to be launched or lost once the enemy swarmed across the border.23 Simultaneously, the U.S. was attempting to perfect what Taylor described as true battlefield and interdiction tactical weapons. One type was fractional kiloton warheads, no more destructive than large conventional bombs. Another was fusion neutron bombs (known as clean bombs in the Eisenhower era) with high initial radiation and low long-term fall-out. These were desperately needed because current weapons were too destructive and would create craters, contamination, forest fires, and blown-down trees inhibiting to counteroffensive operations. Until they were ready in four to six years, the military would reevaluate tactical nuclear weapon use in the European theater, including the state of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons and doctrine, which seemed to be on par with U.S. doctrine of the middle 1955s. In other words, the Soviets were blithely ignorant of the difficulty of attacking in a nuclear environment.24 On April 23, 1962 the President ordered the DOD to study troop withdrawals from Europe to alleviate a worsening U.S. balance of payments problem and because the allies had failed to respond to the Berlin crisis with a buildup of conventional forces. The State Department protested a month later that any such move would signal to the allies that the U.S. was not committed to the defense of its "vital interests in Berlin." State was proven right about European opinion being sensitive to signals from Washington when a speech McNamara gave at the University of Michigan on June 16 more or less repeating publicly what he had stated privately in Athens, that all national nuclear forces in Europe were dangerous and lacking in credibility, aroused Allied leaders. Not the French but the British felt most grievously insulted, even after the State Department put out the lame and politically dangerous explanation that McNamara had not meant to damn British nuclear forces because they did not "operate independently" of U.S. forces. Macmillan and his Defense Minister Peter Thorneycroft decided to make certain that Skybolt was safely in the British hangar before permitting U.S. Polaris submarines to weigh anchor permanently in Scotland. The Foreign Office kept its ear to the ground in Washington the next several months to get an early indication of Kennedy's intentions.25 Simultaneous with McNamara's speech, instructions to Finletter in Paris leaked, revealing that Washington preferred no land-based medium- and

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intermediate-range missiles at all on the continent. Despite Rusk's protestations before the NAC to the contrary on June 20, the Western Europeans believed the U.S. position on a sea-based MLF was take it or leave it. Worry that London and Paris would leave it caused Adenauer to warn the Secretary of State in Bonn two days later that unless a multilateral agreement for nuclear weapons in NATO was concluded soon or there was significant progress in disarmament talks with the Soviets, he might renounce his 1954 declaration against German production of nuclear weapons. However, Rusk refused a guarantee that in the upcoming talks in Geneva on Berlin the U.S. would make no reference to nondiffusion of nuclear weapons. That would almost certainly lead to a walk-out by the Soviets.26 Intense Allied dissatisfaction with American leadership was the reality the U.S. carried into talks with the Soviets in July. Stikker complained that U.S. policy was now "irregular, tricky, and unprecedented" and like Norstad objected to the deluge of visitors from Washington. In his opinion, the MLF proposal presented at Athens was not militarily required and too expensive. If increases in conventional forces demanded by the U.S. were made, defense budgets would soar by 50%. Moreover, he felt personally betrayed because the MLF outline he had endorsed in February had actually been drafted by Finletter and Strauss. Stripped of ambiguous and deceptive language, the plan would severely dilute his authority as Secretary General of NATO.27 CONTINGENCY CONFUSION In summer 1962 there was growing pressure on Khrushchev to achieve some real gain over Berlin. Hardliners within the Kremlin were grumbling about persistent Soviet agricultural problems, the effects of Khrushchev's deStalinization program in releasing long repressed forces that demanded economic progress and more personal freedom within the Soviet bloc, and worsening of relations with Peking. Some dramatic success was required to demonstrate that the USSR was catching up to American power. Thus, if he was ultimately unable to eliminate the West's outpost in Berlin and/or keep nuclear weapons that could reach Soviet territory out of German hands, his days as premier might be numbered. Fully briefed on Khrushchev's difficulties, Kennedy made the case to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin that Soviet pressure on Berlin was itself responsible for the Federal Republic demanding access to nuclear weapons. He implied that if Khrushchev would just permit the status quo to continue in central Europe, the French and Germans, if not the British, would become more reasonable and eventually give up their nuclear aspirations. He made the same point in a letter to Khrushchev.28 Harassment of Western access to Berlin was worsening again, so Kennedy reviewed contingency plans on July 19. He became confused when Taylor attempted to distinguish between the POODLE BLANKET plan, unilateral U.S.

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plans for Berlin, and NATO contingencies for general war with the Soviets. A follow-up memo by Bundy explaining the four-phase concept only deepened his bafflement so that a full briefing by John C. Ausland, a State Department member of the Berlin Task Force, had to be arranged for August 9. However, on August 8, the Bonn government warned that it would break relations with any government recognizing the GDR. Coming on the heels of that announcement, Ausland's explanation just illuminated what a terrible mess contingency planning had become and what deep gulfs had been created between the allies and Washington on strategic thinking.29 POODLE BLANKET would begin once the Soviets cut access to the city. In Phase I, a limited airlift—JACK PINE Part 1—to which the French had not yet agreed, would be initiated and receive aggressive fighter protection if the Soviets interfered. Next would come the FREE STYLE probe (and/or BACKSTROKE, a FREE STYLE probe in reverse from Berlin toward Helmstedt), but only if all three tripartite governments agreed, along with naval measures to pressure the Soviets, though the British wanted a counterblockade of the Dardanelles and Skagerrak put off until Phase II. In Phase II, NATO would mobilize and make other military preparations. Simultaneously JACK PINE Part 2 would commence as a full airlift of supplies as well as further naval measures, though there would be no overt attacks on Soviet shipping. If none of that worked, SACEUR would move on to Phase III, but only if full

NATO approval++ad been secured through the Sta+ 30

representatives. McNamara interrupted the briefing to say that the allies could not even agree on Phase II military preparations and other measures once an initial probe was stopped, let alone war-fighting scenarios in Phases III and IV. Clearly, they were balking at building up NATO conventional forces to 30 divisions and intentionally overestimating Soviet conventional capability in central Europe to make the entire concept seem impossible. Thus, for planning purposes only, the British and French insisted that Phase III end quickly and Phase IV begin with use of tactical nuclear weapons, the effects of which they really did not understand. The Germans, on the other hand, greatly feared that the Soviets would seize some part of West German territory in a quick thrust and then try to negotiate from a position of strength. Glumly, the President admitted that given Allied obstinacy, the goal of implementing a Flexible Response strategy in central Europe could not be obtained. Even if 30 divisions were deployed, intelligence reports placed overall Soviet conventional forces at 145 divisions. That was far too many for the West to counter without early resort to tactical nuclear weapons. Stunned, McNamara emphatically disagreed. With 30 divisions Norstad could hold for a considerable period of time, he insisted. The Soviets would not be able to concentrate forces to break through for at least several weeks.31 Ausland proceeded to sketch out Phases III and IV. In the former, the TRADE WIND (and/or LUCKY STRIKE, a smaller-scale TRADE WIND in

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reverse from Berlin toward Helmstedt) attack would commence with non-nuclear tripartite forces but switch to NATO command if the Soviets or GDR counterattacked effectively, provoking a wider war. Next would come nuclear action in Phase IV, beginning with demonstration shots, then tactical nuclear weapons to combat superior Warsaw Pact conventional forces if NATO forces were in danger of being overrun, and escalating to general nuclear war depending upon the flow of events. Despite Allied disagreements, Phases III and IV were ready for examination by NATO's Standing Group.32 Kennedy wondered aloud whether there was as much disagreement with the allies on use of tactical nuclear weapons as there seemed. If it appeared that the Soviets were mounting not just a limited counterattack on tripartite forces moving toward Berlin but an all-out invasion, he would be forced to order a nuclear attack almost as soon as the first Soviet soldier crossed the border into West Germany. Perhaps the U.S. should make a deal with its allies that if they agreed to build up to 30 divisions, he would agree to early resort to tactical nuclear weapons. Aghast, McNamara objected that if the President made that concession, it would obviate the necessity in Allied eyes for buildup to the 30division goal. Besides, it was wrong to assume that tactical nuclear weapons could be used quickly in the scenario the President had suggested. Allied heads of government were sure to insist on being consulted first.33 Some conventional warfare would be needed to buy time for the consultation process to be completed, McNamara went on. The buildup to the 30 division goal should begin as soon as possible. Exasperated, Kennedy replied that if there were no Berlin outpost in the middle of East German territory he would be inclined to agree with the allies on a quick resort to tactical nuclear weapons without any conventional buildup. Ignoring that comment, McNamara concluded that since additional conventional forces were required, the President must call up another 50,000 to 100,000 men. But he should wait until Congress adjourned to make the announcement. That way the White House would not be besieged by Capital Hill protests.34 Unilateral U.S. contingency plans for Berlin were apparently not discussed at the August 9 meeting. Code-named BERCON (Berlin Contingency Plan) and MARCON (Maritime Contingency Plan), they set forth escalation scenarios the U.S. would undertake should the Soviets blockade the city and Allied support fail to materialize. Within BERCON, ALPHA One outlined fighter escort protection for an airlift, while ALPHA Two planned for a major air battle to establish local air superiority over East German territory. Attacks with conventional weapons on Soviet airfields and SAM sites would be required, even east of GDR territory. If the Soviets were not then persuaded to desist, CHARLIE One, Two, Three, or Four would be implemented with a ground attack from Helmstedt toward Berlin, using anywhere from a reinforced division to a corps composed of four divisions. The objective would be to seize a salient as far east as the high ground area of the Thuringer Wald and hold on to it as a bargaining chip for Berlin.35

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That might provoke a wider war or even a nuclear response by Moscow, but the U.S. intended to resort to the nuclear option itself if necessary to demonstrate Washington's will to defend Berlin. In BERCON BRAVO, up to five low-yield air burst weapons would be detonated against isolated military targets—a group of attacking aircraft, an enemy airfield, a SAM site, or a major troop concentration. If Moscow still remained recalcitrant, the next step might be to clear East Germany of Communist forces with tactical nuclear weapons. Or a decision could be made to implement the SIOP for all-out nuclear war against Soviet bloc countries. Or the U.S. might even acquiesce in West Berlin's fall, taking recompense in whatever GDR territory could be held and making the Soviets pay a price on the high seas with attacks on merchant shipping and blockading of Soviet ports. In any event, any course of action or inaction was fraught with peril. Almost certainly, the allies would not be able to remain aloof for long should warfare erupt on the continent of Europe or even the world's oceans between the two superpowers.36 On August 17, 1962, East German soldiers shot and killed Peter Fechter, a young German trying to escape from East Berlin to the Western zone. Allied soldiers watched but could do nothing. Taylor's aide Lawrence Legere wrote that so long as traffic was maintained from West Germany to West Berlin, no vital interest of the U.S. was affected by the murder of East German citizens. He agreed with Clay that since the Soviets would never attack New York or Washington over incidents in the former German capital, the U.S. could take the toughest line possible on Western access to its occupation zone. Unfortunately, more Peter Fechters were going to die.37 In September, the French, British, and West Germans agreed to Phases I, II, and III of POODLE BLANKET but not Phase IV. Norstad repeated to Nitze his opinion of 1961 that the graduated escalation scenario was unrealistic and proposed an alternative of cataloguing possible Soviet actions and appropriate NATO responses. He objected in particular to holding off use of nuclear weapons until Phase IV because that would limit his freedom of action as military commander to respond to events. To correct that deficiency, he wanted weapons like the Davy Crockett added to TRADE WIND'S arsenal. Instead, Kennedy decided to replace Norstad with General Lemnitzer as of October 1. The man who had headed NATO since November 1956 was only spared until December because of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But Taylor took over as Chairman of the JCS and was in the White House for the critical meetings of October 16 to 28, 1962.38 CONCLUSION One satisfaction for Norstad was that the MLF plan and Kennedy administration strategy for NATO were going nowhere fast. In fact, London wanted to reopen the entire question of whether a multilateral MRBM force was needed.

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Within the Pentagon, even senior American officials had begun to wonder. But the State Department fought hard to keep the MLF alive as a sea-based force for political rather than military reasons. The President was told that where the 30division goal was concerned, the allies either lacked the political will to persuade their electorates to ante up or had failed to face up to the need for stronger conventional forces to manage a Berlin crisis escalation.39 As for Khrushchev, he told Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall on September 6 that the German situation was no longer tolerable. However, he would be considerate and wait until after the American congressional elections in November before making the peace treaty with the East Germans he had long threatened. But this event should cause no real dismay in Washington because Kennedy knew Berlin was in no way vital to American security. He warned that if war did come, there would be no Paris, no France. Showing the depth of his determination, he added, "it's been a long time since you could spank us like a little boy—now we can swat your ass!"40 Undoubtedly he was thinking about the nuclear-tipped missiles he had ordered sent to Cuba, missiles that were now in cargo ships on the high seas. If Soviet ICBMs had fallen well short of expectations, MRBMs and IRBMs facing Florida across a 90 mile strait would soon put the fear of Karl Marx into John Kennedy. Or so Nikita Khrushchev thought.

18 HIGH NOON We're either a first class power or we're not! — Richard B. Russell, Jr., October 22, 19621

It is generally believed that the U.S. and the Soviet Union came closer to nuclear war over missiles in Cuba than at any time during the Cold War. Given the fact that the October 1962 crisis could easily have sparked confrontations over Berlin, Turkey, and other places on the periphery of the Soviet empire, this perception is probably true, though the on-again, off-again Berlin standoff was at times just as dangerous. For Cuba as well as Berlin, the fundamental reality of the first twenty years of the Cold War remained the same. Unless Kremlin leaders wanted to commit national suicide, they would not provoke war with the United States. By fall 1962, the balance of strategic nuclear forces favored the U.S. more than when Kennedy had taken office. The Soviets had approximately 44 ICBMs (low estimate less than 25), 97 sea-launched ballistic missiles, 155 heavy bombers, and many hundreds of medium bombers that must be launched from forward bases on the Arctic Circle to reach the continental U.S. on one-way missions. The ICBMs were first generation SS-6 rockets with non-storable liquid fuel, highly unreliable and inaccurate; the missile submarines dieselpowered boats that had to surface to fire short-range missiles. By contrast, the U.S. possessed 156 Atlas and Titan ICBMs, 144 Polaris SLBMs, and 1,300 strategic bombers armed with megaton bombs and Hound Dog air-to-surface missiles (ASMs). Many hundreds more medium bombers with in-flight refueling capacity could strike at targets in the Soviet Union from overseas bases. Second generation Titan II and Minuteman missiles were about to be deployed, moreover, in an expansion that would create by 1967 a Triad force of over 1,000 ICBMs, 41 Polaris submarines (657 SLBMs), and several hundred B-52 bombers.2 The overwhelming superiority of the American strategic arsenal was known

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to both sides. In his memoirs, Khrushchev confessed that it was a desire to redress the imbalance as soon as possible that led to his decision to ship two types of missiles to Cuba. SS-4s had a range of 900 to 1,080 miles, just enough to strike at the outskirts of Washington. The more dangerous SS-5 IRBMs could target any part of the continental U.S. but the northwest. The Soviet premier hoped to have all missiles in place and operational before U.S. intelligence discovered their presence on the island. He succeeded in part due to gross negligence by senior American officials.3 ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL The CIA had followed the shipment of Soviet military equipment into Cuba from the summer of 1960 onward with increasing suspicion. On August 10, 1962, CIA Director McCone dictated a memo to the President warning that a much larger buildup, including 60 MiG fighter planes, had begun and might include MRBMs. A week later he told Rusk and McNamara of his view, but they responded that Khrushchev would never take the risk of installing offensive weaponry in Cuba. Frustrated, he sought a meeting with Kennedy on August 23 to put forward his concerns in the most forceful manner that offensive weapons systems could soon show up on the island. Although a U-2 flight on August 25 turned up a cruise-type missile that might have the capability of attacking Florida and identified eight SAM sites for air defense as well as signs more were coming, his warnings continued to be a drumbeat of one. Two days later he went to Seattle to get married, then on to Paris for his honeymoon. Though he continued his campaign to awaken sleeping brains in Washington by sending "honeymoon" cables to the NIE staff and warned Gilpatric in Paris on September 6 that Russian IL-28 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons up to 5,000 miles were in Cuba with the MRBMs, his own deputy Lieutenant General Marshall Carter refused to include this information in memoranda to the President. McCone's pleas to fly low-level reconnaissance to validate his assertions were also ignored.4 Fearful that a spy plane could be shot down over Cuba and present Cuban strongman Fidel Castro with a propaganda coup, Rusk and Bundy prevailed upon the President to halt all reconnaissance efforts. No more U-2s flew until October 14 after missiles and other offensive weapons systems had entered Cuba by sea. The only action Kennedy took to obstruct the flow was to demand and receive assurances from Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin that the Kremlin planned no such provocative action so near U.S. borders. Incredibly, the President took the Soviets at their word.5 Evidence piled up that something other than Castro's malevolence threatened the U.S. from Cuba. By mid-month, intelligence sources reported that MiG-21 fighters had been shipped to the island, that SAM sites now covered its western half, and that Soviet technicians numbered more than 4,000. Finally, Kennedy

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met with McNamara and the JCS on September 14 to ascertain if an air strike were possible to take out the SAMs. When LeMay boasted that Air Force pilots would have no difficulty penetrating Soviet air defenses by attacking at altitudes below the SAMs' 3,000 foot radar capability, Anderson warned that anti-aircraft fire would bring down low-flying planes. At the President's suggestion, both Air Force and Navy pilots conducted training exercises against mock-ups of SAM sites using ASMs, cannon, napalm, and iron bombs.6 On September 19, the CIA at last put out a special intelligence estimate warning that the presence in Cuba of light bombers, submarines, and missiles would pose a significant threat to the continental U.S. The introduction of MRBMs and/or IRBMs would be particularly dangerous because of their usefulness as first strike weapons. When McCone returned from Paris at the end of the month, he told Clark Clifford and other members of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) that U-2 flights should be resumed at once. Although it seemed certain that MiG fighters and SAM sites in such proliferation served no better purpose but to protect nuclear missiles from American air attack, no other top administration official agreed.7 To clear up the JCS dispute about the possibility of a surgical strike to eliminate the SAMs, McNamara met with the Chiefs on October 1. Regardless of potential losses from antiaircraft fire, the clear preference of the JCS was to attack and destroy any offensive weapon system in Cuba as soon as identified. Unwilling, McNamara did order preparation for a naval blockade. A sense of urgency about missiles on the island did not arise until Senator Kenneth B. Keating (R., New York) cited evidence from unnamed sources (probably Cuban refugee organizations in Miami) that MRBMs were already there and would soon be operational for firing. He kept up such a clamor that the President finally authorized U-2 flights for Sunday, October 14. When film from onboard cameras was developed, it showed two SS-4 MRBM sites with four launchers each at San Diego de las Bafias near San Cristobal on the western part of the island. Bundy chose not to wake the President with the news that night but briefed him the next morning.8 At this time in the southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean, the military was conducting the PHIBRIGLEX 62 exercise. This provided cover for a DEFCON 3 alert and the movement of additional land, sea, and air forces to the area while the President geared up to handle the problem. Unfortunately, the advisors he selected for what became known as the Executive Committee of the NSC or ExCom meetings were the same crew whose ineptitude and poor judgment had landed him in so much hot water during the first twenty-one months of his administration. The unstructured and undisciplined nature of ExCom meetings added to the general environment of uncertainty. Acheson referred to them as a "floating crap game," while Taylor called it "disorderly improvisation." Whatever the characterization, had Kennedy and his advisors been aware from the beginning of the full extent of Khrushchev's gamble in Cuba, the pressure to act immediately would probably have been irresistible. It built steadily

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nonetheless as reconnaissance photographs were taken, analyzed, and reported so that removing the threat became a political, military, and psychological imperative. The only question was how.9 FOCUSING THE PICTURE The first ExCom meeting began at 11:50 a.m. the morning of Tuesday, October 16 with a briefing by intelligence officials Arthur Landahl, Sidney Graybeal, and Lieutenant General Carter. Eight missiles had been sighted so far, they reported, though only one looked to be in horizontal launch position. There was no evidence of nuclear warheads, but if there, they could be mated to the missiles in about two hours. Getting in the first word of advice, McNamara announced that they must make an immediate assumption that nuclear warheads were present and that therefore the big question was when the missiles themselves would become operational. Rusk responded that ExCom's goal must be to eliminate the missiles no matter, either by a quick air strike or diplomatic moves to bring pressure to bear on Castro—not Khrushchev—to convince him that he was an expendable ally of the Soviets and that Khrushchev would readily trade his little island for Berlin if Western powers agreed. Rusk's preference was for a diplomatic offensive combined with military preparations, a declaration of a state of national emergency, and movement of forces into the southeast U.S. The President should appear to be readying an invasion while negotiations were attempted to make Khrushchev see reason and withdraw.10 In the debate that followed, McNamara insisted that an air strike could only be implemented if the missiles were not operational, otherwise the risk of an attack on U.S. cities would be too great. He also wanted the ExCom to assume that the Soviets would provide nuclear bombs for their MiG-21s in addition to warheads for the missiles. Under those circumstances, an attack was too risky. Drawing an opposite conclusion, Taylor called for an immediate air attack followed by an invasion before the threat in Cuba grew worse. Since it was clear that Khrushchev had made this rash move to supplement the weak Soviet ICBM threat to the continental U.S., it could not be assumed, as Rusk wished to do, that the Soviets would never fire the missiles. Indeed, they might do just that as the first strike in a general war or as an action by local Soviet commanders, or Cuban for that matter. However, Rusk insisted that the President afford him time for diplomatic maneuvers. He cited the danger to Berlin and Western Europe if the U.S. attacked Cuba, and the possibility that the Soviets would retaliate against Jupiters in Turkey and Italy.11 After an hour of discussion, Kennedy summed up his available options as a surgical strike on the missiles, an all-out air attack on Soviet military targets on the island, a naval blockade, and/or an invasion. The very least he would do was the surgical strike, he assured Taylor. He ordered the full JCS called in for an evening meeting of the ExCom to consider his decision. However, a

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strong protest from some person unidentifiable from audio recordings resulted in LeMay, Anderson, Shoup, and Earl G. Wheeler, who had recently replaced Decker as Army Chief of Staff, being excluded from ExCom meetings.12 That afternoon, photography from two U-2 flights over Cuba the night of October 15 was processed. At the ExCom meeting beginning 6:30 p.m., intelligence officials revealed that the threat in Cuba was worse than at first believed. General Carter used a map to show that an additional site of four missile launchers had been detected at Sagua La Grande in the central province of the island with two missiles assumed for each launcher. That was a total of 24 missiles with maximum range of 1,100 miles which could be operational in two weeks time. Although no nuclear weapons storage sites had been identified, intelligence analysts were looking over the photographs carefully and would send six or seven more U-2s up the next day when cloud cover dissipated. The strong suspicion was that there were many more launchers and missiles to be found.13 Again, Taylor argued vociferously for an immediate, all-out air attack to destroy not just MRBMs but planes and other Soviet military forces that could be armed with nuclear weapons. Shrugging off objections that such a plan would almost certainly lead to Soviet retaliation elsewhere in the world and that Soviet missiles and/or planes might escape to attack American targets, he emphasized that Cuba had attained strategic importance far beyond its intrinsic worth because 24 or more MRBMs would greatly supplement the Soviet ICBM force. That did not really matter, the President remarked, because the Soviets could already blow up the U.S. Taken aback by Kennedy's pessimism, Taylor appealed again for a decision to attack before the MRBMs, which were mobile, could be hidden. The President refused, saying he must consider the political ramifications of any military action.14 At that point, Kennedy remarked that it was fortunate that the U.S. had not deployed missiles in Turkey. He was quickly corrected by Ball who suggested that a Soviet aim was to trade missiles in Cuba for Ankara's Jupiters. As the meeting broke up, McNamara rambled on about "changing the world" and other philosophical considerations. In Cuba, Soviet technicians worked feverishly to ready nuclear missiles to attack the United States.15 Afterward, Taylor huddled privately with Kennedy to urge one more time for an air strike. He warned that once the missiles became operational, the Soviet military reaction when under attack would be "shoot and scoot"—at Washington. For a President who had a very imperfect understanding of the strategic balance and the fact that he possessed enough power to eradicate half the globe, that kind of statement sent shivers up his back, not steel.16 If Kennedy was not yet ready to order a warlike act, hostility of a different kind broke out in Washington. ExCom members began to generate paper missiles to fire at one another, while the CIA and military officers kept up a steady barrage of intelligence reports. Thus on Wednesday morning, October 17 the ExCom learned that MiG-21s and IL-28s were being uncrated in Cuba

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in significant numbers but were not yet operational. Although reconnaissance photos still showed no discernable evidence of nuclear weapons, Dillon gave the President a memo calling for "prompt elimination" of the MRBMs to insure the survival of the U.S. and prevent dominoes from falling in Latin America, Iran, Thailand, and Pakistan. Sorenson countered with a memo asserting that the MRBMs in no way affected the strategic balance between the U.S. and Soviet Union. He warned that whether the U.S. sent 50 planes for a surgical strike or 250 for an all-out attack, the Soviet reaction was unknown. Missile commanders on the spot might launch. Castro might seize the missiles and do the same.17 The weakest proposed course of action came from U.N. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson III. He wrote the President that an attack on Cuba would assuredly bring Soviet retaliation against Berlin or the Jupiters in Turkey and Italy, and that the NATO allies would be furious with the U.S. because they lived under threat of Soviet MRBM attack and the U.S. could too. The great dilemma was that if the President acted before the missiles became operational, there would be no time for diplomatic efforts. He proposed that Kennedy consciously permit the Cuban missiles to become operational, place the lives of 187 million Americans in jeopardy, and permit State Department officials to bargain as best they could to trade Jupiters for those missiles.18 That afternoon Acheson came at Rusk's request to the Secretary of State's office to see U-2 photography and be briefed on the situation. He then accompanied Rusk to the ExCom meeting and weighed in heavily for a surgical air strike to take out the missiles as soon as possible to minimize the chance of Soviet response. The longer the President waited, the more likely it was that the Soviets would act militarily in Berlin, Korea, even against Japan, he asserted. Still, he did not want to consult the allies for fear of bringing the crisis into the open and making it infinitely more difficult for Khrushchev to reverse course. Nor did he see any point in a naval blockade because it would provoke a confrontation with the Cubans, not the Soviets, and invite a Soviet counterblockade of Berlin if not a demand that the U.S. withdraw the Jupiters from Turkey. However, his many critics responded that an air strike might provoke a similar Kremlin reaction. The former secretary of state's proposal became a lightning rod for opposition to rash action, as it had in the Berlin crisis, not the rallying call for presidential decisiveness he had intended.19 Acheson was further undercut by the JCS. They advised the President through Taylor that a surgical attack was impractical because of the mobility of the SS-4s, the threat from SAM air defenses, and weather improbabilities. Although the Chairman of the JCS, backed by McCone and Dillon, kept insisting throughout the evening that an all-out attack be approved before missiles became operational, he was opposed again by McNamara who became a leading proponent of a blockade. Rusk momentarily sided with Acheson on the surgical strike idea preceded by a warning to the Soviets, but quickly reversed himself when Sorenson and others pointed out that a warning would alert enemy air defenses and make a surgical strike impossible. After Attorney

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General Robert F. Kennedy, the President's brother, called LeMay that evening to ask if SAC planes could assist TAC in bombing Cuba and discovered that they only carried nuclear weapons now and could not easily be retrofitted to drop iron bombs, the President began to swing toward the blockade point of view as well. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the Chief of Naval Operations continued to be excluded from ExCom meetings.20 Since total secrecy surrounded deliberations in the White House, Pentagon, and intelligence agencies, it was difficult to marshal resources to prevent any further Soviet military equipment from reaching Cuba. Ships in transit continued to arrive, though they were monitored closely. As for Soviet planes, the State Department had even before the missile threat become known asked NATO countries to deny overflight privileges and landing requests for flights destined for Cuba. That night a circular went out authorizing embassy officials to approach the governments of countries along southern air routes from the USSR to Cuba to adopt the same policy. The suspicion was that nuclear warheads and bombs might be on TU-114 cargo flights making the MoscowRabat-Dakar-Havana run or IL-18sflyingthrough Conakry, Recife, and Port-ofSpain.21 POLARIZED POSITIONS Thursday, October 18, the CIA began to review intelligence information in the pipeline since August. As early as September 12 an SS-4 missile had been spotted by a Cuban agent. A nuclear-capable FROG (free over ground) shortrange missile with range of 75-100 miles had been sighted more than a month before that. SS-1 cruise missiles were also capable of carrying nuclear weapons. However, ExCom officials were too distracted by the larger threat to focus on weapons that might destroy naval vessels or even ground troops landing in Cuba. In their meeting that morning, a debate erupted about whether MRBMs on the island significantly affected the strategic balance. McNamara argued passionately that they did not. In fact, to head off Taylor's and Acheson's appeals for an air strike before the SS-4s became operational, he suddenly reversed himself and declared that the ExCom should not assume that nuclear warheads were now in Cuba. Although he agreed with Kennedy that if only for political purposes the missiles had somehow to be removed, he cited the JCS opinion of the day before that a surgical air strike would not work, then argued against an all-out attack followed by an invasion because that course was unnecessary so long as no missiles were yet operational and no warheads were on the island. The conclusion of his tortured logic was to recommend a naval blockade.22 From the military point of view, Taylor responded, the best time to strike would be when the missiles were not operational and IL-28 bombers were still

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in shipping crates. In five days the U.S. military would have sufficient forces assembled to strike. The Cubans would never know what hit them. Robert Kennedy protested that what Taylor and the hardliners were really talking about was a Pearl Harbor type attack against a small nation. The world would be outraged. But Acheson scoffed at any such comparison between the dastardly Japanese attack of December 7, 1941 and the much-provoked and well-deserved thumping Castro and his Soviet masters were about to receive and pointed out that McNamara's glib dismissal of the impact of MRBMs on the strategic balance was faulty because they would be far more accurate than ICBMs based in faraway Russia. CIA estimates predicted that the SS-4s spotted so far would boost the capability of Soviet strategic forces to attack SAC and other American targets by 50%. Although the Soviets would undoubtedly respond to destruction of their military power in Cuba with an attack on missiles in Turkey, afterward he hoped that "cooler heads" would prevail and the Soviets would agree to negotiations. That scenario was the best way out of the crisis.23 Immediately, those opposed to military action raised a clamor of protest. While Acheson defended himself, Kennedy looked into the future and saw an attack on Cuba leading to a Soviet move against Berlin, and ultimately nuclear war. He leaned even more decidedly toward the blockade option.24 Frustrated by the chaos of ExCom meetings and more so by the fact that others could not see as plainly as he that the only way to defeat the Russian bear was to pull its fangs, Acheson was granted a private meeting with the President. He savaged the Attorney General's Pearl Harbor analogy yet again and hammered away at the danger to the national security if Soviet nuclear missiles were permitted to become operational so near to home. But again he failed to move Kennedy toward a more aggressive course of action. As over Berlin the year before, he lost confidence in the President's will to act.25 That evening the President and his Secretary of State met with Gromyko and Dobrynin to discuss Germany and Berlin, a visit by Khrushchev to New York in November, and Cuba. The Soviet foreign minister began belligerently by asserting that the former German capital was in no way vital to the U.S. and warned once again that the Kremlin could not accept a permanent NATO base in the heart of the GDR. Furthermore, Washington was primarily responsible for Soviet-American tension with its nuclear bases surrounding the USSR. The solution for this problem was a German peace treaty and the normalization of relations. Carefully implied was a suggestion that American concern about Cuba could be resolved if Washington would see it Moscow's way on Berlin. Without directly bringing up missiles, he then denied that the island nation could be a threat to the U.S. On the contrary, Moscow fretted for Cuba's security, given the recent call-up of 150,000 American reservists. The President responded that he had no intention of invading or blockading Castro's fiefdom. Nevertheless, the Soviets had made a very serious mistake from July forward by building up arms and Soviet technicians 90 miles off the coast of Florida. After insisting that Soviet citizens were in Cuba only to train their socialist brethren, Gromyko

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clammed up.26 Friday morning, October 19, the CIA reported double the number of missile sites as had been confirmed twenty-four hours before. Two MRBM sites each (four launchers a site) had been pinpointed in the San Cristobal and Sagua La Grande areas. Worse, four SS-5 IRBM launchers likely to be operational by December with range to reach San Francisco had been discovered near the town of Remedios in the Las Villas province not far from Sagua La Grande and eight had been sighted at Guanajay just west of Havana. The CIA asserted that this was a Kremlin attempt to redress the strategic balance of power by as much as doubling the current missile threat to the U.S. Even so, the Soviets did not dare go to general hostilities for fear of annihilation. The real danger of war would arise if the Soviets moved against Berlin and the U.S. carried through with POODLE BLANKET contingency plan.27 At last given an opportunity to meet with their President, the JCS pushed for an all-out attack. Their recommendation made such an impression that Kennedy put off ruling in favor of a blockade pending further ExCom deliberations. But then he flew off on a prearranged campaign trip that he did not wish to cancel for fear of alerting the press and public that something was wrong. His advisors carried on the debate in his absence.28 That morning the ExCom met at the State Department. Yet again, Taylor renewed his appeal for an air strike, making the point that a blockade did not directly remove missiles from Cuba. The JCS were taking another look at the idea of a clean, surgical strike, he added, because if executed properly, it would minimize casualties and reduce justification for the Soviets to risk general war over another blockade of Berlin or even an attack against Jupiters in Turkey. It was imperative that the President decide on military action now, since the missiles would be operational in just a few days. Although Acheson agreed and insisted that like Berlin this was a direct challenge by Khrushchev and the Communists to American power, McNamara and Rusk continued to argue doggedly that a blockade was the safest alternative. Finally at 1:00 p.m., the Secretary of State suggested breaking up into two working groups to draft papers on the pros and cons of the air strike/invasion option and the blockade plan and to consider how the Soviets and allies might react to these alternatives.29 This was done until 4:00 p.m. when the full ExCom reconvened. The battle was rejoined for three hours during which time advocates of air strike scenarios made the case for a surprise attack with conventional weaponry on the missiles, SAM sites, high performance planes, and nuclear storage sites followed by a blockade and U-2 surveillance to insure that no further missiles, planes, or nuclear warheads were shipped in. Convinced that any air strike plan—whether surgical or all-out, with or without a follow-up invasion—was unworkable, Rusk, Ball, and Robert Kennedy asserted that the majority ExCom sentiment was for blockade followed by a pause if the Soviets did not yield to avoid quick escalation to general war. Although hardliners complained that the danger of nuclear conflict would be even greater the next time around with Soviet missiles

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firmly entrenched in Cuba, they were outnumbered. McNamara even indicated a willingness to trade the Jupiters in Turkey and Italy and make other concessions if that were required to avert war. Hardliners warned that weakness now would only increase Soviet demands. Proposals put forward to pressure Khrushchev, not appease him, included economic pressure, subversive action, and deployment of American MRBMs in Germany, Formosa, and/or Iran. The debate continued, albeit now clearly dominated by blockade scenarios.30 If consensus had not truly been achieved, at least a tentative timetable was finally suggested by those in favor of a gradual escalation scenario. They wanted the President to speak to the nation Monday, October 22 to announce a blockade in 24 hours. If the Soviets did not then cease construction of the missiles by October 26 or 27, an air strike would take place against missile sites and IL-28 bases followed by an invasion in short order. Simultaneous with the blockade would be an announcement that the U.S. would negotiate all other points of tension, including Jupiters in Turkey. Authors of this plan recognized that once the President went public, the military would lose tactical surprise for an attack, thus increasing the danger that the Soviets would make the missiles operational in time to launch nuclear warheads at the U.S. They considered that development a lesser evil than a precipitous attack against the missiles which would bring a Soviet move against Berlin, an attack on the Jupiters in Turkey, and/or some other aggressive response such as a Soviet invasion of Iran, a North Korean attack across the 38th parallel, or a Chinese Communist assault on the offshore islands. Sorenson wrote that the Western Europeans would have no sympathy for an attack on Cuban missiles since they had lived for some time with 400 Soviet MRBMs targeted on their cities. ExCom members could at least agree that it was only a matter of time until the U.S. heartland, whether from Cuba or Russia, came under threat of destruction by Soviet nuclear missiles.31 During working group discussions on October 19, Acheson became completely disgusted with the alleged appeasers he saw dominating discussion, and the President's inability to act decisively. He withdrew from Washington like a once-favored knight leaving the court of a king to sulk in his pavilion. He would remain at home only one day, however, until called upon by Rusk at Kennedy's behest to travel to Europe on October 21 for the delicate task of briefing Charles de Gaulle. Thus the President's counsels were ruled thereafter by the voluble Robert McNamara and alarmist exaggerations of the danger of catastrophe over relatively minor actions. However, hardliners—by the very nature of the military response they recommended—came off sounding more irresponsible. Without Acheson's forceful presence and the urgency he brought to discussions, the fact that with every day that passed the missile threat to American cities and SAC bases grew progressively more dangerous did not seem so important. So long as the crisis remained secret, ExCom members could indulge themselves in this illusion.32

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BACKING INTO A BLOCKADE Saturday morning, October 20, a revised CIA special estimate put the number of MRBMs in Cuba at 32. One probable nuclear weapons storage site had been located, providing evidence that the Soviets had already brought in nuclear weapons or would attempt to do so shortly. Once operational, the MRBMs could be fired in eight hours, then refired in four to six. The confirmed number of the more dangerous IRBM sites had been cut back to two, however, with a total of 16 missiles. The remaining inventory of Soviet weapons systems included 22 IL-28 bombers (one assembled), 39 MiG-21s (35 assembled), 62 other jet fighters, 24 SAM sites, three cruise missile sites for coastal defense, and twelve cruise missile patrol boats. Even if the U.S. imposed a total blockade, it was likely that nuclear warheads could be smuggled in by plane or submarine. It was the opinion of CIA analysts that a U.S. attack might bring a Soviet "miscalculation," that is, a move against Berlin. However, if the U.S. launched a swift and effective invasion of Cuba, the Soviets might very well be stunned into inactivity.33 The President was in Chicago that morning for a campaign appearance, but his brother called him home to take the report of his advisors in the afternoon. In the ExCom meeting at 2:30, hardliners raised the possibility of shooting down planes flying into Cuba if it were suspected they carried Soviet nuclear warheads or bombs. When that idea was not to the President's liking, they pressed him yet again to authorize the all-out air attack/invasion option, arguing that the Soviets would not dare retaliate because SAC and other American military forces were at a high state of readiness. The question was raised what the President should do if an attack was launched and a few SS-4s escaped destruction to be fired at the U.S. with nuclear warheads. The answer came back that SAC should make a compensatory nuclear attack against targets in the Soviet Union, not Cuba. Kennedy rejected this advice, much to the relief of McNamara, Rusk, and other blockade supporters. He also brushed aside Stevenson's plan to trade Jupiters in Turkey for Soviet missiles in Cuba followed by the demilitarization of Cuba. That would sacrifice the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay—politically out of the question. The U.N. Ambassador's proposal amounted to such a surrender that by dismissing it in the same breath as a direct military option, the President appeared to be avoiding going to extremes.34 Although Kennedy was leaning heavily toward a blockade, he wanted one last briefing from the military about the air strike plan. Intelligence reports Sunday morning, October 21 indicated that four MRBM launchers were already operational, that by November 1 all would be, and that an emergency operational status could be achieved five days early if necessary. In addition, a seventh missile site had been confirmed with three nuclear storage facilities under construction at three separate locations. Assuming four missiles per site and two missiles per launcher, the full potential missile force in Cuba now stood at 56,

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though one report went as high as 80. IRBMs due to become operational December 1 might achieve emergency capability as early as mid-November.35 Realizing the need for bipartisan political support, Kennedy directed McCone to call Eisenhower and arrange to brief him on the situation the next day. The former president's support would be critical when the crisis became public, but if Eisenhower demanded an attack on the missiles and Kennedy refused, that could shake Washington to its foundations. In the interim, he met with General Walter S. Sweeney, head of TAC, at 11:30 a.m. After McNamara briefed the President on the latest intelligence findings, being careful to emphasize that only 36 of the 40 launchers and 30 of the 48 missiles thought to be in Cuba had definitely been pinpointed, Sweeney went over an air attack plan of 500 sorties. It would destroy missiles, IL-28s, and MiG fighters as well as SAM sites and radar installations, he said. Taylor added that 90% of known missiles would be eliminated. But if all suspected SS-4s and SS-5s were included, up to 21 missiles would survive. Even McCone agreed that given the impossibility of taking out all the missiles, a blockade seemed the best option.36 The President nodded but directed Taylor and Sweeney to make all preparations for an attack by Monday morning, October 22. When that day dawned, the U.S. lost its eyes and ears in the Kremlin. Oleg Penkovsky was arrested by the KGB but not before sending a false emergency signal that nuclear war was imminent. Deciding to ignore the signal, his CIA handlers did not inform superiors. Given tensions among ExCom members which could have exploded into animosity and dangerous division at any moment, it was probably better they did not. With MRBMs operational and pressure on the President building, news of an imminent nuclear attack might well have provoked a confrontation with the JCS. Ironically, that morning Eisenhower gave advice to McCone which the former president repeated over the phone to Kennedy to consult the Chiefs if military action were needed. The President was undoubtedly relieved that Eisenhower did not insist on learning more details of the air strike and blockade options before offering a general expression of support for the administration.37 Planning to speak to the nation that night, the President decided that the time had now come to dispatch envoys to the allies. Acheson flew off to brief de Gaulle, who counseled no giving in to the Kremlin and observed, not without some satisfaction, that the U.S. for the first time felt itself threatened with nuclear destruction. Adenauer took an even more aggressive line, suggesting that the U.S. seize Soviet ships going to Cuba, reveal their cargoes to the world, and subsequently invade Cuba. Predictably, Macmillan—although British officials had been tipped off by Ray Cline of the CIA three days earlier—was upset at not being consulted earlier in the crisis and let it be known that he favored a trade of Jupiters in Turkey to get the missiles out of Cuba. Fearing a Soviet retaliation against Berlin if the U.S. bombed missile sites, Macmillan wrote Kennedy that "any retaliatory action as envisaged in the various [Berlin] contingency plans will lead us either to an escalation to world war or to the

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holding of a conference." The President sent a message to Norstad asking SACEUR to lend his "persuasive voice" to convince the allies of the logic and necessity of U.S. action on Cuba. He accepted McNamara's recommendation to keep the general atop NATO's military command until the crisis passed.38 One reason for leaving Norstad in his job was to retain tight control of NATO nuclear forces. That very day the Jupiter squadron in Turkey became operational, and though the Turks did not have the wherewithal to seize and make use of those weapons, American missile commanders might become trigger-happy in an emergency. As he made clear at the ExCom meeting at 11:45 a.m., the President did not want anyone launching missiles under attack, as was the policy under Eisenhower when communication could not be established with Washington. He was particularly concerned that a situation might develop wherein American military forces would attack missiles in Cuba and the Soviets would counter with a "spot attack" on the Jupiters. Although Taylor informed the President that the other Chiefs did not want to issue orders to the Jupiter commanders to ride out an attack rather than launch because they already had those orders and another message now might create confusion, the President insisted. When asked specifically what was the current policy for the Jupiter commanders, Taylor astonished everyone by replying that they would execute the EDP. "What's the EDP?" the President asked. The European Defense Plan for nuclear war, came the reply. Fairly jumping out of his chair, McNamara snapped that execution of the EDP was not the policy. The policy was to wait for the President's authorization.39 In the afternoon, the President convened the full NSC with all the JCS present. Foremost in his mind was the danger that the Soviets would react by applying pressure to Berlin, thus causing the allies to charge that the U.S. was jeopardizing European security by its preoccupation with insignificant Cuba. In fact, he was not yet convinced that the deployment of missiles on the island had not been intended as a probing action to determine how he might react to a blockade of Berlin. When questioned what he intended to do if a SAM shot down a U-2 plane or missile construction continued in Cuba, he did not answer beyond telling the JCS he realized that his speech and the blockade would warn the Cubans an invasion might be coming. He received assurances from McCone, however, that "black boxes" had been shipped to Dakar in Africa and from McNamara that the DOD was working on actions to prevent nuclear weapons from coming into Cuba by plane. However, without physically interfering with Soviet planes, tracking nonstop flights from the Soviet Union was the best that could be done to minimize the danger of a nuclear warhead buildup.40 Throughout this part of the meeting, including a discussion of how to hide from the press the fact that U-2 flights were stopped from early September to October 14 out of fear of having one shot down, the JCS sat mute. LeMay and Anderson explained later that it was useless to protest the blockade decision, given the manner in which all but Taylor had been excluded from ExCom

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meetings and the fact that the President had already made up his mind. Finally, Anderson did warn of a war at sea and elicited from Kennedy an agreement that the blockade would stop all ships, even from friendly nations, to keep more missiles, nuclear weapons, and other threatening weaponry out of Cuba. The President went on to defend the blockade decision by saying that an air strike could not guarantee all missiles would be destroyed and that it might result in worldwide nuclear war. His comment that a surprise air strike would have been comparable to Pearl Harbor could not have sat well with the Chiefs, especially LeMay who had directed the strategic bombing campaign against Japan in 1945.41 At 5:00 p.m., just two hours prior to his television speech, Kennedy, McNamara, Rusk, McCone, and various intelligence officials met with congressional leaders. After McCone lied that weather had prevented U-2 flights for all of September, his announcement of the fact of 36 nuclear missile launchers in Cuba brought an audible gasp. Twenty of the missiles had been sighted, he went on, and 16 were now fully operational. There were probably nuclear storage sites present as well, including at the Mariel airstrip, and IL-28s and MiG-21s and short-range cruise missiles and SAM sites and Komar guided missile boats. Outraged that the President had done nothing to remove the threat, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Richard B. Russell, Jr. (D., Georgia) and others demanded air strikes to destroy the missiles and present the Soviets with a fait accompli. Kennedy responded that the Soviets would not accept an attack on their forces in Cuba without retaliating against Berlin. If that occurred, nuclear war would result and millions of Americans might die. He would not run that risk until all other options had been exhausted. But Russell kept after him so vigorously that even a blizzard of words by McNamara describing military preparations and blockade details could not bail him out. Stunned by the ferocity of congressional disapproval, the President tried without success to dramatize his predicament with a warning that the Jupiter commanders in Turkey might launch their missiles if attacked. After listening to Senator Fulbright describe the blockade as the worst possible move he could make, he had to excuse himself to prepare for his speech. He told his brother later that the session had been brutal.42 If Kennedy were rattled, he did not show it before the eyes of the nation and the world that night. He was instituting a quarantine of Cuba effective Wednesday morning, October 24, he announced, which would stop military equipment and supplies from entering the island and force Soviet offensive weapons systems out. If Soviet ships attempted to run the blockade, they would be fired upon. More important, if any missile flew from Cuba toward the U.S. it would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union requiring a full retaliatory response against the USSR. To punctuate his remarks, the JCS put out a DEFCON 2 alert. Around the world, American bombers loaded up with nuclear weapons, Polaris subs left port, and missiles stood poised to launch. Without authorization, Power issued orders to SAC forces with no code so that the

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Soviets would know the U.S. was preparing for a showdown. At the same time, McNamara gave the go-ahead for full invasion preparations to assemble a force of 250,000 men, including 90,000 Marines and Airborne troops for an initial invasion force expected to suffer 25,000 casualties in conquering Cuba. All preparations were to be completed in one week. Kennedy topped off this flurry of activity with a letter to Khrushchev warning that although the U.S. was taking the minimum action to remove the threat in Cuba, if the Soviets retaliated against Berlin, the U.S. would escalate as well. Public at last, the crisis atmosphere stepped up to a much higher level of intensity.43 Upon returning to his office, the President found a memo from Bundy. The National Security Advisor said that he had forgotten to put in the message to Macmillan the "most important single justification of our action from the point of view of the future of the West as a whole." If the nuclear buildup continued in Cuba, it would be a threat to the whole strategic balance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In fact, it would create a temptation for the Kremlin to launch a surprise first strike.44 CONCLUSION It seems inconceivable that in considering air attack scenarios on missiles in Cuba the possibility of using nuclear weapons against those sites and other offensive weapons like IL-28s was not discussed. Senator Russell brought up the subject himself at the meeting of congressional leaders with the President on October 22, indicating that LeMay had told him SAC could knock out similar installations with nuclear weapons. In the documentation of ExCom meetings and memos declassified to this point, there are a few references to a decision not to use nuclear weapons on Cuban soil but no details as to arguments that might have taken place in ExCom meetings or memoranda for their consideration. Aside from the impossibility of verifying that all missiles and nuclear warheads had been destroyed once such an attack took place and the very serious political fall-out that would have resulted in Latin American countries and the world, the President had to concern himself with possible Soviet retaliation against Berlin, the Jupiters in Turkey, or other Western interests. To his way of thinking, the use of more force increased the probability of Soviet "miscalculation." To the JCS and top American military leaders, rubbing "Soviet noses in their nuclear inferiority," as Power did when he put out orders to SAC without codes, guaranteed that Kremlin leaders would stand by and watch the U.S. reimpose the Monroe Doctrine in the Caribbean. However, almost certainly the Soviets would have taken some action to make things uncomfortable for the U.S. and its allies. The possibility that moves and countermoves could lead to shooting and then major military confrontation could not easily be dismissed.45 Thus, although hardliners were correct that a preemptive first strike by the Soviets against the U.S. and its allies was not going to happen, Kennedy had to

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give due caution to escalating crisis scenarios. Unfortunately, the longer he waited to initiate military action, the greater the danger became. Had he authorized an immediate air strike upon learning of the missiles and followed it up with more attacks as necessary to destroy launch sites, he might very well have intimidated the Soviets into inaction. It is not farfetched to suggest that the Soviets might have denied missiles were ever in Cuba and opened a diplomatic offensive in the U.N. and third world to make the U.S. seem, as Robert Kennedy suggested, a big bully attacking a small nation in a Pearl Harbor type attack. But once some missiles did become operational, the crisis took on a different character altogether. Kennedy's speech the night of October 22 made it infinitely more difficult for Khrushchev to back down without some concession from the U.S. As the crisis unfolded, the President must have been kicking himself for not listening to McCone in August and initiating a blockade or other action at that time. Now he had to face up to the possibility that Khrushchev's wild gamble, and his own dithering, might result in nuclear war.

19 TWO BLUFFS He chickened out again. How in the hell do you get men to risk their lives when the SAMs are not attacked? — Curtis E. LeMay, October 27, 19621

By the morning of October 23, 1962, the extent of the missile threat in Cuba was largely known. The CIA reported that photo reconnaissance results from October 20 through 22 showed nine missile sites, of which six were MRBMs (four near San Cristobal, two near Sagua La Grande) and three IRBMs (two at Guanajay, one at Remedios). Four of the six MRBM sites were now fully operational, and 33 medium-range missiles had actually been spotted. However, none of the IRBMs would be operational even on an emergency basis before mid-November and no intermediate-range missiles had yet been identified. The same ambiguity applied to nuclear warheads. Storage buildings were under construction at several sites, but no actual warheads had been confirmed. Still, nineteen Soviet ships were on the high seas carrying at least 20 more IL-28 bombers to supplement the 30 already in Cuba. One other ship, the Poltava, was hauling crates that might contain more missiles. If a suspected fourth IRBM site was discovered—the Soviets always grouped two missile sites to form a missile regiment—and all the launchers ultimately became operational with two missiles for each launcher, the Soviets would have a force of 48 MRBMs and 32 IRBMs targeted on the United States.2 To make matters worse, McCone reported at the 10:00 a.m. ExCom meeting that three missiles previously spotted had disappeared. The President authorized six low-level reconnaissance flights to supplement high-altitude U-2 pictures and approved contingency plans by the JCS that if a U-2 plane was shot down by SAMs, the military could attack the SAM sites involved, but only after receiving his express order. As for Soviet planes flying into Cuba, McNamara told the President some might be carrying nuclear weapons, but he was not yet ready to recommend air interception. Preparations for an all-out air strike and

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follow-up invasion were proceeding apace.3 One encouraging development was that intelligence sources showed no signs of a general alert of Soviet forces anywhere in the world. In fact, Soviet and Cuban planes on the island had been lined up wing tip to wing tip, almost inviting an attack. The President promptly ordered overflights of air bases in the southeast U.S. to insure that American planes were properly dispersed (they were not). To make preparations for a Soviet blockade of Berlin, he set up a task force chaired by Nitze.4 PRESSURE COOKER The continuous crisis atmosphere and lack of sleep exacerbated personality conflicts and began to have a seriously adverse effect on some ExCom members. McNamara and Rusk in particular seem to have been affected. The Secretary of Defense's verbosity and flip-flops, the Secretary of State's diminutive presence in meetings pointed out the problems each was having handling the pressure. It only got worse now that Kennedy's speech had made the crisis public. Nor did the involvement of more government officials improve the quality of advice reaching the President. Some memoranda contained blatant misstatement of key facts. For example, Raymond L. Garthoff, Special Assistant for Soviet Bloc matters in the State Department's Office of PoliticoMilitary Affairs, wrote a memo to Counselor to the State Department and Chairman of the PPC Walt R. Rostow on October 23 that the Soviets had an "acknowledged superiority" in overall military power in 1960 but that the balance had swung back to the U.S. in late 1961. With all the satellite photography available to administration officials from summer 1960 onward, it is inexplicable that any high government official could have believed that the Soviets had ever been stronger militarily.5 Watching the clock got to the President as well at the ExCom meeting that evening. Senator Russell had been raising a ruckus, urging the President to assemble a strike force as soon as possible to wipe out the Soviet missiles in Cuba and making unflattering comparisons between Kennedy's indecisiveness over Cuba and the Kremlin's ruthless suppression of the Hungarian revolt in 1956. Kennedy complained that Russell and other congressional bullies wanted him to risk a Soviet attack on 58 major U.S. cities where 92 million people lived. After listening to a discussion of possible civil defense measures, he wondered aloud whether he should not run some more forces up the autobahn to Berlin to show his determination. A report by McCone that an unusual number of encrypted messages had been sent to Soviet ships from Moscow, and that Soviet attack submarines armed with short-range nuclear weapons were infiltrating into the Caribbean area caused the hair to stand up on the back of his neck. Those subs might be able to improvise an attack on U.S. coastal areas if they could sneak in close enough, McCone warned. Although Soviet nuclear

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torpedoes only had a range of 10 nautical miles, their SS-N-3 subs armed with cruise missiles and SS-N-4 subs carrying ballistic missiles could strike from 300 to 400 miles out. McNamara made a note to himself to keep closer tabs on naval operations.6 About 9:30 p.m., Kennedy sent his brother to the Soviet embassy to speak to Dobrynin. The Attorney General tried to convey a sense of the increasing heat the President was taking from military and congressional leaders to eliminate the missiles by military action. When the Soviet ambassador reported what he was told to Khrushchev, the premier got the impression that a danger of a military coup existed in Washington. Given the sort of power politics and purge environment to which he had become accustomed in Moscow, a move by ambitious, paranoid men to displace established civilian authority might not have seemed so bizarre to the Russian. It was certainly possible in the USSR where the Kremlin leadership did not trust their generals with custody of nuclear warheads. In any event, Khrushchev had to weigh in the balance how pressures to act boldly would affect the President. After Vienna in June 1961, he probably assessed Kennedy's character as highly malleable.7 The British hoped he was, but in the direction of good sense. They feared an incident at sea between the U.S. Navy and some Soviet cargo ship redounding to the disadvantage of Western Europe. Macmillan told Kennedy during a phone conversation just before the 6:00 p.m. ExCom meeting that he personally did not see Cuban missiles as much of a threat to the U.S. and gave grudging support to the quarantine only because it temporarily precluded an invasion. Reports from the American embassy in London indicated that, although the general British populace felt much the way the prime minister did, some sharp protests had taken place after the announcement of the blockade. At 11:00 p.m. that night, British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore came to the White House to propose a summit meeting to resolve the crisis. Although Kennedy refused to bargain publicly until Khrushchev removed the missiles, he did accept British advice to shorten the quarantine zone from 800 miles out to 500. That would buy more time for the Soviets to reconsider.8 On Wednesday morning, October 24, the quarantine line went into effect under the immediate direction of CINCLANT Robert L. Deimison at Norfolk with overall command exercised by Anderson at Flag Plot in the Pentagon. Soviet ships kept coming, so that by the 10:00 a.m. ExCom meeting, nerves were seriously on edge. Some slight consolation had been derived from a CIA update that no new missile sites had been discovered and that nine nuclear storage facilities had been pinpointed, one for each of the sites. But Rusk suddenly cracked, petitioning the President to postpone the quarantine for two days until photography from low-level reconnaissance flights was developed. Kennedy indicated that he would think about it, but at noon Soviet vessels stopped dead in the water. Eventually fourteen turned around and headed home. Since POL supplies were not on the embargo list, six tankers continued on. Immediately, ExCom members began discussing political and diplomatic moves

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to maintain momentum toward getting Soviet missiles out of Cuba. The President sent a personal message to the president of Senegal in West Africa petitioning him to refuse use of airfields to Communist bloc planes that might be attempting to bring in offensive weapons, including nuclear warheads.9 That afternoon while Stevenson was using reconnaissance pictures at the U.N. to refute Soviet claims that there were no missiles in Cuba, McNamara and Gilpatric went to Flag Plot in the Pentagon to look over Anderson's shoulder. The Secretary of Defense clashed with the CNO over a destroyer that had sallied forth from the quarantine line to harass and sit atop a Russian sub. After McNamara put a whole series of questions to Anderson about conduct of the blockade, the Admiral lost his temper and informed him that the Navy had been running blockades from the time of John Paul Jones and did not need his advice. According to Gilpatric, McNamara withdrew quickly at that point but remarked as they drove back to the White House, "that's the end of Anderson." Although the CNO later sent an emissary to obtain a list of the questions McNamara wanted answered and thereafter provided more timely reports, the strain between civilian leadership and senior military men continued to show. For example, Anderson was not pleased when the President decided to let the Soviet tanker Bucharest pass through the blockade. The Navy went on harassing Soviet subs, going so far as to use small depth charges to force them to the surface.10 MISSILE SWAP IDEA Thursday morning, October 25, low-altitude reconnaissance pictures showed two dozen nuclear warhead containers at the Mariel airstrip being checked out, then placed in vans for transfer to MRBM sites. However, intelligence analysts did not realize what they were seeing. Confirmation that nuclear warheads and bombs were in Cuba would not come until after the crisis ended, when reconnaissance photos could be examined more thoroughly.11 Taking no chances, the military increased the alert force to awesome proportions. 879 planes and 356 missiles were now poised to attack, including 61 B-52 bombers airborne, 139 ICBMs, 37 Jupiters, and 112 Polaris missiles on seven submarines. And yet, even though the U.S. had a tremendous preponderance of strategic nuclear forces and local conventional power, State Department officials were running scared. One proposal from Rostow, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs William R. Tyler, and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Phillips Talbot suggested a trade of Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy for Soviet missiles in Cuba—after the allies had been convinced to create a sea-based MLF to replace land-based IRBMs. Garthoff immediately objected that giving up the Jupiters would result in a net victory for the Soviets and encourage further Kremlin adventures elsewhere in the world. In his view, although IRBMs in Turkey and Italy were not militarily

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important, they were also not relevant to the issue and should not be equated with Soviet missiles in Cuba. Rostow responded that neither was Berlin of military importance and yet it was central to the conflict.12 From Paris, Finletter protested that the Turks looked upon the Jupiters as symbolic of NATO's determination to use nuclear weapons if the Soviets attacked Turkey. According to the letter of the Jupiter agreement with Ankara, the administration could not just trade the IRBMs without consultation with the Turkish government. However, in order to convince the Turks withdrawing the Jupiters might be wise, he adopted a suggestion by Ambassador to Turkey Raymond A. Hare that a small sea-based MLF in the eastern Mediterranean with mixed American-Turkish-Italian manning be placed under NATO's Southern Command. Already, this idea had been broached to the NAC at the October 22 meeting. It could serve as a pilot program for a larger MLF plan using Polaris missiles on merchant ships.13 In Cuba, work on MRBM and IRBM sites continued despite the blockade. By that time, military planning for air strikes and an invasion of Cuba were fully drawn up. If SAMs shot down a U-2, the Air Force could retaliate in two hours. In the event the President decided to launch a full air strike, CINCLANT could attack in twelve. But it would still require seven days to implement an invasion of the island, including a campaign of air strikes to suppress enemy air and ground forces. Short-range FROG missiles, which the Soviets later claimed were armed with nuclear weapons, might well have been destroyed by the bombing.14 At the ExCom meeting that morning, the President authorized more lowlevel reconnaissance flights to take pictures of the missile sites, air bases, nuclear storage facilities, SAMs, naval forces, and other military targets of the planned air campaign. With no evidence that the Soviets were backing down, Kennedy asked for alternatives to be presented at the ExCom meeting that evening. Dillon drew the assignment of drafting a paper discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the air strike option. The greatest benefit would be the immediate removal of a threat to the security of the nation, he wrote, as well as a demonstration of American resolve to protect its vital interests. The greatest drawback would be Soviet retaliation short of a missile attack resulting in general war. Since a remote possibility did exist that some local Soviet commander in Cuba would launch an MRBM, it would be necessary to follow up the first air attack with further air strikes and ultimately an invasion. The return of the Big Stick to the Caribbean would shore up American prestige in Latin American eyes and intimidate the Soviets over Berlin as well.15 The ExCom reconvened without the President at 5:00 p.m. to discuss the next step. Overt military actions were possible, as was a diplomatic offensive or an intensified blockade that would include POL supplies. Rusk wanted to pursue negotiations, especially a move in the U.N. by Secretary General U Thant, but McNamara favored a tighter quarantine to stop East German ships

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approaching the blockade line that night and a Soviet tanker the next day. However, Robert Kennedy wondered whether it might not be better to attack the missiles on Cuban soil than stop a Soviet ship at sea, which under international law could be considered an act of war against the USSR. Although Taylor and Dillon were adamant that Soviet ships, possibly carrying nuclear warheads or more missiles and planes, not be permitted to reach Cuba, after the President entered the meeting he decided to let the East German ships pass pending U Thant's proposal in the U.N. He also said he would let the Soviet tanker steam through before adding jet fuel to the quarantine list. He assured Taylor, Dillon, and other hardliners that he would act soon to halt further missile construction in Cuba, especially of IRBMs.16 In the meantime, the Soviets opened back channels through the Indian Ambassador in Indonesia and American reporter John Scali, conveying statements that the Kremlin would not be first to use nuclear weapons but would sink U.S. ships if Soviet ships were sunk and suggesting that a deal on the missiles could be arranged if the U.S. pledged not to invade Cuba. Then a report arrived of a conversation Khrushchev had had the day before with William Knox, president of Westinghouse International, in which he had compared Jupiter missiles in Turkey to Soviet missiles in Cuba. Both conventional and nuclear warheads were on the island, he asserted. The President and his advisors should rest assured that all military equipment was under Soviet control and would only fire upon the premier's personal command and only in response to an American attack. However, it should be known that if Kennedy was so rash as to provoke military action, the first response of Soviet forces in Cuba would be to destroy the American base at Guantanamo. The Kremlin was determined to defend its ally.17 The next morning—Friday, October 26—the CIA reported that low-level reconnaissance had positively identified a fourth IRBM site about to be constructed at Remedios. Apart from any military-strategic consideration, it was clear that the Kremlin was saving more than $ 1 billion by deploying missiles in Cuba rather than an equivalent number of ICBMs in the Soviet Union. Nor was Khrushchev necessarily overwrought that at least four ships suspected of carrying missiles had been turned back from Cuba. He had accepted U Thant's offer of negotiations and was more than willing to watch the hours slip by while the still formidable number of MRBMs and IRBMs in Cuba became operational. On the other hand, there was little evidence that Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe had advanced beyond alert/readiness status to war-fighting deployment. Only some tactical air units in East Germany had been placed on fiveminute alert. Even so, Norstad proposed to approach the French directly on Monday, October 29 in his capacity as SACEUR for authority to disperse American nuclear weapons to bases in France for use by American warplanes.18 The JCS tried to ratchet up the pressure on Kennedy. With no warning at all, Soviet ICBMs and missiles in Cuba would be able to attack and destroy 30% of American strategic forces, they complained, including 40% of the nuclear

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weapons the SIOP had targeted on the Soviet Union. The Chiefs wanted to annihilate the threat without further delay. However, except for Taylor, they had no access to the President. In debate, McNamara—no matter how inconsistent and irrational—could talk rings around Taylor.19 At the ExCom meeting at 10:00 a.m., Kennedy listened to McNamara and Rusk debate the wisdom of adding bomber and missile fuel to the embargo list. The Secretary of Defense was in favor, but the Secretary of State argued for a 24-hour delay pending U Thant's initiative to win a one- or two-day crisis freeze. Siding with Rusk, Kennedy remarked that a blockade alone would not work, that the missiles would come out only by invasion or trading. Although he would hold off night reconnaissance flights requested by Taylor to give U Thant's negotiations a chance to work, he thought he should bring congressional leaders up to date on the dangerous situation. Dillon's argument that the U.S. could not negotiate under the threat of missile attack for the two weeks Stevenson thought U Thant's talks might require failed to sway the President. His thinking was more in accord with Robert Kennedy's statement that they had one month to play with until IRBMs became operational and targeted cities and military bases across the continental United States.20 Meanwhile, Hare cabled Rusk from Ankara that the Turks deeply resented being compared to Cuba and did not like at all being seen as American "stooges" whose interests Washington could sacrifice at its whim. Although admitting that the Jupiters were a "dubious and waning asset," he nevertheless maintained that the best result would be to avoid a trade. The next best option would be the MLF alternative. A missile swap should only be attempted as a last resort and if done in secret. Meanwhile, the President called Macmillan at 6:00 p.m. to hear the prime minister's solution to Kennedy's predicament. No surprise, Macmillan wanted to convene a conference to resolve the Cuban and Berlin problems, but once behind closed doors, he would offer to immobilize Thor missiles in England if the Soviets would do the same with their missiles in Cuba. To Kennedy's objection that Khrushchev might demand immobilization of missiles in Turkey and Italy as well, Macmillan replied that this trap could be avoided by offering to withdraw only the same number of missiles as were in Cuba. After all, Thors like Jupiters had only been a temporary expedient until ICBMs and Polaris missiles became available. The U.S. and NATO would lose nothing vital by their removal.21 LONGEST DAY Friday night, October 26, a letter written by Khrushchev reached Kennedy. Emotional and defensive, the Soviet Premier pointed out that U.S. bases, including missile sites in Britain, Turkey, and Italy, surrounded the Soviet Union and that this had been his motivation for placing missiles in Cuba. However, if the U.S. pledged not to invade the island, he would pledge not to attack

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Turkey. He repeated what he had said to Knox that all missiles were in Soviet hands and that accidental launch was not possible. So long as the U.S. did not strike at Cuba or the Soviet Union, they would never be used.22 For the first time, the Soviet premier had shown weakness, the President realized. He and his advisors were greatly encouraged that Kremlin leaders, influenced by the realities of military power, might back down. The U.S. now had a cocked force of some 1,962 weapons either in the air or on 15-minute alert. Within 24 hours the rest of SAC would be placed on highest alert so that 172 missiles and 1,200 planes with 2,858 nuclear weapons, not to mention Polaris missiles, other Navy nuclear systems, and SACEUR's nuclear firepower would stand ready to expunge Soviet Communism from the face of the earth. In addition, CINCLANTs invasion force was substantially deployed and CINCTAC 850 planes were standing by to smash the missiles, planes, nuclear weapons storage facilities, SAM sites, and other military targets in Cuba. Since SS-4s required 8-20 hours to prepare for fueling, mating with warheads, and firing, there was a very high probability that those so far located would be destroyed before launch. Khrushchev would be crazy to push matters to the brink.23 However, early Saturday morning, October 27, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover informed the Attorney General that Soviet diplomats in New York were destroying all sensitive documents. The possibility that the Soviets were in fact preparing for hostilities put Rusk in an almost appeasement mood. At the ExCom meeting at 10:00 a.m., McNamara proposed that the Navy board the Soviet tanker Grozny if that ship tried to run the blockade instead of firing at her. Rusk objected that the U.S. should take no action, including night reconnaissance flights, that had the remotest possibility of escalating the crisis. However, the President realized that the time had come to stand firm and decided that the Grozny must be stopped and searched, even by force, and that if the cargo contained prohibited military equipment on the quarantine list, the ship would be sunk. Then dramatically, word came from wire reports that the Soviets were proposing to swap out their missiles in Cuba for American Jupiters in Turkey. It was a much harsher message than Khrushchev's letter of the night before and caused Kennedy to ask plaintively why nobody had talked to the Turks yet about withdrawing the Jupiters. As the meeting continued, no one could come up with a workable formula for a missile deal that would sound like anything but the U.S. pulling the rug out from under the Turks. One big obstacle was that Ankara actually owned the Jupiters and the U.S. could not withdraw even the warheads without consultation, McNamara pointed out. It was feared that in order to get all offensive weapons systems—missiles and planes—out of Cuba, the U.S. would have to agree to withdraw both Jupiters and its nuclear-capable planes from Turkey.24 Hanging over Kennedy's head, and he knew it, was continued work on the missiles in Cuba. He complained (incorrectly) that a year earlier he had wanted

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the Jupiters out of Turkey and that his orders had not been obeyed. He wanted someone to tell the Turks now that all hell would break loose if some kind of trade was not arranged on the Cuban missiles. McNamara thought more time could be bought if Soviet missiles could be rendered inoperable, pending a final decision to withdraw. In fact, latest intelligence reports had 20 of 24 MRBM launchers fully operational and the others coming on line in a few days. Four IRBM launchers would achieve an emergency operational status by November 15, the others by December 1. Moreover, there were enough missiles now in Cuba for all 24 MRBM launchers, which could strike at SAC's bases with 80% accuracy within 1 to 1.5 kilometer CEP of target. Since two nuclear storage bunkers had been completed, with others under construction for each pair of launch sites, it was assumed that any missiles launched from Cuba would be nuclear-armed.25 As the ExCom meeting was breaking up, a U-2 out of Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska strayed over the Chukotsky Peninsula in the Soviet Union and ran afoul of MiG fighters. Although U.S. Air Force planes arrived in time to escort it back to base, when McNamara found out, he was livid. He barged into the Tank in the Pentagon to confront the JCS and, according to eyewitness Lieutenant General Burchinal, "turned absolutely white, and yelled hysterically, 'this means war with the Soviet Union!'" Later at a 2:30 meeting at the State Department with Robert Kennedy and others, he proposed giving away tactical surprise by warning Castro that an attack was on the way. The idea, previously dreamed up by air strike advocates, was to give this die-hard Communist an opportunity to throw out his Soviet patrons and their missiles before the U.S. removed them by force. However, Castro was even then appealing to Khrushchev to launch the missiles in a preemptive strike because he was convinced an American air attack and invasion were coming. Though suicide was not in Khrushchev's plans, anti-aircraft batteries on the island did begin shooting at U-2 flights.26 The Secretary of Defense was now wound tight as a drum. At the 4:00 p.m. ExCom meeting he contained himself only until the President left the room to phone Norstad to solicit his assistance to find some way to convince the Turks to agree to a secret deal to withdraw the Jupiters, then blurted out that the President's options were shrinking rapidly. Since the Soviets and Cubans were now shooting at American reconnaissance planes, any attack would have to be an all-out air strike with anywhere from 500 to 2,000 sorties followed by an invasion in seven days. That would almost certainly result in a Soviet attack on the Jupiters in Turkey—if they were still there. His solution was to remove those missiles now not only from Turkey but from Italy, assuring Ankara and Rome that Polaris submarines would come immediately on station in the Mediterranean with the same targets previously assigned to the Jupiters. Brushing aside all objections, he said that the decision must be made regardless of Turkish or Italian protests. He wanted to present the Soviets with nothing substantial to attack if the U.S. did strike at Cuba. Of course, he was forgetting

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or choosing to ignore Berlin, Kennedy's primary concern. Returning to the meeting with General Lemnitzer in tow, the President expressed frustration that NATO did not realize that in two or three days he would have to order an attack on Cuba that might bring either a retaliation against the Jupiters or a Soviet move to seize Berlin. However, he would not pull the Jupiters unilaterally because the Turks would charge that the U.S. had caved in to Soviet pressure.27 Convinced he was right, McNamara continued to urge the President to move immediately to replace the Jupiters with Polaris submarines. When Robert Kennedy asked whether the Secretary of Defense would use the missiles on the subs if the Soviets attacked NATO anyway in response to an American attack on Cuba, McNamara replied that he was not yet prepared to answer that question. The President remarked that if the Turks refused to substitute Polaris submarines for Jupiters and even resisted pressure from all of NATO to make the move, he would prefer to institute a full blockade of Cuba rather than jump immediately to the air attack/invasion option. He also rejected a proposal by Stevenson to send a letter to Khrushchev proposing cessation of work on the missiles while negotiations proceeded on Turkey in the context of a European detente and in consultation with the allies. It was obvious that Khrushchev would use the diplomatic maneuvers to stall another 48 hours while work on the missiles continued.28 For the next little while, the ExCom discussed wording of a letter to Khrushchev. There was light bantering and nervous laughter interspersed with more serious drafting attempts, then Robert Kennedy suggested they ignore the Moscow missile trade proposal and simply accept the formula Khrushchev had outlined in his letter of October 26. Before that idea could be fully explored, Taylor arrived to announce to the President that the JCS had been in session that afternoon and were ready to recommend implementation of CINCLANT's OPPLAN 312 for an all-out air strike on Cuba no later than Monday morning, October 29, followed by OPPLAN 316, the invasion of Cuba, seven days later. But the Attorney General provoked laughter with the remark "that was a surprise," and Taylor could not refocus the President on the JCS proposal. The discussion soon shifted back to the Jupiters in Turkey, with the President finally coming around to McNamara's point of view that the U.S. might have to withdraw the missiles out of pure national interest even without Turkish approval. McNamara suggested the U.S. could conciliate Ankara by sending in more nuclear-capable planes.29 Although the Attorney General's levity broke the tension temporarily, it was misplaced. A short time later, word came that a U-2 plane had been shot down over Cuba. The pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson, Jr., had been killed. ExCom members were stunned, and for an extended period of time near confusion reigned. Almost as if he had not heard what Taylor had just announced, McNamara went on about deferring an air attack until Wednesday or Thursday so long as surveillance could be sustained, a tight blockade maintained, and the military given permission to return fire. That was unacceptable to Taylor. The

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President had previously agreed that SAM sites involved in bringing down a U-2 plane would be attacked. He asked permission now to execute that decision to be followed by a warning that wider retaliation would follow any further shootdowns.30 Surprisingly, McNamara agreed, but apparently at that moment a report came in that the Soviets were attempting to fly a plane down from Canada to Cuba, possibly with nuclear weapons on board. People panicked. Precisely how the matter was resolved is not known because the audio tape of the meeting is blank for several minutes. In any event, once order was restored Kennedy diverted the debate toward whether simply to announce the U-2 shoot-down rather than retaliate. Then he wanted to talk about the missile swap, fretting that the French would say the U.S. was making its own deal on Cuba at the expense of Turkey and NATO. To which the Secretary of Defense responded with a detailed summary of the pitch Finletter should make to the NAC meeting the next day to win their agreement to pull the Jupiters. The last point he made was that the absolute minimum response the U.S. would make to an attack by the Soviets on the Jupiters would have to be a retaliation—with conventional weapons—against Soviet warships and naval bases in the Black Sea area.31 After the President left the room, George Ball punched a big hole in McNamara's pat scenario how to sell NATO on the missile deal by asking what would happen if the Soviets struck at Berlin in retaliation for an attack on Cuba, regardless of whether the Jupiters were withdrawn from Turkey. His preference was to make the trade Moscow had asked for publicly. Give up the Jupiters; the Soviets would take their missiles out of Cuba. He added, "I don't think NATO is going to be wrecked [by this deal], and if NATO isn't any better than that, it isn't that good to us."32 Perhaps for the moment Ball was forgetting the economic and military power of Western Europe. As big a pain in the neck as European leaders could be, jettisoning the linchpin of the Containment policy and jeopardizing American national security out of frustration that Turkish leaders and their British, French, German, and Italian counterparts did not look upon missiles in Cuba as seriously as the Soviet threat to their own backyards would have been incredible folly. But Ball was a leading proponent of the MLF plan and accustomed to disregarding Western European wishes. Like many officials Kennedy selected for high positions in his national security team, his suggestions too often did not take due consideration of alliance politics and international realities. The discussion continued with McNamara's plan to withdraw the Jupiters unilaterally coming under severe criticism by Dillon, Thompson, and Vice President Johnson. Even a missile trade still left unresolved the problem of nuclear-capable planes. Thompson pointed out that if the U.S. demanded removal of the IL-28s and MiG-21s, the Soviets would insist the U.S. pull its fighter-bombers from Turkey. Instead, the U.S. needed to lean hard on the Soviets by stopping ships at sea or destroying a SAM site. A message to "leave reconnaissance planes alone or else" might then do some good. An ultimatum

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should also include a demand that the Soviets stop work on their missiles bases and render the missiles inoperable. Johnson added that the greatest impression made on everyone at the meeting today had been when the report had come in that the Soviets had downed the U-2 plane. It was time for Uncle Sam to play hard ball too.33 When the President returned, Thompson expounded his plan and Johnson summed up the three other alternatives that had emerged in his absence. McNamara wanted NATO and the Turks to agree to give up the Jupiters without a quid pro quo from the Soviets so that the U.S. could attack the missiles in Cuba if necessary and leave the Soviets with no similar targets to strike. Ball proposed a straight trade, per the Moscow message of that morning, so the U.S. would get something tangible for its concession. McCone preferred to make the trade only after an ultimatum was delivered that attacks on reconnaissance planes be halted and missiles rendered inoperable at once. Although Rusk reminded the President that a straight trade might provoke the Soviets to demand inclusion of planes and even entire bases, thus evicting the U.S. completely from the territory of its NATO ally Turkey, Kennedy replied that he did not want to attack and invade Cuba to remove the missiles when he could get the same result by making a deal on the Jupiters. That prompted Johnson to complain that trading missiles for missiles, planes for planes, bases for bases would destroy the very basis of American foreign policy in Europe. Kennedy ordered a recess for dinner before reconvening at 9:00 p.m. to make decisions.34 One factor giving even hardliners pause about an actual invasion of Cuba was the possibility that four Soviet combat groups guarding the missiles might have a nuclear capability. Despite Khrushchev's assurances to the contrary, it was not clear whether local Soviet commanders would wait for Kremlin orders before using all the weapons at their disposal. In 1994, General Anatoly Gribkov, who had been Chief of Soviet Missile Operations in Cuba during the crisis, claimed that while Khrushchev controlled all MRBMs and IRBMs, the Soviet military had absolute discretion to launch six nuclear-tipped FROGs to smash an invasion. McNamara, in his 1995 mea culpa, cites other recent Russian statements that as many as 162 nuclear warheads, including 90 tactical, had reached the island. As unlikely as it seems that Khrushchev would entrust this decision to military men outside of political control, a most dangerous situation might nevertheless develop if the 101st Airborne Division parachuted, per OPPLAN 316, onto the Mariel airstrip and port area. The obvious objective would be to seize any nuclear warheads and missiles at the handling facility the Soviet and Cubans had erected there as well as secure the runway. Because Soviet nuclear devices did not yet possess reliable safety devices, an accidental nuclear explosion might have resulted during the fighting.35 When the President had stepped out of the afternoon ExCom meeting the first time, he had met with Lemnitzer to discuss Norstad's replacement as SACEUR as of November 1. That key assignment would be postponed another month while the crisis persisted. But Kennedy went ahead with a decision,

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against both Norstad's and Lemnitzer's wishes, to order Jupiters in Turkey and Italy off their pads with nuclear warheads removed so that no local commander would be tempted to launch under Soviet attack. The danger of miscalculation and accident was much on his mind when he met with the Attorney General at 7:00 p.m. and suggested that the Soviets did not want war over the Cuban mess any more than the U.S. He decided to have his brother meet once more with Dobrynin to issue a last warning. Secretly he ordered Rusk to open a channel through the U.N. to arrange a public trade of Jupiters for missiles in Cuba if the Soviets refused to give in.36 Taylor started off the 9:00 p.m. ExCom meeting with a report to the President of his discussions with the other Chiefs of the reconnaissance problem. Anti-aircraft fire would make low-levelflightsnearly impossible. Medium- and high-level flights would be required to confirm that work on the missile sites was continuing. Since such flights would almost certainly draw SAM fire, he recommended an attack on SAM sites to insure that U-2s could fly unmolested. However, McNamara preferred to risk lives with low-level reconnaissance with the understanding that retaliation would follow if anti-aircraft batteries opened up. But Kennedy wanted to see how Khrushchev responded to an open letter that would accept the proposals made in Khrushchev's letter of October 26, before hitting back. Specifically, the Soviets would withdraw their offensive weapons systems from Cuba under U.N. supervision and promise to bring no more into the island. The U.S. would end its quarantine and agree to no aggressive invasion of Cuba. However, even after the President authorized a call-up of 24 air reserve squadrons and 300 troop carrier transports, he was not resolved to set a deadline for action. He decided to let the next Soviet tanker pass through the quarantine zone to Cuba, saying that only thereafter would he put POL supplies on the embargo list.37 After reading a letter from Norstad opposing a trade of the Jupiters, Kennedy had instructions drafted for Finletter in Paris pretending that Norstad's unyielding stance mirrored Washington's and soliciting Allied opinions so that they could not claim later that they had not been consulted. Rusk hoped that somebody in NATO would come up with an idea to "unlock this damn thing." Kennedy wanted letters to de Gaulle, Macmillan, and Adenauer about the possibility of combat over Berlin, as well as a message to Hare in Ankara briefing him on the idea of accepting Khrushchev's proposal of October 26 and ignoring the trade idea in the public message of that morning. However, they might yet need Hare's help to philcox the Turks into a Polaris for Jupiter switch if the Kremlin jumped the other way.38 At 10:00 p.m., Robert Kennedy laid it on the line to Dobrynin. Unless the President had Khrushchev's assurance that the missiles would come out of Cuba, an American attack and invasion would result. There could be no official quid pro quo, he bluffed. The Kremlin must not dare move against Berlin. However, it had always been the President's intention to remove the Jupiters from both Turkey and Italy. Once the crisis was resolved, undoubtedly it would

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only be a short time until this threat too was defused.39 PUBLIC VICTORY/PRIVATE RELIEF The effective end of the crisis came with astonishing swiftness at 11:00 a.m. Sunday, October 28 as Khrushchev's nerve broke before Kennedy's. Only five hours earlier, the CIA had reported that all MRBM launchers were fully operational. Now word came from Moscow that the Kremlin had agreed to withdraw its missiles from Cuba. Even so, the JCS suspected a Kremlin trick. Still spoiling for a fight and deeply frustrated that the best opportunity for ridding the world of the Communist menace would go by the board, LeMay wanted to attack the Cuban missiles anyway. At a meeting with the President the next day, he told Kennedy that the way the crisis ended was a defeat for the U.S., not a victory. Anderson proposed that Soviet cargo ships carrying grain to the island should at least be stopped and searched because some crates on board could not be identified from reconnaissance photos. Taylor too wanted to turn the screws until all offensive weapons systems, loosely defined, were removed, but Kennedy refused. Offensive weapons were subsequently described to the Soviets in the same way as on the October 23 interdiction proclamation, which included SSMs, bombers, bombs, ASMs, other guided missiles, warheads, mechanical/electronic support equipment for the above, and Komar torpedo boats and missiles. Only recalcitrance by Castro in accepting the U.S.Soviet agreement, followed by stubbornness by Khrushchev in continuing to assemble IL-28 bombers caused the President to keep the invasion force intact for another month. Photo reconnaissance confirmed removal of all 42 MRBMs that had reached Cuba, as well as the last IL-28 in an open crate aboard a Soviet ship in early December. The only consolation the Soviets derived for this public humiliation was that the U.S. did withdraw Jupiter missiles from Turkey in April 1963. The U.S. compensated the Turks by sending in more nuclearcapable planes.40 CONCLUSION Postmortems of the crisis by hardliners have been harsh but more easily dismissed than might be warranted because, as most people believe, all's well that ends well. LeMay and senior Air Force officers maintained for years afterward that the vast U.S. nuclear superiority over the Soviets had meant that Kennedy could have dictated terms to Khrushchev if only he had had the will to do so. Even in the days immediately following Moscow's surrender, the President seemed weak-kneed. He ruled against JCS advice to supplement the invasion force and TAC with tactical nuclear weapons and on November 16 turned away unanimous JCS urging to escalate the crisis by adding POL supplies

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to the blockade followed by an air strike if the IL-28s were not quickly removed from the island—which Khrushchev subsequently agreed to do anyway four days later. As with Eisenhower's refusal to take aggressive action against the Chicoms in the Second Taiwan Straits crisis in 1958, Kennedy's caution over Cuba undermined the military's confidence that the President could be counted on to continue to stand up to the Communists as Soviet nuclear power grew. On December 10, 1962, LeMay wrote McNamara that the JCS wanted to disengage from Berlin and withdraw all forces because both American and Soviet vital interests were involved and must inevitably clash. His real fear was not that war would result, of course, but that if it did, the President would decline to go for his guns. America's foremost Cold Warrior could not bear to think of his nation swallowing the bitter pill Khrushchev and the Kremlin had been forced to digest over Cuba.41 Although the way the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved was a great victory for the U.S. and beneficial for the future of the world besides since the Soviets, and Americans, had all hell scared out of them by the apparent imminence of nuclear war, in another sense it was unfortunate. For it never came to light until decades later how unsteadily the President and many of his advisors had behaved during the crisis and how their neglect and inaction had made the standoff over missiles in Cuba far worse than it ever should have become. Had Khrushchev steeled himself for just another 24 hours, he might very well have won a missile swap, to the great detriment of Allied confidence in the U.S. and unpredictable consequences for the future of NATO. On the other hand, Kennedy might well have given in to JCS pressure and authorized military action. Down to the very last second, he did not know himself what he would do.42 Acheson thought it "plain dumb luck" that the crisis ended so well. What really decided the missile crisis was suggested by a DOD paper of February 14, 1963. From start to finish, the U.S. possessed superior conventional firepower in an area vital to the U.S. and not vital to the Soviets, backed up by overwhelming strategic nuclear strength. Add to that the fact that most Russians, including Nikita Khrushchev, did not want to die for Cubans, and a case can be made, as the DOD paper suggested, that there was little real danger of nuclear war. On the other hand, the consequences of miscalculation did justify the President's concern that aggressive action would result in the deaths of several million Americans and tens of millions of Western Europeans, albeit with the recompense of total destruction of Soviet power and the premature end of the global Communist threat. If Kennedy's willingness to trade Jupiter missiles for Soviet missiles in Cuba tarnishes his image as a strong, resolute leader, he at least had the good sense to recognize that the Soviets did not really want to fight over an island in the Caribbean. Thus, by keeping channels of communication open to the Kremlin, he salvaged peace from a dangerous confrontation. In this case at least, it was better to be lucky than good.43

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BEST-LAID PLANS Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role. — Dean Acheson, December 5, 19621

The Skybolt ASM did not measure up to the systems analysis criteria McNamara had brought to the Pentagon. By fall 1962 the Secretary of Defense came to the tentative conclusion that the administration should not procure it for the Air Force. That created a serious diplomatic problem with the British, in that Macmillan and Defence Minister Peter Thorneycroft were counting on Skybolt to extend the life of British V-bombers until some other national nuclear weapons system could be developed or purchased. Since Macmillan had cancelled the Blue Streak IRBM two years earlier and the Blue Water missile in August 1962, the only realistic alternative was the Polaris missile system. In fact, the prime minister had long been counting on the availability of Polaris and had linked—unofficially— the basing of American Polaris submarines at Holy Loch, Scotland to continued U.S. assistance in maintaining an independent British deterrent. Politically, too, the hold of Macmillan's Conservative Party on the House of Commons would be compromised if the Americans did not carry through with the agreement in principle Eisenhower had made on March 29, 1960. Immediately following the Soviet capitulation over missiles in Cuba, the Kennedy administration turned to the problem of making a final decision on Skybolt and how to break the bad news to the British.2 Ideally, cancelling Skybolt would dovetail nicely with a final push to implement the NSAM 40 policy of building up NATO's conventional defenses, eliminating national nuclear forces, and selling the MLF as an alternative. It would also assist Britain's entry into the EEC because the special nuclear relationship with London had long been a sore point for the Common Market's most important player—Charles de Gaulle. However, the French president held a grudge from his treatment by American and British leaders during World War II and the rejection of his Directory idea in 1958. He suspected that a British

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entry into the EEC was a scheme by the Americans to seize control of the Western European economy. Because Washington's star had risen while Paris' had fallen, even a decision by Macmillan to forego Skybolt and Polaris and join wholeheartedly in the MLF was unlikely to sway de Gaulle. American puppetmasters would still be pulling European strings from across the Atlantic. THE STICKY WICKET In early November 1962, McNamara confirmed to the British that the Skybolt program had major problems. Although the Hound Dog ASM and Polaris were being considered as substitutes, the best solution from the point of view of the State Department was a British decision to come in on the sea-based MLF plan with the understanding that nothing would be said publicly until after the EEC ruled on Britain's application for membership. Rusk and Ball were even willing to consider Allied control of the MLF to the point of depriving the President of veto over use (or non-use), and a European-owned MLF without direct U.S. participation. But under no circumstances did they favor selling Polaris as an independent system. That would worsen Western European resentment of the special relationship and entrench the French in their reliance upon the force de frappe. As a consequence, the Germans would insist on acquiring3 independent nuclear weaponry, leading to renewed strife with the Soviets. On November 21, the day after Khrushchev's final capitulation on IL-28 bombers in Cuba, McNamara made his recommendation to cancel the ASM. Two days later, the matter was discussed only briefly at Hyannisport before the President officially cancelled the program. British press reports that the Skybolt deal was in trouble and the political ramifications for Macmillan's government did not make any impression in Washington. The first wake-up call occurred after Acheson went to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on December 5 to lecture on NATO. He suggested that the British Lion, formerly king of the international jungle, had become a toothless old beast in search of a meaningful role now that the empire had disintegrated and the special relationship with the U.S. was soon to be eradicated in favor of a more even-handed policy toward Western Europe. Wounded to the core by a man he considered one of the most pro-British in the Washington establishment, Macmillan took his indignation public in the House of Commons. Yet still the President and his top advisors did not fathom what an eruption would occur across the pond if the U.S. reneged on the Skybolt commitment.4 On the eve of a December 11 trip to London, McNamara told the President he could mollify the British with an offer of Polaris submarines inside an MLF force. Anxious to avoid further development costs, Kennedy overruled Rusk's preference for letting the British take over Skybolt with American financial assistance. He liked McNamara's suggestion that in addition to the MLF as a

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long-term substitute for Jupiter missiles, the U.S. go ahead with more nuclearcapable fighter-bombers for Turkey and Polaris submarines in the eastern Mediterranean. However, he brought the Secretary of Defense up short when McNamara announced his intention of traveling to Paris to push the NAC to build up conventional forces. With the Soviets cowed for the time being and Berlin on the back burner, an augmentation of U.S. forces in Europe was not a good idea, Kennedy said. Any incursion across the West German border by substantial Soviet bloc forces would lead promptly to general war. Thus tactical nuclear weaponry backed up by strategic forces should be sufficient to deter aggressive Soviet moves. McNamara was momentarily struck dumb that the President who had always favored Flexible Response as the only responsible strategy in the nuclear era was suddenly espousing a position almost identical to Eisenhower's old Massive Retaliation theory. Then he recovered to insist that a conventional force buildup was absolutely critical. Although Berlin was at present quiescent, over time the Soviets would grow stronger militarily and apply leverage against NATO on issues not worth thermonuclear warfare.5 McNamara stumbled badly upon arriving in London with a statement to British reporters that the Kennedy administration had been taking a hard look at Skybolt. That set off press speculation that Washington was reneging on its commitment even before he made his pitch to British Defence Minister Thorneycroft. Once across a table from him, McNamara made another mistake by handing over DOD memoranda describing Skybolt's technical weaknesses. That gave Thorneycroft an excuse to be "profoundly shocked" that Kennedy was withdrawing the quid pro quo arrangement Eisenhower and Macmillan had made over Skybolt and Holy Loch at Camp David. It also opened the door for recriminations about the wounding remarks Acheson had made at West Point and the insulting speech McNamara had given at the University of Michigan about "weak" national nuclear forces. Although Thorneycroft insisted that Washington keep its word on Skybolt, his real intention was to force McNamara into a position of having to offer Polaris with no strings. The Secretary of Defense felt under no compulsion to do so.6 In fact, McNamara mistakenly believed that the commitment Eisenhower had made to Macmillan in March 1960 was for British V-bombers to be assigned to NATO once equipped with Skybolt missiles. Logically, an offer of Polaris as a substitute should carry a similar commitment—albeit to the MLF rather than NATO per se. When Thorneycroft realized his ploy had failed, he used McNamara's own memos to dismiss Skybolt as too expensive and a technological dud. Nor could the Hound Dog ASM serve as a substitute because it would require modification of V-bombers to increase the 18-inch clearance between missiles and runway. When McNamara still would not see reason, Thorneycroft came right out and demanded Polaris, not just the missiles but the right to buy components to build similar submarines by 1969 and rent an American Polaris submarine in the interim. McNamara objected that American law prevented a transfer of restricted data about the sub's nuclear reactor.

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Besides, the complexity of Polaris submarines would make training British crews extremely difficult.7 But then he turned right around and offered Polaris if assigned to the MLF. Thorneycroft rejected any arrangement that did not begin with an independent British nuclear force and end with "the possibility of separate even if degraded operations." Nitze's suggestion of a collaborative operational arrangement similar to the way SAC coordinated plans with the British Bomber Command also drew a chilly response. The meeting ended with each defense minister looking upon the other as a stubborn ass.8 Leaked to British newspapers, the Anglo-American contretemps did not impress de Gaulle, who gave Macmillan little encouragement at a meeting at Rambouillet on December 15 that France would support Britain's entry into the EEC. Since the Gaullist party had just swept to victory in elections on November 25, the French president felt himself secure enough politically to give the prime minister all but the back of his hand on the Common Market. He did not even respond to Macmillan's hint that London might join forces with Paris in development of national nuclear deterrent forces if Kennedy refused to give him satisfaction on Skybolt or an acceptable Polaris alternative. In fact, he was so brusque with the Prime Minister that some Foreign Office officials concluded that the EEC bid was already dead.9 However, back in Washington British fortunes revived a bit. Upon reflection, McNamara decided that the U.S. should sell London Polaris missiles, guidance and navigation systems included, upon the same rules of use and control as would have applied to Skybolt and did apply to the existing U.S.U.K. Mutual Defense Assistance agreement. His flip-flop was encouraged by information that Eisenhower's commitment on Skybolt might not have been contingent on the V-bombers being assigned to SACEUR's command. In a meeting with the President on December 16, he declared that the MLF policy was simply unworkable. The Western Europeans would not pay for an expensive sea-based MLF plan at the same time the U.S. was pressing for a buildup of conventional forces. In fact, NATO representatives had made that point themselves at the NAC meeting just concluded in Paris. Barring MLF, the only alternative for the British was Polaris. Since Rusk was still in the City of Light, it was left to Ball to protest that continuation of the special relationship could only encourage nuclear independence by the French, leading to nuclear aspirations by the Germans. The basic NATO policy set forth by NSAM 40 on April 20, 1961 would be shattered. However, Kennedy ruled that because the British had cancelled development of their Blue Streak IRBM based upon assurances from Eisenhower that Skybolt would be provided, he must offer Macmillan Polaris missile components conditional upon London eventually committing its Polaris force to a multilateral or multinational NATO force and a British buildup of conventional forces to agreed NATO levels. Terms governing use of those missiles would be identical to what was contemplated for Skybolt.10

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BAHAMAS BUMBLING Macmillan was in a combative mood when he journeyed to the Bahamas for a showdown with Kennedy on December 19. Acheson's barbs, the Skybolt rebuff, de Gaulle's snub—all made the United Kingdom look small and himself an ineffectual leader. The status of the country as a great power, not to mention the fate of his government, hung in the balance. Thus he began a morning meeting with the President with a long, broad statement on the history of AngloAmerican atomic cooperation and the commitment Eisenhower had made over Skybolt. While conceding the difficulty the U.S. might have with other allies, he insisted that a Polaris deal would have no impact on the U.K.'s entry into the EEC and denied a conflict between an independent British deterrent and an interdependent NATO nuclear force. In the spirit of compromise, he proposed placing one squadron of V-bombers under SACEUR's control if the French would assign a squadron of their planes. He would be flexible on targeting.11 Kennedy countered with an offer to split the cost of Skybolt if the British would accept the missile. He could not accede to the prime minister's wish on Polaris, however, because de Gaulle would be offended if London received something Paris did not, and the Germans, ever fretting that others were plotting to keep them in a permanent state of military inferiority, would demand a similar deal as well. He did promise to work out something on Polaris for the 1970s in a multilateral context once the V-bomber/Skybolt combination reached the end of its useful life. He assured the prime minister that Washington would contribute forces to the MLF so that other countries would see the U.S. putting its nuclear muscle where its mouth was. None of that impressed Home. He retorted that it was impossible to have 15 NATO fingers on a multilateral trigger, thus the MLF idea was fundamentally unsound. What might work would be a joint U.S.-U.K nuclear force, later joined by the French, as a substitute for MLF. So long as the rest of NATO was consulted about deployment, targeting, and other issues, he did not foresee any major obstacles to the concept. No one really wanted to see the Germans get their mitts on nuclear weapons in any event.12 Kennedy shook his head. Adenauer had told him that any nuclear deal with the French would create tremendous political pressure for Germany to acquire nuclear weapons. Macmillan responded that de Gaulle had quoted the chancellor as saying the exact opposite. Ball then tangled with Home and Thorneycroft over whether the MLF plan or Home's idea of a nuclear triumvirate was fundamentally flawed. When McNamara raised the issue of building up conventional forces in case of trouble on Berlin, uncontrolled haggling resulted. Kennedy finally called a halt with the comment that they could not solve these complex NATO questions in this series of meetings. The discussion refocused on the Skybolt problem.13 At once McNamara stumbled again by characterizing Skybolt as a safe and

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effective deterrent, even though it was admittedly only 20-30% reliable in operational tests. Rightfully incensed at being taken for a fool, Thorneycroft categorically rejected Skybolt and the Hound Dog alternative since the time and expense it would take to adapt British bombers would not warrant the effort. Then Macmillan came up with a compromise—assigning all Polaris-type submarines built by Britain to a NATO force, so long as the Queen (i.e., the British government) had the ultimate power and right to withdraw the subs in the event of a dire emergency such as had occurred in 1940. He went on to warn that the extra expense of building submarines would have to be compensated for somewhere else, possibly in military deployments to defend Far East interests. Although he himself was half-American, he feared a refusal by Kennedy would cause a deep rift with Washington.14 The President of the United States responded like a cheap huckster, trying to make the case that Skybolt's technical problems were exaggerated, that at $250 million it was still a good buy, and asserting that the only reason Washington did not order Skybolt itself was because the U.S. had so many alternative systems. He reiterated the three options presented earlier as well as the offer to match London's nuclear contribution to NATO. The British were no more impressed than before because Washington would be permitted to commit only a portion of its nuclear forces to NATO while London would have to assign all. Before breaking for lunch, Kennedy had no answer to Macmillan's fear that the return of all British military power to Europe would expose British allies in the Far East, especially Hong Kong, to Communist pressure. It was all too obvious that the Americans would be pleased to see the last vestiges of the British Empire go the way of French Indochina.15 When he returned for an afternoon meeting, Macmillan sliced up Kennedy's three alternatives as neatly as his chef had cut up cucumbers for his salad. Then he read a draft proposal for the U.S. to sell Polaris missiles, for which Britain would provide submarines and nuclear warheads. The arrangement would be justified to the allies by alleging that the primary task of the submarine force would be to contribute to the defense of NATO, though a separate British commitment would be made to the MLF. It would be a "healthy" situation to have British Polaris submarines available for special needs in other parts of the world, the Prime Minister suggested. The Far East was a likely hot spot to watch. Home added that Polaris might serve a purpose if the border dispute between Red China and India erupted into something more serious and it became necessary to put three submarines into the Bay of Bengal. He also warned that an Iraqi threat to British oil interests in Kuwait might necessitate brandishing a nuclear stick. What they were really saying, Macmillan concluded, was that the Polaris would only be extracted from NATO if it was a matter of absolute survival. Nevertheless, he wanted a British Admiral to issue commands to British submarines, though that officer could be answerable to SACEUR or SACLANT in the chain of command. It was imperative that the men on board British vessels feel themselves to be "Queen's sailors" until some supranational

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organization came along. Again in the spirit of compromise, he would be willing to give definitive approval to the MLF if de Gaulle also said oui.16 Kennedy's father was Joseph P. Kennedy, former Ambassador to Britain from 1937 to 1940, dark days when the United Kingdom had seen allies smashed by Hitler and her own survival brought into doubt. Of Irish extraction and an Anglophobe, the elder Kennedy had reported to President Roosevelt that the British Empire was finished and that the U.S. should accommodate itself to the new realities of Europe. Though he had been replaced by an ambassador more sympathetic to Britain's plight, his legacy must have given Macmillan pause, if only because the prejudice of the father could have been passed down to the son. Certainly the prime minister no longer had any doubts that the President really wanted to force Britain out of the nuclear deterrent business. The only question was whether he would back down for the sake of AngloAmerican goodwill.17 The next morning at 10:00 a.m., Macmillan spoke in the frankest terms yet about the importance to his island nation of maintaining an independent nuclear force. "Actually the whole thing is ridiculous," he began. What could seven or eight British nuclear units add to existing American nuclear forces sufficient to blow up the world? Not much, but to put it bluntly, his country needed its nuclear deterrent to "keep up with the Joneses" as it were. Nations that had once played a great role in history must at all cost retain their dignity. It was not just a question of degree but of the natural order of things. The United Kingdom must never become a clown or satellite of any power. Besides, he only wanted nuclear forces to defend vital British interests. Khrushchev had threatened London with nuclear attack during the Suez crisis, he reminded Kennedy. The Iraqi dictator General Abdul Karim al-Kassem might at any time invade Kuwait with too many soldiers for Britain to repulse effectively on the ground.18 The President remarked that if an agreement were made along the lines the prime minister suggested, it would have to be carefully drafted so as not to encourage requests from the French and the Germans for similar arrangements. He presumed that Britain had no present intention of using nuclear weapons against Iraq. He wanted Macmillan's assurance that the cost of constructing submarines would not come at the expense of building up conventional forces. Berlin was still a potentially explosive problem, he pointed out. The prime minister must make certain that in a statement to the House of Commons about a Polaris deal, the need for increasing non-nuclear forces be made clear. Finally, he wanted British support for the MLF concept, and not just as a cover for national nuclear forces. Although Macmillan hemmed and hawed, he finally let himself be pinned down on what he would say in answer to questions in the House of Commons. The government would make an "independent British contribution" to the nuclear defense of the West.19 That was hardly acceptable to the Americans. Except for McNamara, Nitze, and the JCS, they clung to the idea that the MLF must eventually evolve

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out of any interim arrangement, be it with Britain, France, Germany, or all of NATO. After a recess to draft language for an agreement to sell London Polaris missiles, the parties reconvened to have at the matter again. Macmillan insisted he have the right to withdraw Polaris submarines from NATO command in the case of dire emergency. Although he would commit British nuclear forces to NATO under lesser threats, it must be clearly understood that his government retained ultimate sovereignty so that Her Majesty's government could retain influence in the conduct of important international affairs. Independent nuclear firepower was the lingua franca of influence, he asserted. The wording of their agreement must not look as if Washington wanted "to keep the little boys quiet." After Kennedy complained that the prime minister was asking him to discredit his own policy of discrediting national nuclear deterrents, the meeting adjourned for further consideration of language to break the impasse.20 In truth, Kennedy had already decided to give the British what they wanted—Polaris missiles to mate with British-built warheads and subs. It was now just a question of semantics, which officials continued to debate throughout that day and into the next while their leaders moved on to discussions of other problems. The final deal pleased the Americans very much, poor ninnies, because they believed they had pacified the British revolt for independence while taking a giant step in direction of MLF nirvana. London would be sold Polaris on condition submarines would be assigned to NATO "except where Her Majesty's Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake." Although a part of a multinational force, eventually the Polaris missiles would become part of a multilateralforce. In the interim and until the multinational grouping was ready, what came to be called paragraph 6 forces (because they were mentioned under paragraph 6 of the agreement) or the Interallied Nuclear Force (IANF) would be formed under SACEUR's command with contributions of American strategic nuclear forces and British V-bomber squadrons. Only in post-Nassau discussions did the Americans realize just how loose the British intended to make the arrangement. The agreement was not supposed to upset the timetable, which did not really exist, for building up conventional forces.21 Worried about French reaction to the deal, Kennedy decided on the spur of the moment to offer a similar arrangement to de Gaulle based upon an understanding that Polaris missiles must eventually come under NATO command in an MLF scenario. This pleased Nitze, because on October 25 with time weighing heavily on his hands during the blockade of Cuba, he had circulated a paper in the ExCom's Berlin subcommittee meeting proposing to conciliate the French with nuclear assistance, including 10,000 kilograms of U-235. However, Rusk and Ball conspired to gain control of post-Nassau steering groups so that the move to placate Paris was deemphasized. They were determined that the end result of all this confusion would be an MLF force, emerging like a beautiful butterfly from an ugly cocoon.22 Upon receiving Kennedy's letter, de Gaulle saw only the American Trojan

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horse before the gates of Europe. For one thing, France was not nearly so advanced in nuclear knowhow as the British and could not possibly supply warheads for Polaris missiles, nor build submarines with nuclear reactors without substantial help. One week after Nassau, the ever facile Mr. McNamara proposed to solve this difficulty by providing France with both missiles and submarines so long as de Gaulle agreed to the MLF plan and incorporating Polaris submarines therein. His primary objective was to spare the French the expense of developing nuclear forces on their own so that all available defense funds could be channeled into building up conventional forces, he explained. If both France and Britain could be brought swiftly to a high nuclear posture and simultaneously agree to American command arrangements for use of nuclear weapons, the U.S. would have the best of both worlds. Never mind that the President had already sent a letter to Adenauer saying that the U.S. would offer the French the same deal as the British and no more; never mind that de Gaulle, as Rusk objected, had proven himself uncooperative with American and NATO policies from the first, their goal should be to make Paris as technologically dependent upon Washington as was London.23 BURST BUBBLE As the new year approached, the President's primary concern was paying for all the conventional forces he would need to handle the myriad threats the Soviets and their allies posed around the globe. It worried him so much that at a meeting with McNamara, Gilpatric, and the JCS at Palm Beach on December 27, 1962, he challenged the logic of maintaining the decade-long commitment of six full divisions to Europe with logistics for a 60-90 day fight while most of the NATO allies had not increased their conventional capabilities one whit and had stockpiled only a few days' supplies. This situation would be particularly impractical if their future strategy dictated early resort to nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet invasion, he said. He wanted American forces thinned out and Washington's contribution to NATO's infrastructure renegotiated unless the allies improved their readiness and ability to support a forward defense strategy in 1963. Cost was the overriding factor, as well as de Gaulle's unwillingness to maintain and commit large conventional forces to NATO after bringing home the army from Algeria. The "free ride" the Europeans were getting on both the political and military side was about to end.24 Among the President's advisors, a three-way split developed as to the longterm goal of American NATO policy. Rusk, Ball, and the State Department still maintained stubborn fidelity to an MLF completely under NATO control. McNamara and DOD bureaucrats emphasized a buildup of multinational British and French nuclear forces for the most efficient allocation of resources and with an eye toward a conventional buildup of NATO forces. Bundy and his staff favored starting out with a multinational approach and hoping that national

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nuclear sentiment would die out as Western European and NATO ties grew stronger so that MLF would be the ultimate solution. Despite conceptual and actual misgivings, Kennedy authorized the State Department to lay the American proposal before de Gaulle on January 4. The French president responded politely but firmly c'est impossible. Aside from the fact that France was not sufficiently technologically advanced to benefit as much from Polaris as the British, he viewed the MLF concept merely as a ruse to subordinate national nuclear deterrents to American commanders in NATO. This was all the more unacceptable now because the Cuban Missile Crisis had shown that American leaders placed far higher priority on American security than European. Insofar as France was concerned, the Polaris offer was a dead letter.25 A presentation of the MLF idea to the NAC by Ball on January 11 floundered as well. In Washington, Kennedy and his advisors huddled to discuss what to do to save MLF and the administration's policy toward NATO. Fearing a French offer to West Germany of partnership on nuclear weapons development, they considered boosting the offer to de Gaulle to provide nuclear knowhow equal to what the Soviet Union possessed, including warhead technology. From Kissinger's discussion of January 13 with General Paul Stehlin, Chief of the French Air Force, only such a dramatic offer would have any effect. It was the U.S. policy of balkanizing Europe to maintain control which had so embittered de Gaulle and infuriated French public opinion, Stehlin charged. The Polaris offer did not disguise the fact that American antipathy to the French nuclear program continued. Thus, even though Paris could not hope to develop an effective force de frappe any time soon, and certainly not tactical nuclear weapons before 1970, if only out of national pride de Gaulle would not change course. The real challenge for NATO was to agree on a strategic concept that did not preserve American dominance. The fundamental problem of Franco-American discussions was that it had become a dialogue of the deaf.26 Ball was hard of hearing the next day in a meeting with Couve de Murville. His description of the Nassau proposal emphasized the mixed-manned MLF, not assistance to national forces for the multinational IANF. With no incentive to go for the American deal, de Gaulle called a press conference and gave the coup de grace with relish to the British application to join the EEC and rejected the Polaris offer at the same time. Though amply foreshadowed by the French president's words and actions from 1958 onward, that decision landed with bombshell effect in Washington. Kennedy, McNamara, Bundy, Ball, and Robert Kennedy all reacted with absolute paranoia over a possible French offensive to weaken NATO and thus convince the Germans to take a walk down the Champs-Ely sees, or even make a deal with the Soviets to run the U.S. out of Europe. With typical mulishness, they decided that the best way to deal with the French president was to apply economic pressure and threaten to pull all tactical air bases out of France, which would greatly weaken French air defense against a Soviet attack. Moreover, if the Federal Republic showed signs of following de Gaulle's lead, they might pull the Seventh Army out of West

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Germany, even bring the entire American military establishment in Europe home. Only Rusk had sense enough to remark that most Europeans did not agree with de Gaulle's Weltanschauung. As much as the French president resented American power, at least he had rendered full and immediate support in the showdown over Cuba. No matter the real view from Paris, it was clear that U.S. policy for NATO was sinking fast.27

SALVAGE OPERATION Up to that time, American officials had devoted most of their time to devising a formula to convince the British, French, and Germans that the MLF was the ultimate answer to their nuclear prayers. It was by no means certain that other NATO members would follow Uncle Sam's lead, nor that new SACEUR Lemnitzer would back administration policy better than had Norstad. In conversations with the Italians, Kissinger learned that they did not like the mixed-manning idea at all and that what they really wanted was to mount Polaris missiles on the cruiser Garibaldi. This would be an Italian contribution to a multinational force, not multilateral. Rome had heard piu che a sufficienza about an MLF. Lemnitzer too had no use for the MLF, or even paragraph 6 forces. They would take too much time to organize to solve any of the military problems his command would have with growing Soviet nuclear capabilities in the European theater any time soon, he charged. The IANF would amount to a regrouping of forces that would add no new strength to NATO and would irrevocably commit American nuclear weapons to control by a NATO committee. In agreement, the JCS proposed to cut the heart out of the operational portion of the plan by havi _ the commander of the IANF handle only planning, targeting, and coordination and execution of strikes ordered by SACEUR.28 The overall ruin of American NATO strategy finally began to sink in with Kermedy in a meeting on February 5. Although he had brought Acheson back to advise in the wake of the January debacle with de Gaulle, he rejected the

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guaranteeing not to withdraw troops from NATO for 18 months. Balance of payments problems worried him so much that he thought Britain's entry into the EEC, as unlikely as the event now seemed, might significantly and negatively impact the U.S. economy. He told Merchant not to push too hard with Allied leaders during a trip he was soon to make to Europe to revive the conventional buildup strategy and the MLF plan. Then only a week later, he soured entirely on the Polaris variation. The JCAE opposed transfer of restricted data on nuclear reactor technology for fear the Russians would obtain that information, he explained. Moreover, a force of surface ships would be half as expensive as submarines (though half as survivable) and could accommodate the new, better, and cheaper Pershing missile the U.S. was developing. Since Pershings on

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surface ships would be easier to control than Polaris missiles on submarines, he thought they should amend the MLF plan accordingly.29 Acheson denigrated the whole idea of the allies having a "voice" in decision making. He asserted that the real decision would be whether or not to go to war, not whether or not to use a specific weapon system. But if the Europeans demanded a voice, Merchant should tell them a 2% financial contribution to the MLF would buy a 2% voice and so on. Rusk agreed that an MLF without an American veto made no sense. He thought that once the still ignorant Europeans learned the facts of nuclear war, they would realize the foolishness of launching nuclear weapons without U.S. support. Moreover, Kremlin leaders would be reassured by an American veto because of their paranoic fear of German control and use of weapons of mass destruction.30 At that point, Ambassador Bruce and JCS Chairman Taylor said aloud what most people in the room were thinking—that they should chuck the MLF altogether and stay with paragraph 6 nuclear forces. Only Ball tried to rally the President behind the MLF, protesting that IANF would not prevent German politicians from succumbing to the blandishments of de Gaulle even if they were permitted to contribute F-104Gs and MACE missiles. In comparison to a Franco-German alliance, IANF would look ephemeral. Kennedy responded that paragraph 6 forces would at least dampen German fear of abandonment by reducing the time between conventional combat and resort to nuclear weapons. An agreement could even specify when and in what circumstances nuclear warfare would commence. Nevertheless, he decided to let Merchant's mission go forward because the U.S. had committed to discuss the plan with the Germans and other allies who might still have an interest. After McNamara declared with comic opera effect that the administration must finally decide whether it wanted or did not want the MLF, Kennedy delegated to the DOD the task of drawing up the advantages of surface ships over submarines.31 Six days later, Kermedy redefined Merchant's mission as an attempt to sound out Allied enthusiasm for IANF as well as the MLF. That was becoming even more important now that the French and the Germans had signed a treaty of reconciliation on January 22 with God knew what secret clauses. However, the President's paranoia about a Franco-German deal to boot the U.S. out of Europe faded quickly, so that by the end of February he listed Berlin and Europe as only eighth on the hit parade of trouble spots in the world. Absorbed by the balance of payments problem, he ordered the JCS to study how much the U.S. could reduce its forces in Europe in the next twelve months. He explained that it made no sense to plan 90 days of conventional warfare when the allies contributed so little and NATO had the capability of holding off a crush of Russian tanks for anywhere from 4 to 30 days before he would have to pull the nuclear trigger. Not even Wheeler's fear that the Soviets would grab Hamburg or Munich in a lightning attack and dare the U.S. to go nuclear phased him. In the long run, he insisted, taking care of the balance of payments problems with Europe would protect American interests vis-a-vis the allies as much as military

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firepower would safeguard Western Europe from Soviet attack. As he grew older and wiser, he was sounding more and more like Eisenhower.32 The MLF plan was kept theoretically alive through the end of the Kennedy administration and into Lyndon Johnson's presidency. By April 1963 the DOD believed it had rallied the Germans behind a plan for 25 surface ships carrying 200 missiles with some kind of MLF corporate ownership to give the appearance that the U.S. was not in effective control. However, Strauss, recently resigned as defense minister, and other prominent Germans suspected the U.S. of plotting to dominate the alliance's nuclear forces, raise the nuclear threshold to a purely conventional defense posture, and make a deal with the Soviets to avoid fighting over Berlin. So far as the President, JCS, and SACEUR was concerned, only the first charge was true. Lemnitzer had very definite plans to use tactical nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet thrust across the border. On Kennedy's famous trip to Berlin in June 1963, he received a full briefing of how the U.S. might have to destroy Germany to save it. Then he told the world that the proudest boast of all was "ich bin ein Berliner."33 CONCLUSION Ultimately, a switch to a Flexible Response strategy with forward defense of NATO territory did not win NAC approval until 1967. Even so, American involvement in Vietnam diverted divisions to Southeast Asia that might have gone to Europe, so that the allies showed no greater willingness to build up their conventional forces after the change of policy than before. Even in the Reagan era buildup, no one seriously suggested NATO could stop the Red Army cold without employing nuclear weapons. So long as battlefield, theater, intermediate, and strategic nuclear weaponry remained plentiful, Western Europeans saw no reason to pay for non-nuclear forces that would only be annihilated in a global nuclear war. The grand conception of NATO strategy dreamed up at the tail end of the Eisenhower administration and the first few months of the Kennedy administration was a grand fiasco. A Flexible Response strategy too expensive to implement, an MLF concept too complex and impractical to be negotiated, the unwise attack on a not-so-independent nuclear force of such important psychological and political value to the British, and the complete inability to appreciate the mind and motivations of Charles de Gaulle all brought the administration to the point of walking away from NATO in winter 1963. To give the President and his advisors the benefit of the doubt, their extreme reaction to the French president's bombshell of January 14 was borne as much out of frustration as misunderstanding of de Gaulle's intentions. However, even to suggest abandoning Europe to French direction or, worse, to Soviet domination was a sign of strategic incompetence at the highest levels of the American government.

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No wonder, then, that an equally flawed policy was evolving over Southeast Asia. No wonder that men like McNamara, Rusk, Taylor, and Bundy would lead their country and Kennedy's successor so far astray in committing much of the nation's military resources and prestige to a backwater country like Vietnam. This group of Potomac strategists was far over its collective head.

21 STRATEGIC INCOMPETENCE For it's 1, 2, 3 what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn; next stop is Vietnam. And its 5, 6, 7 open up the pearly gates. Ain't no time to wonder why; we're all a'gonna die!" — Vietnam war protest song

Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether Southeast Asia was vital to the U.S. and the longer-term repercussions of employing nuclear weapons a second time anywhere in the world, the question arises whether Eisenhower, with foreknowledge of the full course of American involvement in Vietnam over the next twenty years, would have changed his mind in spring 1954 and dropped atomic bombs on the Vietminh besieging the French at Dienbienphu. At first blush, such an action might seem a deus ex machina. The French position in Indochina would have been reinvigorated, the Vietminh leadership would have been dismayed to say the least, and Peking would have been intimidated from intervening for fear that the next target of Washington's wrath would be Chinese cities. Then the U.S. would never have had to pour hundreds of millions of dollars in military and economic aid into the region to abate Communist insurgencies, Kennedy would never have had to deploy thousands of American military advisors to buck up a weak South Vietnamese government, and Johnson never would have taken the next logical step of opening a conventional bombing campaign against North Vietnam, supplemented by a landing of 8,000 Marines at Da Nang. Even had atomic bombs had the desired military effect, they would not have solved Southeast Asia's political, economic, and social problems. An overthrow of French colonialism would have been delayed, not destroyed. However, American leaders might well have been tempted to overreach again and again until conflict with Moscow or Peking would have resulted. A situation might have developed wherein the Soviets would have used nuclear weapons in some

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third world country to counter U.S. atomic power. The way to avoid a butcher's bill of 58,000 dead Americans and tens of thousands of other casualties was not to throw caution to the winds and call down upon the Communists atomic destruction but to avoid commitment altogether. Vietnam, Indochina, Southeast Asia—this was never an area of vital American interest. The mistake was not in refusing to use nuclear weapons. The mistake was in becoming involved militarily in the first place. CRISIS IN LAOS In the wake of the second Taiwan crisis, fear developed that the Chicoms, especially after they acquired atomic weapons, would become emboldened to go beyond support of indigenous forces and intervene actively in Vietnam and other countries. In September 1959 a draft of NSC 5913, U.S. Policy in the Far East, predicted that nuclear weapons, albeit under Soviet custody, would be based in Communist China before 1963. That caused Twining to propose that the U.S. begin immediately to organize small units of indigenous troops to seize opportunities whenever they presented themselves to harass the Communists in Southeast Asia and not just assume a defensive posture while the threat grew. Because Eisenhower did not think much of the combat effectiveness of local forces, he responded that Twining's idea would only result in the U.S. getting its face slapped. When NSC 5913 was officially adopted on September 17, 1959, it precluded offensive actions by the Nationalist Chinese, South Koreans, and South Vietnamese against Communist territory unless approved by the President under circumstances of "prompt and clear retaliation against a Communist attack, provided such retaliation is against targets of military significance which meet U.S. criteria as to feasibility and chance of success and which are selected with due consideration for the risk of provoking heavy Communist reaction against free Asian countries." The President was definitely not interested in using nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia.1 However, in the waning hours of his administration, Eisenhower made a great mistake. The Communist insurgency was still building in Vietnam; the Pathet Lao had wrested effective control of northern Laos from government forces and were threatening the capital Vientiane. Frustrated by a lack of allied support for a SEATO intervention plan, he told President-elect Kennedy on January 19, 1961 that as a "last desperate measure" the U.S. should go in unilaterally with 1,200 Marines to prevent a Communist takeover. Although he emphasized his grave misgivings about moving without support of allies, Kennedy focused instead on Secretary of State Herter's warning that loss of Laos—what Eisenhower called the "cork in the bottle"—would result in a fall of dominoes across the region, from Thailand to the Philippines to Formosa. He was determined not to be blamed for the Reds swallowing Southeast Asia whole. Even before taking up station in the Oval Office, as a result, he was embroiled

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in a foreign policy crisis.2 Three days after the inauguration, Nitze wrote McNamara that intervention in Laos fit in with the broad policy Kennedy wanted to pursue of taking on the Communists at many points around the periphery of the Soviet Union and Communist China. However, Massive Retaliation could no longer be the enforcer of Containment. The U.S. must control the risk of nuclear war by building up capabilities for various intensities of warfare short of Armageddon. As with Berlin, a graduated escalation scenario could be developed to save Laos and prevent the fall of Southeast Asia. Ironically, the failure of irregular warfare in the Bay of Pigs invasion in April gave an additional impetus to holding off the Communists in Indochina. "Viet-Nam is the place where—in the Attorney General's phrase—we must prove that we are not a paper tiger," Rostow wrote to the President on April 21. "We must bring to bear all the resources—technical, economic, and intellectual—we have to prove that Vietnam and Southeast Asia can be held."3 However, Laos was the immediate problem, and Kennedy sat down with congressional leaders six days later to brief them on attempts to negotiate a cease-fire. He said that in case diplomatic efforts failed, the U.S. had 11,000 Marines afloat, a battalion of Army rangers on alert, and 4,000 Thai and 2,000 Pakistani soldiers ready for sea and airlift to that country in an emergency. Unfortunately, the British and French were not willing to act until Vientiane fell. Nodding toward Admiral Burke who was present, he added that it was the opinion of the JCS that if the Chinese or North Vietnamese responded to American intervention with intervention of their own, the U.S. could not win with conventional firepower alone.4 At once, Senators Mansfield, Fulbright, and Russell declared that it would be the worst possible mistake for the U.S. to intervene in Laos. Burke argued that if nothing were done, all Southeast Asia would be lost and the U.S. would have to fight in North Vietnam or even China itself to stop the Communist tide. Although he urged them in the most forceful terms to draw the line in Laos, they questioned whether the Laotians were in fact willing to fight for their country. Russell described intervention as an "incredible fantasy" from start to finish and said he would support U.S. troops in Thailand and South Vietnam only if Burke thought those countries had more stomach for a tussle with the Communists than the Laotians had so far demonstrated. Hickenlooper added that a "little atomic war" in Laos was out of the question. Since the U.S. did not yet have enough conventional or guerrilla forces to fight the Pathet Lao on their own terms, the U.S. should write the place off. Agreeing, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D., Minnesota) advised that if the situation was as bad as the President had painted it, the U.S. would be sacrificing its soldiers for nothing. They had to face the fact squarely that U.S. military commitments around the globe had expanded beyond the nation's capacity to fulfill.5 Unwilling to concede more territory to the Communists in the wake of his Cuban failure, Kennedy summoned the JCS to a meeting on April 29. Their

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division did nothing to restore his confidence in their collective competency. Army Chief of Staff Decker complained that the U.S. could not win a conventional war in Laos because of the difficult terrain. Instead of intervening with ground troops or even air power, he wanted to go right to the source of all the trouble and bomb Hanoi and China, maybe with nuclear weapons. However, when he suggested that the mere presence of U.S. troops in South Vietnam and Thailand might produce a cease-fire, LeMay objected that only a bombing campaign could force a deal because the Communists would ignore anything but direct military action. Another way of upping the ante would be to give permission to Chiang Kai-shek to seize Hainan Island. McNamara responded that beachheads in South Vietnam and Thailand would be better. But then he suggested that the U.S. would need to bomb with nuclear weapons to accomplish a cease-fire and permanently set back Communist aspirations in Southeast Asia. After Under Secretary of State Chester E. Bowles remarked that they would have to fight the Chicoms anyway in a few years—it was only a question of where, when, and how—LeMay eagerly called for a showdown as soon as possible. Since the Chicoms would have atomic weapons in one or two years, the time to strike was now.6 Administration disunity was even greater at the NSC meeting on May 1, 1961. McNamara wanted troops into the panhandle of Southeast Asia but was opposed by Taylor, at this stage an informal advisor to Kermedy and not yet committed to the course of active intervention he would champion later in the year. The former Army chief of staff worried about a lack of Allied support and the danger of Chinese intervention as a response to deployment of American forces. He thought it likely that the U.S. would need nuclear weapons to achieve its objectives in Indochina. However, Decker suggested that if the President issued an ultimatum to the Communists to agree to a cease-fire in Laos or see U.S. troops deployed up to the Laotian border while American air power assembled in Thailand, South Vietnam, and aboard a carrier strike force at sea, that extreme could be avoided. Even more aggressive, Burke wanted to counterattack the Pathet Lao and take on the North Vietnamese and Chinese Communists as well, but only locally if they intervened. Although Lemnitzer preferred a SEATO deployment to unilateral U.S. action, White opposed any ground troops in Laos and wanted to threaten Hanoi and South China with air and naval attacks because to him war with Peking was inevitable. Irresolute, the President concluded that the U.S. should get British and French opinions before acting. He was spared a decision on intervention when a cease-fire agreement was signed in Geneva on May 12.7 In June the failure of the Vienna Summit and Khrushchev's renewal of the deadline on Berlin should have focused minds on the relative unimportance of Southeast Asia. But fearing the Soviets would use Berlin as a lever to exact concessions in the region, Burke wanted to prepare the Navy for a showdown in the Far East. In July, Lemnitzer and all the JCS complained that the Pathet Lao were ignoring the Geneva cease-fire and demanded the President take a

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tough stand because there was less danger of nuclear war over Laos than Berlin. A month later, Rostow advised Kennedy to delay the conventional buildup of forces in Europe until preparations for intervention in Southeast Asia were complete. He charged that the SEATO 5 plan for occupying southern Laos if the Pathet Lao took over the north was inadequate. What was needed was a graduated response scenario like the Berlin Contingency Plan, right up to and including use of nuclear weapons.8 Kennedy rejected this advice. In a meeting on August 29, the President decided that he would not commit even small forces to Indochina because every last man might yet be needed for the six-division buildup in Europe. However, the situation worsened in September and October as Viet Cong cadres reached an estimated strength of 15,000 and picked up the pace of guerrilla activities. The JCS became concerned that the SEATO 5 plan was the minimum intervention that would work. Even after Anderson replaced Burke as CNO, they thought a Western move into Laos would be a good counter to Soviet harassment over Berlin. Not understanding the strategic insignificance of Indochina, Kennedy believed he had to do something to save the area from a Communist takeover.9 SLIPPERY SLIDE The President sent Taylor and Rostow to Southeast Asia on October 15, 1961 to ascertain whether the situation was critical, what could be done, and what should be done. Their report of November 3 advised that the loss of South Vietnam would lead to the fall of all Southeast Asia. The first step to salvage the situation was to battle the enemy in a mostly secret, sub-limited war. Many more military advisors should be sent to train South Vietnamese Special Forces units to arrest the Viet Cong insurgency and conduct aggressive naval and coastal patrols. More controversially, a deployment of 8,000 U.S. troops should be made to provide logistical support for the South Vietnamese military and buck up president Ngo Dinh Diem's government. Taylor wrote the President that "while the final answer lies beyond the scope of this report, it is clear to me that the time may come in our relations to Southeast Asia when we must declare our intention to attack the source of guerrilla aggression in North Vietnam and impose on the Hanoi Government a price for participation in the current war which is commensurate with the damage being inflicted on its neighbors to the south."10 Most of the President's advisors wanted action in Indochina; the Taylor report failed to coalesce opinion on specifics. The JCS saw an 8,000 man deployment as too few to preserve South Vietnamese independence and wanted to contribute more dollars and other military assistance to Diem's government while serving notice on Hanoi that retribution was coming if aid to the Viet Cong continued. They did not agree that greater U.S. involvement in Indochina

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would lead to nuclear war with the Soviets. Building on the JCS platform, McNamara informed Kennedy that up to six divisions (205,000 men) would eventually be needed in Southeast Asia, per CINCPAC's contingency plan 3259, Phase IV. That could be done by adding more National Guard or regular Army divisions without seriously interfering with a simultaneous buildup of six divisions in Europe. Although he insisted that the U.S. not send in troops unless willing to commit to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South Vietnam, he failed to mention in his memorandum to the President JCS warnings that nuclear weapons might ultimately be needed.11 However, Bundy did raise that possibility with Kennedy in a memo of November 15. Like Taylor, he preferred to test the water first with a tentative commitment of troops—20,000 to 25,000 would do to start. The President should refrain from making the larger decision about war with North Vietnam and even use of nuclear weapons until the result of this intervention could be gaged. He believed that South Vietnamese forces, unlike Laotian troops, were "usable" and could be whipped into shape to beat off the Communists.12 Opposition to the Taylor report came from three sources: congressional, CIA, and a few administration advisors. On November 2, Senator Mansfield wrote the President that he had heard reports of Taylor's conclusions and wanted to object yet again that putting troops into Vietnam would be the worst move the President could make. "Our problem now is little different than it was in World War II and the years after," he reasoned, "to minimize our involvement, particularly militarily, on the Asian mainland, not to maximize it." Not only would the U.S. have no support from its allies, but intervention would be viewed as a colonial effort similar to the French campaign only seven years earlier. From the strategic point of view, the U.S. would be committing military forces to a fight against the North Vietnamese, which might result in a major war with the Chinese Communists while the Soviet Union stood aside and watched. He advised the President to place the burden of fighting Viet Cong guerrillas on South Vietnamese forces alone.13 The CIA agreed in SNIE 10-4-61 that U.S. intervention was likely to bring the Chicoms into Southeast Asia in force. Even without intelligence estimates, Under Secretary of State Ball knew instinctively that the troops on the ground in South Vietnam would lead the U.S. deeper and deeper into a morass. When he confided his misgivings to the President, Kennedy answered, "George, you're crazy. That just isn't going to happen." But Kennedy did not know that he would be assassinated two years later and that the decision for direct military intervention would fall into the hands of Lyndon Johnson, not himself. Nevertheless, while rejecting U.S. combat troops in South Vietnam at a meeting on November 11, he set the stage for Johnson's great mistake by approving large increases in American military advisors and funding an additional 100,000 South Vietnamese troops. As American conventional and guerrilla warfare capabilities expanded, the temptation not merely to train but to take an active role in South Vietnam's war with the Viet Cong grew.14

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In the short run, the Berlin crisis provided an excuse for the President to hold out against pressure to commit troops to South Vietnam. Although there was no longer talk of tin, tungsten, rubber, and rice as the basis for the strategic importance of Southeast Asia, the JCS insisted that the region was vital because of air, land, and sea bases and difficulties that would result if the Communists controlled such a large land mass athwart American and British lines of communication in the Far East. India, for example, would be "outflanked" by Communist control of Southeast Asia. Dominoes would fall from Thailand to Indonesia to Australia/New Zealand to Japan. Possibly in a shooting war, such broad strategic conclusions would have some validity. In a cold war, they served only to point out the flawed judgment of Lemnitzer and his colleagues. In fact, obsessed by the Communist threat, the JCS no longer seemed to possess the ability to look at a map and ascertain geography and terrain. "Any war in Southeast Asia Mainland will be a peninsula and island-type campaign," they asserted in January 1962. It was "a mode of warfare in which all elements of the Armed Forces of the United States have gained a wealth of experience and in which we have excelled both in World War II and Korea." By May they recommended that if Communist violations of the cease-fire in Laos continued to interfere with formation of a coalition government, the U.S. should implement the SEATO 5 plan and intervene. They neglected to mention that Vientiane was more than 200 miles inside the Southeast Asia "peninsula."15 Even after the Berlin crisis passed, Kennedy held back from proving that the U.S. was not a paper tiger. When a provincial capital, Nam Tha, fell to the Pathet Lao on May 6, he became concerned that former President Eisenhower would make a public statement urging involvement. He sent McCone to sound out the ex-chief executive's views and give him a direct channel to the White House. Still a fervent believer in the domino theory, Eisenhower made the remarkable statement that if Kennedy did send troops into Laos, he should follow up "with whatever support was necessary to achieve the objective of their mission, including—if necessary—the use of tactical nuclear weapons." Alarmed, the President sent McCone back for a clarification in the company of McNamara and Lemnitzer. More judiciously, the former president counseled that he did not want American troops in Laos at this time and that a better solution would be to partition the country north and south like Vietnam. To forestall the possible loss of all Southeast Asia, however, he did favor putting Army, Marine, and Air Force units into Thailand.16 Partition of Laos was on Taylor's mind three weeks later when he told McNamara it was the vital interest of the U.S. to hold Vientiane, the Mekong River valley, and the Laotian border with South Vietnam. Discussing contingency plans with Rusk and Lemnitzer on June 2, McNamara thought that 9,000 to 10,000 troops would be enough to hold the Mekong River valley if backed up by 40,000 more in Thailand. Lemnitzer proposed an aggressive plan of air and ground operations into Laos, as well as amphibious attacks on North Vietnam. Subsequently in August, when Taylor got the word that he would be

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replacing Lemnitzer as JCS Chairman, he went off on an inspection tour of the Far East from August 31 to September 21. It was his intention to integrate tactical nuclear weapons thoroughly into the Far East command as had been done in NATO to provide the capability of stopping a major Chinese attack against Korea, Formosa, or Southeast Asia. While contingency plans were worked out through the balance of 1962 and into 1963, the number of military advisors in South Vietnam shot up to 16,000.17 By June 1963 the JCS thought the U.S. was winning the war in South Vietnam. Insurgency expert and McNamara assistant Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale wrote a memo that found its way into Bundy's hands, asserting that the time had come for the U.S. to shake off the psychological and actual confinements of the Containment mentality and take more direct, aggressive, and ruthless action against Communist forces. Nothing less than a crusade mentality among the American people would do. "We are forever the nice little boy told to stay on our side of the street and not cross over and punch the bully who has hit us with rocks, mud, and taunts," he wrote. The solution was to dispense with tired, outdated precepts and move toward a cold-blooded policy guided by an updated and Americanized version of The Prince, the amoral blueprint for political action permed in 1513 by Renaissance writer Niccolo Machiavelli. He concluded: "In other wars remembered by living Americans, the United States declared war through the U.S. Congress exercising its power under Article I of the Constitution. This concentrated the will, energies, resources, and genius of the American people into winning the war, paramount above all other issues. Isn't it rational to assume that much of the diffusion of U.S. effort has come about through the lack of our declaring cold war, through the U.S. Congress, and under the Constitution?"18 The President was in Berlin on June 26, 1963 to address hundreds of thousands of people in the Rudolf Wilde Platz and assure them of his devotion to freedom and democracy throughout the world. In private counsels, he was somewhat less enthusiastic about launching a Lansdale-like crusade against Communism. Chastened by the Berlin and Cuban crises and unconvinced of the importance of Indochina, he listened with misgivings to briefings on contingency plans for military intervention. Although a graduated escalation scenario had now been drawn up with preparatory economic, political, and counterinsurgency moves, a Phase III air attack on North Vietnam would lead to use of nuclear weapons, per CINCPAC's OPPLAN 32-63. Even conventional bombing of the north might cause Peking to feel threatened and intervene. Although the Chinese had yet to produce an atomic bomb, they could field hundreds of thousands of soldiers and force a choice between going nuclear or withdrawal. Plainly, the idea of pitting American ground troops a second time against human wave attacks did not appeal to the President. On the other hand, with 16,000 military advisors already committed to South Vietnam, he was being pulled deeper and deeper into the morass Ball had warned about. He wanted to find a way out.19

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BLIND LEADING THE BLIND In late September 1963, McNamara and Taylor visited South Vietnam and reported that the war was being won and that the U.S. could pull out 1,000 military personnel. In reality, the situation was deteriorating rapidly in the wake of riots by Buddhist monks, government intrigue, and the Communist insurgency. On November 1, 1963, Diem was assassinated in a military coup inspired by American officials fed up with Diem's corruption and failure of the counterinsurgency campaign. Diem's fall only led to bolder attacks by the Viet Cong and further instability so that when Kennedy himself died in Dallas on November 22, President Johnson faced almost immediately the question of whether the U.S. should intervene. He resisted, but his eventual decision to take the plunge flowed from three factors.20 First, he was more receptive than Kennedy to the opinions of advisors who labeled Southeast Asia as pivotal to U.S. national security. In December 1963 he wrote a memo to Taylor and suggested that Vietnam was the most critical military problem facing the U.S. The JCS Chairman and his colleagues emphatically agreed. Three months later, Bundy described the region as vital because 250 million people lived there, it was a large land mass in a key geographic location, and the U.S. had been committed to its defense for so long (10 years) that American honor was at stake. Johnson never challenged the logic.21 Second, intelligence officials continued to estimate that, despite large and repeated increases in the Army of South Vietnam, indigenous forces alone could not stem the Communist tide. That meant that eventually the U.S. would have to intervene militarily or see the new government of General Nguyen Khanh crumble. The sooner the President acted, the better, advisors insisted. Once withdrawal was ruled out, the logic of early intervention became irresistible. Third, Johnson's fear of political fall-out from abandoning Indochina pushed him to take more decisive action. However, like Kennedy, he feared escalation to war with China, the possibility of having to use nuclear weapons, and a potential conflict if Moscow came to Peking's aid. The whole thrust of American policy was to behave like a high-wire walker, then, balancing between military measures considered adequate to hold off the enemy in the field without inviting Chinese intervention and a wider war.22 Although Johnson did not want to have to choose between another Korean-size bloodletting and using nuclear weapons, in the end he got stalemate, escalating involvement, and irregular warfare against a foe who except on rare occasions would not come out and fight. On January 22, 1964, the JCS told McNamara that the U.S. "must be prepared to put aside many of the self-imposed restrictions which now limit our effectiveness, and to undertake bolder actions which may embody greater risks." They advocated vigorous air attacks on North Vietnam and introduction of U.S.

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combat forces for action in both the southern and northern halves of the country. In response, the Secretary of Defense directed the Chiefs to plan a campaign of covert actions and air and sea attacks on the North Vietnamese up to but not including nuclear weapons. Although the JCS then complained that if the Chicoms came in on Hanoi's side, nuclear weapons might be needed, and submitted a plan culminating in a strike at the Chicom atomic production facility that would produce a bomb in October 1964, McNamara scaled it back before presenting it to the President. He was in tune with Johnson's desire to avoid nuclear combat. He ignored what the nation's senior military men said was the minimum action necessary for victory in Southeast Asia.23 The policy of fighting with one arm behind Uncle Sam's back became further entrenched in May and June 1964 with intelligence estimates that the U.S. could probably get away with bombing North Vietnam so long as there was no ground invasion of North Vietnamese or Chinese territory. At Honolulu on June 1 and 2, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge called for just that move to boost morale among the South Vietnamese people. McNamara and Taylor insisted that contingency plans for retaliatory air strikes aim at selective targets only. Despite Lodge's optimism that the Viet Cong had no support in the south, the Secretary of Defense felt very pessimistic about the trend in the counterinsurgency war and wanted to introduce "something new" to turn the tide. Something new had already been introduced in Thailand, where SEATO forces, including U.S. air and ground contingents, had intimidated the Pathet Lao from operating too near the Mekong River border with Laos. Because of discussions Rusk had held with Thai officials, Bangkok believed it had a virtual defense alliance with the U.S. They trusted that if Thai soldiers crossed the Mekong River in force and were hit with a major Communist counterattack, the American nuclear umbrella would protect them.24 On July 7 the President signaled the world just how important Southeast Asia was to the U.S. by making Taylor Ambassador in Saigon. Then on August 2 and possibly August 4, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Capital Hill responded to Johnson's plea for support with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of August 7, stating that "the U.S. regards as vital to its national interests and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia." Only two senators and no congressmen had the political courage and strategic wisdom to disagree. The decision whether to intervene now rested solely with the President of the United States.25 In September 1964 a war game was held in the Pentagon attended by Bundy, LeMay, JCS Chairman Wheeler, and others. The scenario was a Chinese air intervention in Laos and Vietnam, followed by Seventh Fleet retaliation and the deployment of Marines to Da Nang. After an ambush of an American battalion, the U.S. invaded North Vietnam by amphibious landing, confronted Chicom troops in northern Laos, and used conventional bombs to attack selected industrial and military targets in China. However, only a

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minority of the war game's American leadership voted to use nuclear weapons to destroy Chicom nuclear production facilities and execute a general nuclear attack on China. The entire point of the exercise was to push matters to the limit without resort to nuclear weapons to determine whether conventional firepower alone would stop the Communists in Southeast Asia. The answer derived from the war game was probably not.26 Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona already knew that. Running for President in the fall of 1964, he announced that he might delegate authority to the military to decide on the use of nuclear weapons. After Johnson ran a controversial commercial of a little girl picking flowers followed by detonation of a nuclear bomb and a mushroom cloud, the Texan was elected President by one of the biggest landslides in history. Although there were many other factors involved in his victory aside from fear of nuclear war, rhetoric by Goldwater such as "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice" did not inspire confidence that he would keep the doors to the temple of nuclear war permanently shut.27 While supportive of administration policy in Indochina, the country was clearly not hungry for a crusade against Communism such as Lansdale advocated. Even Viet Cong attacks on the Bien Hoa air base and Brinks Hotel in Saigon which took American lives could not motivate the President to intervene. McNamara scaled back yet again JCS plans for retaliatory air strikes. He claimed recently that on moral grounds he was shocked at the "almost cavalier way in which the Chiefs and their associates . . . referred to, and accepted the risk of, possible use of nuclear weapons" against China if Peking intervened. Although the Chinese had only just tested an atomic device, he alleged that a nuclear strike by the U.S. would have been "almost surely an act of suicide."28 It was McNamara himself with Bundy who put Johnson on the spot with a memo dated January 27, 1965. The situation in Vietnam now demanded either an escalation of U.S. involvement or withdrawal, they wrote. American troop strength of 23,000 had either to rise dramatically or the war would be lost. Rusk agreed that the South Vietnamese government was not up to the task of battling the Communists alone but thought that the consequences of escalation or withdrawal even worse. He preferred to stand pat to await developments. Frustrated that his Great Society domestic spending and reform programs might run afoul of a political backlash over Vietnam, the President sent Bundy to Saigon to take a closer look. The National Security Advisor's conclusion that a policy of graduated and sustained bombing of North Vietnam offered the most hope did not persuade Johnson.29 Finally, the President turned to Eisenhower for advice. Again the former president's wisdom failed him. In a meeting on February 17, he told Johnson, McNamara, Wheeler, and Bundy that bombing North Vietnam was the right move to weaken Hanoi's will, boost morale in South Vietnam, and contain Communism in Southeast Asia. He advised that the JCS shift from a policy of

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retaliatory strikes to a campaign of pressure, in particular air attacks on the southern half of North Vietnam. Although concerned about Chinese intervention and the danger of a big war, if it would require direct U.S. air attacks on Chicom forces and up to eight U.S. combat divisions on the ground to win a final victory, he was for it. The President should warn Moscow and Peking of the possibility that the U.S. would use nuclear weapons if they intervened on behalf of Hanoi, the threat he had used so successfully in Korea. Two days later, Johnson made the decision to initiate Operation ROLLING THUNDER, a bombing campaign of selective targets in North Vietnam set to begin March 2. While initial attacks would come from carrier-based planes, U.S. air power flying from South Vietnam would also participate. Thus on March 8, Marines landed at Da Nang to protect the air base there. They brought 8-inch, atomiccapable howitzers but no atomic shells.30

CONCLUSION Air strikes and Marines on the ground was just what the JCS had been waiting for to roll up their sleeves and really design a plan to defeat Communism in Southeast Asia. Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson returned from a trip to Saigon in mid-March to report to the President that the U.S. would need 500,000 men for five years to win final victory in Vietnam. A bit stunned, Johnson waited until April to give the go-ahead for the Marines and U.S. military advisors to take an active role in combat operations, indeed to take over direction of the war. It was not until conferring in July with the so-called Wise Men—Acheson, Bradley, Lovett, Gilpatric, McCloy, others with impeccable Cold War and Containment credentials—that he agreed to give General William C. Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Military Assistance Vietnam, the 175,000 troops he wanted by the end of 1965 to fight the war with at least 100,000 more planned for 1966. Drawing a comparison to the way Eisenhower brought the Korean War to a close, Bundy suggested to McNamara on June 30 that the administration should at least consider "what realistic threat of larger action is available" to intimidate Hanoi before deploying so many men. However, in a memo of the same day to Johnson, he took pains to distinguish between the French colonial failure in Indochina in 1954 and the anti-Communist U.S. effort that was then ongoing. Ultimately, Johnson took his cue from old soldier Bradley, not his shifty National Security Advisor, that Vietnam was "the right war, at the right time, with the right enemy—Communism." He told the nation on July 28, 1965 that the U.S. intervention in Indochina was about to escalate dramatically.31 The President and his advisors continued on their tragic course, never realizing until too late that Indochina, in the grander strategic scheme of things, was not—to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck—worth the bones of a single American infantryman. Three hundred of them died in battle in the la Drang

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Valley in November 1965, taking 1,300 North Vietnamese soldiers with them. After a Christmas 1965 bombing halt, the President again took comfort from the counsel of "wise men," this time Clark Clifford, Allen Dulles, McCloy, and lawyer/diplomat Arthur Dean, that escalating to 500,000 troops was the right move. When even that huge increase in military power did not bring victory, the JCS endorsed Westmoreland's March 18, 1967 request for 200,000 more men and proposed in late May that the war be widened with heavier air attacks, invasions of North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and even nuclear attacks on southern China in the event of Chicom moves against South Vietnam, Thailand, or South Korea. Although McNamara objected that "the war in Vietnam is acquiring a momentum of its own that must be stopped," his own nebulous alternative of a "politico-military strategy that raised the possibility of compromise" did not in fact reduce deployments nor provide for a feasible withdrawal scenario. Eventually he was replaced by Clifford as Secretary of Defense as of March 1, 1968. His reward for keeping his mouth shut while American soldiers continued to fight and die in Indochina was presidency of the World Bank.32 Taylor, on the other hand, never understood that Vietnam was of no importance to American national security. His 1971 explanation of the lessons of the conflict focused on problems with graduated response, the need to define an objective in simple terms which could be achieved in a short time frame, and the necessity for Congress to declare war the next time the U.S. sent military forces into combat. In fact, he was so confused about the significance of the Vietnam war that he described the U.S. as a declining power that, despite the world's strongest economy, had achieved only "limited success" in harnessing that strength to support foreign policy objectives in time of peace. Somewhere in the great beyond, Harry Truman must have snarled "Bunk!"33 The only time the U.S. specifically considered using nuclear weapons during Johnson's administration, it is said, occurred after the January 23, 1968 capture of the Pueblo spy ship by North Korea and in February 1968 after the Tet offensive shocked the American public. For a time just south of the demilitarized zone at Khe Sanh, the Third Marine Amphibious Force of 6,000 men was besieged by 15,000 to 20,000 North Vietnamese regulars. Because of the enemy concentration, Westmoreland thought the situation might be ripe for employment of tactical nuclear weapons. Although Johnson phoned JCS Chairman Wheeler, asking whether he might have to make a decision to go nuclear, Westmoreland was quickly ordered to drop the idea for fear the news would leak to the press. No matter; like the Tet offensive, Khe Sanh was a crushing military defeat for the enemy. The North Vietnamese lost 10,000 to 15,000 men to ground fighting, artillery, and conventional air strikes as opposed to 205 Marines killed. And yet politically the battle was a great victory for Hanoi. If after the Tet offensive an increasing majority of the American people considered Vietnam not worth the life of one American soldier, to the North Vietnamese it was worth 2 million dead.34

22

UNPLAYABLE CARD? O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength, but is it tyrannous To use it like a giant? — A twist on William Shakespeare1

Why did the United States not use nuclear weapons in the first twenty years of the Cold War? When I began research for this book, the answer I thought I would find is that when you are in a poker game and are holding most of the aces and most of the high-value chips, you do not kick over the table. But many American leaders did not perceive themselves in such a favored position, nor so secure that the U.S. could remain on the defensive while the Communist wave smashed repeatedly against the walls of Containment. That is why, in crisis after crisis, Presidents contemplated use of nuclear weapons; that is why a preemptive strike doctrine permeated general war plans; that is why serious consideration was even given to preventive war. Although most American strategists knew that the U.S. had too much to lose to unleash the power of the atom in the Cold War, the real explanation of why they refrained from annihilating the Soviet Union, Red China, North Korea, and North Vietnam is more varied and complex. Given the potential military decisiveness of the nuclear option, it is still somewhat remarkable that since Nagasaki a nuclear weapon has never been detonated in anger. Regardless of policy statements to the contrary, nuclear weapons are and were in a different military, political, and psychological category than other weapons. Not only the allies but most of the world feared the long-term consequences of using atomic bombs even before the Soviets acquired the weapon in August 1949. Without the overarching requirement of using every means available to win a world war, American presidents would naturally hesitate to reach into the military arsenal for this most awesome of weapons. They would certainly not risk nuclear war with the Soviets, or even the

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condemnation of allies and neutral powers, unless the most vital U.S. interests were at stake. THE CRISES In 1948 while Washington had a monopoly on atomic power, it was easy for a war-ravaged Europe, threatened by Communist subversion, to applaud Truman's stubbornness over Berlin. Though the city was never in itself of tangible significance to American national security, for prestige* sake and to show the Soviets that the U.S. would not retreat across the Atlantic a second time, Berlin was indeed important enough to warrant general war in its defense. Since the atomic stockpile was so small and the bombs therein crude and cumbersome, Truman wisely did not make overt threats against the Kremlin nor use the crisis to instigate a showdown. Deployment of SAC bombers to back up the airlift proved sufficient to intimidate Stalin and establish the efficacy of atomic deterrence. Prestige, stopping the Communist wave that had swept over China, and genuine moral outrage were the reasons the U.S. intervened in Korea. The country was not vital to American national security. Aware of that fact well before the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel, most Potomac strategists wanted to limit hostilities until a cease-fire could be arranged and an honorable withdrawal effected. For emergency use only, atomic strikes on the Korean peninsula were studied and additional SAC deployments around the periphery of the Soviet Union made to prepare for the possibility of general war. It was MacArthur's aggressiveness that provoked Chinese intervention, not a conscious decision in Washington to roll back the Communist tide. In any event, the fighting spirit of American soldiers spared Truman from having to choose between an atomic offensive against China or leaving 20 million Koreans at the mercy of the Communists. During the thirty additional months of savage warfare and mounting casualties which followed, the first tactical atomic systems were developed for deployment in Europe. For Eisenhower, atomic bombs seemed a way out of the trap of having to pit American manpower against Communist hordes. Almost certainly, he would have employed them in North Korea to end the war and possibly launched selective atomic strikes at military targets in China. However, with the armistice, he refocused American energies on the domestic economy and Western Europe and held tight to Containment for the long-haul struggle against Moscow. Although he established Massive Retaliation as the policy that would henceforth deter Communist aggression, like Truman, he found it difficult to sit idly by while Red China aided insurgencies in Southeast Asia and American friends and allies came under military pressure. Thus he toyed with the idea of using atomic weapons to save the French at Dienbienphu and found himself lured into defending Formosa—not in itself vital; merely a part of an island

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defense chain in the Far East. When Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist tail then wagged the American dog over the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu, American air and naval power prevented Peking from carrying through on invasion threats. Even so, downed planes, a sunk ship, more U.S. casualties than did occur might have engaged American prestige and required the satisfaction of retaliation against the mainland. There was even a slim possibility that Eisenhower might have been maneuvered into using atomic weapons. As with Berlin, once Quemoy and Matsu had been saved, they acquired a symbolic importance far our of proportion to their intrinsic value. Whether vital or not to U.S. national security, what had once been placed under American protection could not so easily be surrendered in later crises. Nuclear superiority guaranteed that so long as the man in the White House was respected in Moscow, the Soviets would not challenge American might. The Berlin crisis in 1958-59, as a consequence, was not so serious as in 1961. Khrushchev knew that Eisenhower considered Western rights in the former German capital a causus belli. As much as the President might wish that the U.S. had never committed so heavily to that city, as much as he realized that prestige was a very nebulous platform from which to launch nuclear war, he would have turned SAC loose had Khrushchev not backed down from his ultimatum. Even in 1960, Soviet strategic forces were more mirage than miracle. The full SIOP would have eradicated Communist power around the globe, though whether Western Europe would have survived is extremely doubtful. A new generation of American leaders did not want to face a showdown again with no alternative but Armageddon or surrender. Even John Foster Dulles before his death believed that Massive Retaliation would lose credibility once Soviet nuclear strength reached parity with American. Although U-2 and satellite intelligence proved that U.S. nuclear superiority was expanding, not shrinking, the call for a strategy of Flexible Response requiring greater conventional forces in Europe had the unintended but predictable consequence of convincing NATO leaders that Kennedy's commitment to Western European security was less determined than had been Eisenhower's. Khrushchev thought so too after Vienna in June 1961. With NATO firmly entrenched, the young President could not possibly argue that West Berlin with its two million inhabitants was a vital enclave for the West, he thought. He was right; it was not. But for prestige' sake, the U.S. needed to put up a "really determined fight" with upwards of six divisions of American troops before pulling back bloody but unbowed—or else escalate to a game of nuclear chicken that might wind up with the USSR (and maybe Red China) obliterated, Western Europe blown into a mist, and several large metropolises in the United States nothing but smoking, irradiating ruins. The Berlin Wall and the harebrained schemes Kennedy's advisors worked up decided Khrushchev against taking the gamble. He vowed that the next time the superpowers faced off, his missiles would have the America heartland dead in their sites.

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But he moved too soon before Soviet long-range nuclear capabilities had matured and in an area of unmistakable and vital importance to the United States. Gross negligence by the President and his top advisors permitted the Soviets to sneak into Cuba enough medium-range missiles to provoke the most dangerous crisis of the Cold War. Had Kennedy possessed Truman's decisiveness, he might have squashed the threat like a bug before missiles became operational. Although it was very farfetched to believe that the Russians would have willingly committed national suicide to defend Cubans, the possibility did exist that Khrushchev would have retaliated against Turkey or Berlin, causing an escalation to nuclear combat. Once missiles started landing on military targets or even cities inside the U.S. and USSR, theories about controlling a nuclear exchange would have yielded to hard reality. American leaders, like Soviet, would have tried to wipe out the enemy before he could retaliate and do the same. The Berlin military buildup and the Flexible Response strategy provided American leaders with something they were not strategically mature enough to handle—the temptation to use that capability to beat back Communism wherever it arose. Kennedy's worst mistake was choosing advisors of inferior judgment and ability, then letting them talk him into committing substantial military and economic resources to Indochina when that area was of no particular importance to the U.S. However, the decision to initiate air strikes against North Vietnam and insert combat troops into the south was Johnson's call, albeit encouraged or at least not dissuaded by the same inept men Kennedy had relied upon. Whether McNamara, Taylor, Bundy, and Rusk truly believed that Southeast Asia was vital to American national security or were dissembling, their conscious policy from beginning to end was to limit the conflict, avoid a wider war with China, and (with the exception of Taylor) rule out the use of nuclear weapons. Without a full conviction and commitment to win, they created a situation in which a war of attrition sapped the nation's will. They were responsible not only for an unsuccessful, wasteful, and bloody war but major upheavals in American society. Because Taylor and other top military leaders had risked life and limb in World War II and Korea, their moral authority to hurl men into combat was far more substantial than Johnson's, McNamara's, and other civilian officials. It is shocking, nevertheless, that the level of their strategic thinking was so debased that they could not fathom the intrinsic foolishness of committing so many hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to Indochina. Like compulsive gamblers intoxicated by the "success" of breaking even in Korea, the offshore islands crises, the Berlin standoff, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, American strategists came to believe they could always roll the dice one more time and not lose their shirts. In Vietnam, not sheltered by the nuclear umbrella, they found it was not so.

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LESSONS The U.S. won the Cold War because it possessed at the end of World War II and retained over the next four decades a preponderance of nuclear, economic, and political power. The Containment policy was designed to protect these advantages. When Washington went beyond the physical boundaries of its tangible vital interests, it came into unwinnable conflict with the Communist bloc. Then the temptation to reach for the atomic ace was strong. Even the Cuban Missile Crisis was in part a reaction by the Soviets to the overextension of American power. The danger of nuclear conflict could almost have been eliminated had the U.S. focused systematically on protecting vital interests based upon tangible factors. At present, the U.S., its allies, and friends control 80% of the world's economy (North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia/New Zealand),2 much of the world's critical raw materials (in the aforementioned areas as well as the Persian Gulf, southern Africa, Mexico, etc.), and stronger nuclear and other military forces than any other bloc. Avoidance of foreign policy adventures based upon prestige or dubious ideological crusades will preserve this 80% power, reduce the possibility of nuclear conflict, and over time persuade potential adversaries to make accommodations rather than initiate hostilities. The free world has never been in so advantageous a position as today. Second, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson—all were intelligent leaders with the ability to perceive what was of tangible and vital interest to the U.S. and what was not. Because of the driving imperative of anti-Communist ideology, because of a fervent belief in the Tightness of democracy and the American way, they overextended the prudent boundaries of Containment and found themselves in the predicament of having to consider nuclear weapons to defend marginal territory. Thus it is not sufficient only to identify tangible vital interests. Presidents and their advisors must have the tenacity and moral courage to resist political, psychological, and ideological pressures to wander far afield. Television pictures of chaos in Africa, civil war in the Balkans, and turmoil in the states of the former Soviet Union may seem to create an imperative for American action. If the territory and people in crisis are not proven vital to the national security by tangible factors, no amount of suasion will galvanize the American people to support intervention of any substance or duration. Presidents should at least have as much common sense as the public they serve in making this evaluation. Third, the U.S. jumped directly into the Korean War. Such was not the case with Vietnam. Economic and political support came first, followed by military assistance, and finally combat intervention. Presidents would have been far better advised never to have allocated resources to the region than to have committed so heavily, fight a limited war, and retreat. While the physical damage to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia was spectacular in its ugliness, the political and psychological repercussions in the U.S. were well-nigh revolution-

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ary. It is absolutely incredible that American leaders could have become so obsessed by happenings in a small, backwater country. It is even more bizarre that, after that scarring experience, we have leaders today who repeat the mistake and squander resources in local and regional conflicts of no direct significance to American national security. The lesson is that small commitments become large as prestige follows resources and leaders lose sight of the strategic forest for the tactical trees. That impression comes out all the more strongly when reading documents pertaining to the tragedy of Vietnam or listening to current leaders try to sell us on the foreign policy adventure of the month. However, man does not live by vital interests alone. Americans do not wish to focus on the tangible—oil, other strategic raw materials, militaryindustrial power centers, key geographic regions—to the exclusion of the ideological underpinnings of the country as embodied in the Constitution. Especially where widespread human suffering or genocide occur, or where democracy is struggling to take root, the urge to offer assistance can be overpowering. However, massive relief efforts require military muscle to implement; a military presence leads to confrontation and violence. Such relatively minor deployments in Somalia (1992-94) and Haiti (1994-) may not develop into another Vietnam quagmire or a decision-point whether to use nuclear weapons, but they do repeat the Cold War pattern of intervention in areas of marginal or no importance. The recent bombing in Bosnia by NATO air forces (including American) and current deployment (December 1995) of U.S. soldiers to that province of the former Yugoslavia as peacekeepers has an even greater potential for developing into a debacle. Eventually, Washington's preoccupation with minding everyone else's business will backfire yet again. Fifth, of all the Presidents in the Cold War period, Eisenhower had the best instincts for what was vital and what was not. His legacy is diminished in part by the terrible advice he gave Kennedy and Johnson about Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, his record in office points out the critical necessity for presidents to have an independent base of knowledge about all major areas of policymaking, but especially in the national security domain, so that the counsel of advisors does not dominate. While Truman substituted self-confidence and dogged obstinacy for such experience with varying results, Kennedy and Johnson lacked even those attributes and had to fall back on the advice of incompetents. The combination of personal ignorance and staff ineptitude proved deadly for tens of thousands of American soldiers in Indochina. Had Truman and his Cold Warriors not started out with a great preponderance of nuclear, economic, and political power, the outcome of the Cold War might not have been so satisfactoryFinally, history teaches that big gorillas intimidate little monkeys every time. In the first twenty years of the Cold War, the U.S. was the only 600pound simian in the world in terms of atomic firepower and economic strength. Despite single-minded Communist efforts to catch up, American nuclear

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superiority proved decisive when push came to shove over Berlin where NATO non-nuclear forces were dwarfed by Soviet manpower, and Cuba where American conventional strength in the hands of a President with more decisiveness would have resulted in a free Cuba, not just a missile-free Caribbean. True, Russian power for worldwide adventures is immobilized for the present and the PRC is still only a regional power, though with wider potential. Regional wars can be expensive and dangerous nevertheless, as the U.S. and its allies found out in the Persian Gulf in 1990-91. The lesson is that a military establishment of sufficient size and quality, with a capacity to project power around the world, must be maintained to intimidate potential adversaries. If a pragmatic policy for making use of American nuclear strength to protect tangible vital interests can be devised as well, the U.S. will be able to avoid large overseas deployments of forces. The 80% preponderance of economic strength we and our allies possess, which is the foundation of our democracy and surest guarantor of our freedoms, will be preserved.

MORAL DILEMMA A popular saying is that nuclear war is "unthinkable" and that no responsible American leader would contemplate it. That is like saying that people in Victorian England did not think about sex. In fact they thought about it all the time, as did American leaders about nuclear war and use of nuclear weapons during the first twenty years of the Cold War. Contemplation of the "unthinkable" was in its heyday from 1945 to 1965. On several occasions our highest civilian and military officials gave the most serious thought to repeating the onetwo punch that knocked out the Japanese Empire. Why? Because quite rightly Truman and Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson had to balance the cost of using nuclear weapons versus the cost of not using them. In September 1948, Truman could have ordered an atomic attack on Soviet cities, killing several million Russians but also freeing tens of millions of eastern Europeans who subsequently spent another four decades behind the Iron Curtain. In December 1950, he could have effected an even greater cataclysm of destruction and liberation with an atomic assault on China. The fact that he did not indicates that he was somewhat less impulsive and bloodthirsty than critics of his decision to use atomic bombs against the Japanese charge. Nevertheless, a successful atomic war against Stalin and the Soviets would almost certainly have saved more people in the long run than it killed—just as the overthrow of Hitler and the Nazis undoubtedly benefited the world. In the mid-1950s, Eisenhower could have opted for preventive war on several occasions, annihilating tens of millions from the Elbe to Vladivostok but undoing the Communist empire and removing the threat that dominated the globe through the 1980s. He could have employed atomic bombs for more limited

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purposes in Indochina and southern China. The fact that he did not attests as much to his humanity as last-minute strategic instinct. He was wise enough to know that war, once unleashed, has unpredictable consequences, and the likelihood of winning a preventive war without tremendous damage to allies and ultimately the American homeland itself was diminishing as Soviet nuclear power grew. He decided to sweat out the Cold War in the hope that a final showdown could be averted. In summer 1961 and again in October 1962, Kennedy could have settled matters with the Kremlin once and for all because the showdown seemed upon him. Millions of Americans might have died; on the other hand, one of the harebrained schemes to knock out Soviet strategic power might have worked and the U.S. would have been able to dictate terms to the Communist world. And finally in the mid-1960s, Johnson could have taken out China's atomic capabilities, declared all-out war on Hanoi, and dared the Soviet Union to lift a finger to intervene. He would have been wrong on strategic grounds to risk Armageddon over Southeast Asia. Had they known their ultimate fate, the millions of people who died subsequently in Indochina might have disputed whether risking all on their behalf was immoral. For is it moral not to employ nuclear weapons when lives can be saved and resources preserved by making use of them? Certainly since the late 1960s nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union (now Russia) has become pointless because much of the world would be destroyed in the first hours of such a conflict. The majority opinion of politicians, historians, and other observers continues to insist that any use of nuclear weapons is wrong. Some even charge that it would be particularly "erroneous to the point of criminality to use atomic weapons over a Third World Country."3 But that does not take sufficient account of the consequences of failing to act. For example, could not President George H. Bush have ordered a nuclear weapon detonated along the Kuwait-Iraq border in summer 1990 to deter Saddam Hussein from carrying out his invasion? Targeted on isolated, desert terrain, a small nuclear warning shot would have produced minimal or no collateral damage. Taking the atomic genie out of the bottle in that situation might have avoided widespread murder and carnage in Kuwait City and the war that followed. And what about the situation along the 38th Parallel in Korea? Those who argue most fervently that only conventional military power should be used to stop a North Korean attack are not the ones who will be carrying M-16 rifles and driving M-l tanks into combat. Great store is put in high-tech weaponry such as overawed the Iraqis, but what if the North Koreans use an atomic bomb to destroy Seoul? Even where the potential opponent does not possess atomic weapons, high-tech weaponry may not be decisive. It has already been proven that battle-hardened Serbs protected by the rugged mountain terrain of Bosnia are not easily intimidated by American air power. Evidence too the Chechen fight for survival in the Caucasus against Russia's troubled but still formidable military machine. Thus, on moral and humanitarian grounds as well as

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strategic, the use of nuclear weapons may be advisable in certain well-defined circumstances. Particularly where vital American interests are concerned and where nuclear weapons can be used to reduce significantly the human and economic cost of a conflict, the case that they should be used is stronger. The single most persuasive argument against using nuclear-weapons is the danger that by employing them the U.S. will encourage other nuclear nations to make similar decisions in the future. The above discussion made the challengeable assumption that American leaders will be wise enough to use nuclear weapons only in defense of vital interests and in a morally defensible way so that massive civilian casualties do not result. Leaders of other nations, particularly regional powers bent on expansion, terrorism, or intimidation of neighbors, most certainly will not be as responsible. Therefore, by refusing to use nuclear weapons, the U.S. keeps intact the psychological and political barrier maintained throughout all the years of the Cold War and into the postCold War era. Any country that is not a great power which resorts to nuclear weapons will continue to fear the most extreme response from the community of nations, including nuclear retaliation. However, if the U.S. does use nuclear weapons, say, to deter another Iraqi or Iranian attack on Persian Gulf oil fields, eliminate North Korea's small atomic capability, or even warn off Peking in the Taiwan Straits, the political and psychological barrier is broken. American leaders have to weigh in the balance the risk of nuclear promiscuity versus the lives and resources that can be saved. Depending upon who is doing the fighting and dying, the moral imperative of not going nuclear will seem greater or less. CONCLUSION The possibility of using nuclear weapons can be reduced if the U.S. (and other nuclear powers for that matter) focuses on defending vital tangible interests and declares its intention to do so with all weapons in its military arsenal. Overreaching to marginal areas must be avoided with ruthless determination. Hiding American intentions so as not to encourage aggression against non-vital areas is also not a good idea. For once American prestige is engaged in crises of no particular strategic importance, it cannot easily be disengaged. Political pressures are too extreme; as political animals, Presidents and their advisors have not the moral courage to make a proper distinction and stick to it. Avoiding military involvement in the Haitis, Bosnias, and Somalias of the world is the best way to see that this mistake is not repeated. Once nuclear weapons are ruled out, the choice comes down to bloody escalation or dishonorable withdrawal. What events in the 1990s make clear is that when the thin veil of civilization is torn away from the face of human brutality, the need for the ultimate sanction to deter a wider war is all the more necessary. As in the Cold War, the fact of

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a nuclear deterrent second to none will probably prove sufficient to prevent a direct attack on vital American interests. Just in case a potential enemy does not get the message, it is better to keep our powder dry and our ace in the hole.

NOTES ABBREVIATIONS DOE EL

FRUS

JL KL LC NA NDU SMML

TL

UK-PRO

Department of Energy Dwight D. Eisenhower Library Foreign Relations of the United States Lyndon Baines Johnson Library John F. Kennedy Library Library of Congress National Archives National Defense University Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton, N.J. Harry S Truman Library Public Record Office, United Kingdom

CHAPTER 1: SAYONARA SANITY? 1. Time, September 22, 1961. 2. See Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1992), for the central premise that U.S. policy in the post-Wo rid War II world was to secure a preponderance of power. 3. Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon, 1985), chapter 1; Justus D. Doenecke, Not to the Swift: The Old Isolationists in the Cold War Era (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1979), pp. 59-66. Clark Clifford, with Richard Holbrooke, in Counsel to the president (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 59-60, says Truman's belief that an American force invading the Japanese home islands would have taken half a million casualties made his decision an easy one. William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), pp. 436-438, discusses Douglas MacArthur's casualty estimate of one million for Operation OLYMPIC, the planned invasion of Kyushu on November 1, 1945 with 800,000 men, and Operation CORONET, the follow-up invasion of Honshu on March 1, 1946, to take Tokyo and end the war. 4. Richard J. BarneRoots+of War: The Men and Institutions behind U.S.ForeignPolicNew +++

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Notes

York: Atheneum, 1972), p. 67. 5. "Presentation Given to President by Norstad on 29 October 1946, 'Postwar Military Establishment,'" Vandenberg Papers, LC, in Harry R. Borowski, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment before Korea (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982), pp. 94-97. "AEC Report to President," April 3, 1947, PSF NSC, Truman Papers, TL; General Groves, "Statement on the Atomic Bomb and Its Effects on the Army," Appendix to JCS 1477/6, 21 January 1946, CCS 471.6 (8-15-45) sec. 2, RG 218, NA; Memo by Acting SecWar Patterson to Truman, 9/26/45 and Memo by Groves to SecState, 11/9/45 and Truman to Attlee, 4/20/46, in Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1945, 11:54-55, 74, 1235-1237. 6. Gregg Herken, Cardinal Choices: Presidential Science Advisers from the A-Bomb to SDL (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 35-37. 7. Stephen L. Rearden, History of the Office of the Secretary ofDefense: The Formative Years, 1947-1950 (Washington D.C.: Office of Secretary of Defense, 1984), pp. 439-440. 8. Richard H. Kohn and Joseph P. Harshan, eds., "U.S. Strategic Airpower, 1948-1962: Excerpts from an Interview with Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton," International Security 12 (Spring 1988),78-95. Borowski, Hollow Threat, pp. 81-83. 9. The title of Borowski's book is A Hollow Threat. To sustain his thesis, he overemphasizes the problems with SAC and the early atomic stockpile without taking into sufficient account the fact that military leaders usually assume worst case, and without challenging conclusions by war planners that delivery of even a large number of atomic bombs would not cripple Soviet war-making power. Boyer, Bomb's Early Light, chapter 1. Stephen T. Ross, American War Plans 1945-1950 (New York: Garland, 1988), pp. 16-17. 10. Richard Pfau, No Sacrifice Too Great: The Life of Lewis L. Strauss (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984), p. 269 fn 14. Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 439-440. See Timothy J. Botti, The Long Wait: Forging of the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance 1945-1958 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987), for negotiations leading up to the Modus Vivendi of January 7, 1948. 11. See Botti, Long Wait, for more about Anglo-American discussions relating to use of atomic bombs and other atomic energy issues.

CHAPTER 2: WAR SCARE 1. Forrestal Diary, pp. 2555-2563, Meeting of the SecDef and the Service Chiefs with the SecState, 1045 hours, Sunday, 10 October 1948, SMML. 2. Memo for SecDef by Wood on the March Crisis, 12/23/48, and Department of the Army Chronology of March Crisis, undated, and Memo for President by Hillenkoetter, 3/16/48, containing Memo to Chief of Staff on World Situation of March 14, 1948, all in RG 330, CD 12-1-26, Box 64, NA; Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking Press, 1951), pp. 374-377, 387. 3. Memo for SecDef by Wood on the March Crisis, 12/23/48, RG 330, CD 12-1-26, Box 64, NA; Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 283-284; Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 391-394; JCS 1844/1, Short-Range Emergency War Plan FROLIC, 17 March 1948, RG 218, CCS 381 USSR (3-2-46), Sec. 8, NA. 4. Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 398-399; Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 283-286. 5. Thomas R. Cochran, William M. Arkin, and Milton Hoenig, Nuclear Weapons Databook, Vol. 1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984), pp. 7-9, 15; Letter to Rearden from Travis Halsey, Historical Division, DOE) 6/30/82 in Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 439, 397; Samuel R. Williamson, Jr. and Stephen L. Rearden, The Origins of U.S. Nuclear Strategy, 1945-1953 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), pp. 63-64; Leahy Diary, May 5 and 6, 1948 entries, LC. 6. Memo for the President, 21 May 48, PSF, Truman Papers; Rearden, Formative Years, pp.

Notes

255

435-436, Memo Prepared in Department of State, undated, re: "Policy on Atomic Warfare," FRUS, 1948, 1:570-573. 7. Memo re: State-Defense Meeting of 27 June 1948, Only Personal papers cited in Rearden, Formative Years, p. 290; Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 452-455; Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., The ViewfromAbove: High Level Decisions and the Soviet-American Strategic Arms Competition 19451950 (Washington, D.C., Office of Secretary of Defense, 1975, sanitized version), pp. 104-105, cited in Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1987), pp. 24-25; Conference of SecDef with JCS, held in Office of SecDef, 30 June 1948, 11:00 a.m. (verbatim transcript), RG 330, CD 9-3-13, NA; Memo by Only, 6/30/48, Forrestal Papers, Box 2, NA; Leahy Diary, 6/30/48, L.C. 8. Ambassador in U.K. Douglas to Lovett, London, 4/17/48 in FRUS, 1948, 111:90-91; Borowski, Hollow Threat, pp. 125-126, 128. COS (48) 99, 7/14/48, DEFE 4/14, Ministry of Defense Files, UK-PRO. 9. MemCons, 7/14/48, 7/17/48, 8/13/48, 8/17/48, Docs. 631, 635, 676, and 680 in FRUS, Microfiche Supplement Memos of SecStates 1947-52; Forrestal Diary, pp. 2533-2563, Meeting of the SecDef and Service Chiefs with SecState, 1045 hours, Sunday, 10 October 1948, SMML. 10. Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 457-461; Memo to President by Lilienthal, 7/21/48 and Memo by Director of BOB Webb, 7/22/48, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 200, TL. 11. Memo for SecDef from SecArmy Kenneth C. Royall, July 19, 1948 RG 335, NA, in Avi Shlaim, The United States and the Berlin Blockade: A Study in Crisis Decision Making (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 245-246; Forrestal Diary, p. 2993, "Lunch—Sec Marshall, Sec Royall, General Bradley—Use of Atomic Bomb in War Planning," 28 July 1948, SMML. See Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 476-477, for Air Force-Navy controversy being rekindled at this time. Forrestal forced another temporary truce by mandating the primary atomic role for the Air Force but keeping a theoretical role for the Navy. 12. NSC 20/2 Report to NSC by DepState, 8/25/48 and Memo by Butterworth, 9/15/48 in FRUS, 1948, 1:615-624, 630-631; CIA, ORE 22-48 (addendum), "Possibility of Direct Soviet Military Action During 1948-49," 9/16/48, RG 330, CD 12-1-26, NA; Gregg Herken, The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945-1950 (New York: Knopf, 1980) p. 262 fn; Forrestal Diary, p. 2494, "Meeting—The President, 13 September 1948, SMML; Memo for the President by Gleason, 10/23/52, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 202, TL. 13. Forrestal Diary, p. 2494, "Meeting—The President," 13 September 1948, SMML. 14. Forrestal Diary, p. 2501, "Meeting—The President, Sec Marshall," 16 September 1948, SMML; Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 296-297. 15. Millis, Forrestal Diairies, p. 493; Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 296-297; Borowski, Hollow Threat, p. 167; Forrestal Diary, p. 2539, "Memo for Forrestal by Symington," 5 October 1948, SMML. 16. Minutes of 286th PPS Meeting, 9/28/48 inFRUS, 1948, II: 1194-1197; Memo for President on 24th NSC Meeting of October 14, 1948, 10/15/48, Truman Papers, PSF, TL; Memo for Record by General Gruenther on NSC Meeting, 1430 hours, 14 October 1948, 10/25/48, RG 218, CCS 381/88-20-43, Sec. 19, NA; Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 487-88, 523-28, 537-38; NSC 30, "US Policy on Atomic Warfare," 9/10/48 in FRUS, 1948,1:625-628; Forrestal Diary, pp. 2555-2563, Meeting of SecDef and Service Chiefs with SecState, 1045 hours, Sunday, 10 October 1948, SMML; MemCon, 10/6/48, Doc. 747 inFRUS, Microfiche Supplement Memos of SecState 194752; Precis of Conversation between SecState Marshall and Gasperi, Sforza, and Dunn, 10/18/48 in FRUS, 1948, 111:883-887. 17. JCS 1907/9, "Report of the JSSC on Military Implications in Contingency Operation of the Berlin Air Lift," 10/13/48, RG 330, CD 104-1-1, NA; Memo for Record by General Gruenther on NSC Meeting, 1430 hours, 14 October 1948, 10/25/48, RG 218, CCS 381/88-20-43, Sec. 19, NA. Rearden, Formative Years, p. 299. 18. See, for example, MemCon, 4/15/48, Doc. 492 inFRUS, Microfiche Supplement Memos of SecState 1947-52. 19. Memo for President on 24th NSC Meeting of October 14,1948,10/15/48, Truman Papers,

256

Notes

PSF, TL; Memo for Record by General Gruenther on NSC Meeting, 1430 hours, 14 October 1948, 10/25/48, RG 218, CCS 381/88-20-43, Sec. 19, NA. 20. JCS 1952/1, "Evaluation of Current Strategic Air Offensive Plans," 21 December 1948, RG218, NA, in Thomas H. Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis, eds., Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 357391; Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 537-538; USAF Briefing Paper for the President, 16 and 20 December 1948, Box 2, Forrestal Papers, NA, cited in Rearden, Formative Years, p. 403. 21. Ambassador of Soviet Union (Panyushkin) to SecState, 3/31/49, FRUS, 1949, IV:261-265. 22. Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 403-407; JCS 1952/2 CNO to JCS, 1/11/49, RG218 CCS 373 (10-23-48), Sec. I, NA. 23. MemCon, 4/3/49, FRUS, Microfiche Supp., Memos of SecState 1947-52, Doc. 897; "Remarks to a Group of New Democratic Senators and Representatives," 4/6/49, Public Papers of the Presidents, Truman, 1949 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1964), p. 200. 24. Rearden, Formative Years, p. 407; Leffler, Preponderance, pp. 274-275. 25. Rearden, Formative Years, pp. 408-409; Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A General's Life: An Autobiography by General of the Army Omar N. Bradley (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 501. 26. Letter by LeMay to Vandenberg, 7/15/49, LeMay Papers, Folder Vandenberg, Box 61, LC.

CHAPTER 3: THE SOVIETS DRAW AN ACE 1. Memo for the DepSecDef by Lt. General Alfred M. Gruenther, GSC Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Combat Operations, 1/31/50, RG 330, CD 22-2-2., NA. 2. Letter by Hillenkoetter to Hickenlooper, 7/1/48, RG 330, CD 11-1-2, Box 61, NA; Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 44. MemCon by Arneson, 7/6/49 and Memo by Arneson to Webb, 10/6/49, in FRUS, 1949, 1:471-474, 558. 3. CIA, "The Soviet Air Force," 7/25/49, Truman Papers, PSF, Box, 187, TL; Memo to President by Lilienthal, 11/18/49, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 182, TL; David E. Lilienthal, Change, Hope, and the Bomb (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 143, and The Journals of David E. Lilienthal (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 11:486. 4. Draft by NSC Staff, 3/30/49, and Record of Under Secretary's Meeting, 4/15/49, and Memo by Kennan to Rusk, 9/7/49, all in FRUS, 1949, 1:271-277, 283-291,381-384 5. PPS, 148th Meeting, 10/11/49, RG 59, Box 32, NA. 6. Ibid. 7. Minutes of 171st Meeting of PPS, Friday, 12/16/49, 11:30 a.m. to 1:00p.m., FRUS, 1949, 1:413-416. 8. MemCon by MacArthur, 12/3/49, FRUS, 1949, IV:356-358; MemCon by Acheson, 12/16/49, Doc. 781 inFRUS, Microfiche Supp. Memos of SecState 1949-51; Memo from Acheson to Perkins, 12/16/49, Doc. 1134 inFRUS, Microfiche Supp. Memos of SecState 1947-52. 9. JCS 1844/46 Joint Outline Emergency War Plan OFFTACKLE, 8 November 49, RG 218, CCS 381 USSR (3-2-46), Sec. 41, in Stephen T. Ross, American War Plans 1945-1950 (New York: Garland, 1988; JCS 1952/11, WSEG Report No. 1, 2/10/50, RG 218, CCS 373 (10-23-48) Sec. 6, BP, NA. 10. Memo for the DepSecDef by Lt. General Alfred M. Gruenther, GSC Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Combat Operations, 1/31/50, RG 330, CD 22-2-2.; Lilienthal, Journals, 11:623-633. 11. Memo for the DepSecDef by Lt. General Alfred M. Gruenther, GSC Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Combat Operations, 1/31/50, RG 330, CD 22-2-2., NA; Memo for the President, February 2, 1950, 52nd NSC Meeting, Truman Papers, PSF, TL; Hearings before the JCAE, 10/17/49, DOE. 12. CIA, ORE 91-49, "Estimate of the Effects of the Soviet Possession of Atomic Bombs upon

Notes

257

the Security of the United States and upon the Probabilities of Direct Soviet Military Action," and Memo for SecDef "Basis for Estimating Maximum Soviet Capabilities for Atomic Warfare" by LeBaron, 2/20/50, containing Memo for SecDef by LeBaron on CIA Estimate of "Soviet Capabilities since A-Bomb Explosion," both in RG 330, CD 11-1-2, Box 61, NA. 13. Memo by McFall to Webb, Washington, 1/26/50 and Record of the Eighth Meeting (1950) of the PPS at the Department of State, 2/2/50, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and NSC 68, April 7, 1950; all in FRUS, 1950, 1:140-143, 235-298; Williamson and Reardon, Origins of U.S. Nuclear Strategy, pp. 131-135. 14. Memo by the Counsellor (Kennan), 1/20/50 and Draft Memo by the Counsellor, 2/17/50 and Record of a Meeting of the State-Defense Policy Review Group, Monday, 2/27/50, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Memo by Charles E. Bohlen to Director of the PPS Nitze, Washington, 4/5/50 all in FRUS, 1950, 1:22-44, 160-175, 221-225. 15. Nikita Khrushchev admits Soviet fear of American nuclear power in his memoirs. See, for example, Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, trans. Strobe Talbott, with commentary and notes by Edward Crankshaw (Boston: Litde, Brown, 1970), pp. 361-362; Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, trans, and ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston: Litde, Brown, 1974), p. 356; Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, trans, and ed. Jerrold L. Schector (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), pp. 100-101.

CHAPTER 4: STRATEGIC ERROR 1. MacArthur to Eaton, 3/3/48, MacArthur Papers, RG 6, Box 2, FECOM:Formosa, in John Lewis Gaddis, "The Strategic Perspective: The Rise and Fall of the 'Defensive Perimeter' Concept, 1947-1951," in Dorothy Borg and Waldo H. Heinrichs, Jr., eds., Uncertain Years: ChineseAmerican Relations, 1947-1950(New York: Columbia University Press, 1980). + 2. FMD A-8, Paper Prepared by the PPS, 4/14/50, FRUS, 1950, 1:857-860; Khrushchev, Glasnost Tapes, pp. 144-145; New York Times, March 2, 1949. 3. Memo to Marshall by Forrestal, 26 September 1947, RG 330, CD092 (Korea), NA, in Rearden, Formative Years, p. 258; Bradley, General's Life, pp. 523-525. 4. MemCon by Jessup, 6/25/50, FRUS, 1950, VIL157-165. 5. Ibid. 6. CIA, ORE 32-50, "The Effect of the Soviet Possession of Atomic Bombs on the Security of the United States," 6/9/50, Truman Papers, PSF, TL; Letter by Vandenberg to LeMay, 2/5/51, LeMay Papers, Box 197, LC; MemCon by Jessup, 6/25/50, FRUS, 1950, VII: 157-165. 7. I.E. No. 7, Intelligence Estimate Prepared by the Estimates Group, Office of Intelligence Research, Department of State, 6/25/50 and MemCon by Jessup, 6/26/50, both in FRUS, 1950, VII: 148-154, 178-183; Jessup 6/25/50; Memo for the President, 58th NSC Meeting, 6/29/50 and Memo for the President, 59th NSC Meeting, 6/30/50, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 220, TL; Bradley, General's Life, p. 539; Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War: How We Met the Challenge: How All-out Asian War Was Averted: Why MacArthur Was Dismissed: Why Today's War Objectives Must Be Limited (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 19-20; [Factors Involved in the Use of the Atom Bomb], 7/6/50, RG 330, CD 092 (Korea), 38th Parallel (1), Box 179, NA; Memo by Hillenkoetter to President, 7/7/50, Truman Papers, PSF, Intelligence File, Box 249, TL. 8. Memo of Teletype Conference, Prepared in Department of Army [Extract], 7/6/50, FRUS, 1950, VII:311. 9. Memo by Hillyard, 6/30/50, RG 319, Hot Files, Box 11, NA; Bolte to Collins, 7/13/50, and Memo by Hillyard, "Employment of Atomic Bombs in Korea," 7/14/50, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 34-A, NA; Memo by Cabell, "Action to Prevent a Dunkirk in Korea," 7/12/50, Cabell Papers, Maxwell Air Force Base. 10. Radford to Sherman, 7/9/50, RG 218, 383.21 Korea (3-19-45), Box 38, NA; J. Lawton Collins, War in Peacetime: The History and Lessons of Korea (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969),

258

Notes

pp. 18-19; Memo by JCS to SecDef, 7/10/50, FRUS, 1950, VIL346; Gruenther to Bolte, 7/9/50, RG 218, CCS 383.21 Korea (3-19-45), Sec. 23, NA. 11. Memo for Bolte, "Report of Trip to Far East Command (10-15 July 1950)," RG 319, 333 Pacific, Box 94, NA; Memo for Gruenther by Bolte, "Use of the Atomic Bomb in Korea," 7/25/50, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 34-A, NA. 12. Commanding General's Diary, 7/8/50 and 7/10/50, Box 103, LeMay Papers, LC; Message, Johnson to Norstad, 7/10/50, Box 86, Vandenberg Papers, LC. 13. Ibid. 14. Doris M. Condit, History of the Office of Secretary ofDefense: The Test of War 1950-1953 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Secretary of Defense, 1988), p. 60; Kohn and Harshan, "U.S. Strategic Airpower," pp. 81-83; General LeMay's Diary, 7/29/50, Box 103, LeMay Papers, LC. 15. Commanding General 3rd Air Division to Vice Chief of Staff, USAF, 7/10/50, Box 86, Vandenberg Papers, LC, and Dean to Truman, 7/10/50, Box 4931, RG 326, DOE Archives, in Roger Dingman, "Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War," International Security 13 (Winter 1988-89), pp. 61-63; Agreed Memo, Summary of US-UK Discussions on the Present World Situation, July 20-24, 1950, FRUS, 1950, VIL462-465; Jessup to SecState, 7/25/50, FRUS, 1950, III: 1657-1669; Arthur W. Radford, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs ofAdmiral Arthur W. Radford (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1980), pp. 276-277. 16. SecState to Embassy in UK, 7/10/50-5 p.m., FRUS, 1950, VIL347-351; MemCon by Acheson, 8/31/50, FRUS, Microfiche Supp., Doc. 1295 in Memos of SecState 1947-52. 17. Nitze to Acheson, 7/17/50, AE-Armaments Folder, 1950, Box 7, PPS Papers, RG 59, NA and Savage to Nitze, 7/15/50, AE-Armaments Folder, 1950, Box 7, PPS Papers, RG 59, NA, in Dingman, "Atomic Diplomacy," p. 59; Paul H. Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision—A Memoir (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1989), pp. 118-120. 18. Webb to Johnson, 8/16/50, and Memo by Webb, 8/18/50, in FRUS, 1950, VIL588-589, 599-600; FRUS, 1950,111:197-204; Memo for Bolte by Moore, 8/21/50, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 34-A, NA; Robert F. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907-1984, rev. ed. (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1989), p. 260. 19. Acting SecState to US Mission to UN, 9/26/50, and Memo by CIA, 10/12/50, both in FRUS, 1950, VIL781-782, 933-934; Radford, Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, pp. 244-245. 20. "Summary of Korean Situation," 11/6/50, and Memo of Information, "Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea," 11/10/50, both in RG 330, CD 092 Korea (3), Box 180, NA; Memo by Nitze, 11/4/50, FRUS, 1950, VII: 1041-1042. 21. MemCon between Acheson and Lovett, 11/6/50, RG 330, CD 092 Korea (3), Box 180, NA; Memo for Chief of Staff Army by Hillyard, 11/16/50, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 34-A; CIA, Intelligence Memo No. 323-8RC, "Soviet Preparations for Major Hostilities in 1950," 8/25/50, Box 250, and CIA, NIE-3, "Soviet Capabilities and Intentions," 11/15/50, Box 253, Truman Papers, PSF, TL; Bradley, General's Life, p. 583. 22. Philip C. Jessup, The Birth of Nations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), pp. 9-10; see Bradley, General's Life, pp. 533-536, for his comments about a general feeling of moral outrage at the North Korean attack.

CHAPTER 5: FIRST FORBEARANCE 1. Ridgway, Korean War, pp. 264-295. 2. MemCon by Jessup, 11/21/50, and Collins to MacArthur, 11/24/50, and MacArthur to JCS, 11/25/50, all inFRUS, 1950, VII: 1204-1208, 1222-1224, 1231-1233. 3. LeMay to Vandenberg, 12/2/50, and Memo for Record by Montgomery, 12/6/50, both in LeMay Papers, Box 196, LC; Bradley, General's Life, pp. 584-594; MemCon by Jessup, 11/28/50, in FRUS, VII: 1242-1249; Cochran, Nuclear Weapons Databook, p. 15; Betts, Nuclear Blackmail, p. 36.

Notes

259

4. Public Papers, Truman, p. 727; Manchester Guardian, December 1,1950, pp. 7-8; Holmes to SecState, 12/1/50-3 p.m., inFRUS, 1950, VII: 1296-1297. 5. MemCon by Jessup, 12/1/50, and MemCon by Jessup, 12/3/50, both in FRUS, 1950, VII: 1276-1282, 1323-1334; MemCon, 12/3/50, Doc. 1380 inFRUS, Microfiche Supp., Memos of SecState 1947-52; 12/3/50-VII; Ridgway, Korean War, pp. 60-62; Memo from OSO, 12/7/50, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 250, TL. 6. MemCon by Jessup, 12/3/50, in FRUS, 1950 VIL1312-1313; Collins, War in Peacetime, pp. 230-231; Stratemeyer Diary, 12/7/50, Stratemeyer Papers, Simpson Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama in Dingman, "Atomic Diplomacy," p. 67. 7. U.S. Delegation Minutes of 1st Meeting of Truman-Attlee, 12/4/50, U.S. Delegation Minutes of 2nd Meeting of Truman-Attlee on Williamsburg, both in FRUS, 1950, VII: 1361-1374, 1392-1408; Memo from OSO, 12/7/50, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 250, TL. 8. Memo by Batde of Meeting Held on December 6,1950, 12/7750, in FRUS, 1950, VII: 14301432; Bradley, General's Life, p. 573. 9. U.S. Delegation Minutes of 5th Meeting of Truman-Attlee, 12/7/50, in FRUS, 1950, VII: 1449-1461. 10. Memo for Record by Jessup, 12/7/50, in FRUS, 1950, VII: 1462. 11. Memo for Record by Arneson, 1/16/53, U.S. Delegation Minutes of 6th Meeting of Truman-AtUee, 12/8/50, both in FRUS, 1950, VII: 1462-1465, 1468-1479; Kenneth Harris, Attlee (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982), pp. 464-465; Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 484; Communique, 12/8/50, in FRUS, Microfiche Supp., Meetings and Visits of Foreign Dignitaries 1949-1952. 12. McMahon to SecState, 3/7/51, and SecState to Chair JCAE, 3/14/51, bothin FRUS, 1951, 1:808-809; Memo for Norstad by Coiner re JCS-SACEUR relationships, 9/2/60, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 96, Atomic Nuclear Policy (1), EL. 13. MemCon by Rusk, 12/19/50, FRUS, 1950, VII: 1570-1576. 14. Memo for General Duff by Gaither, 7/6/51, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 38-A; "Tactical Employment of the Atomic Bomb in Korea," 12/22/50, working paper by Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, for Fort McNair, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 33, NA. 15. Memo for Chief of Staff Army by Hickey, 1/23/51, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 33, NA. 16. Memo to Chief of Staff AF by LeMay, 1/20/51, LeMay Papers, Box 197, LC; JCS 2056/7, 8/12/50, RG 218, CCS 373.11 (12-14-48), Sec. 2, NA; Letter by LeMay to Vandenberg, 1/15/51, LeMay Papers, Box B-197, Folder B-9226, LC. 17. General LeMay's Diary, 1/23/51, LeMay Papers, Box B-197, Folder B-9226, LC; Walter S. Poole, History of the JCS: The JCS and National Policy, Vol. TV, 1950-1952(Wilmington, Del., 1980), pp. 161-170; Letter by Vandenberg to LeMay, 2/5/51, Box 197, LC. 18. JCS to MacArthur, containing President's message to MacArthur, 1/13/51, RG 330, 092 Korea, Box 12, NA; NSC 100, Report by Symington, 1/11/51, FRUS, 1951, 1:7-18. 19. Memo by Symington to President, undated, FRUS, 1951, 1:21-33. 20. Memo for the President, 81st NSC, 1/25/51, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 220, TL. 21. Ibid. 22. Memo for the Record of State-JCS Meeting Held in Room 2C-923, Pentagon Building, 1/24/51, RG 59 (S/P Files, Lot 64D563, NA. 23. JIC 557/1,2/15/51, revised 3/15/51, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 37, NA; Memo for General Duff by Gaither, 7/6/51, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 38-A. 24. Memo to Commissioners by Dean, 4/5/51, and Letter to President by Dean, 4/11/51, DOE Archives; Commanding General's Diary, 4/7/51, Box 103, LeMay Papers, LC; Memo for General Duff by Gaither, 7/6/51, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 38-A; Cochran, Nuclear Weapons Databook, p. 15; Gordon E. Dean, Forging the Atomic Shield: Excerpts from the Diary of Gordon E. Dean, ed. Roger M. Anders (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), p. 137. 25. FRUS, 1951, VIL309, 338-362, 385-387, 412-414, 427-431; Memo for General Duff by Gaither, 7/6/51, RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 38-A. 26. Bradley, General's Life, pp. 649-650; Memo for General Duff by Gaither, 7/6/51, and

260

Notes

Memo for Chief of Staff US Army by Jenkins, 11/20/50, both in RG 319, 091 Korea, Box 38-A. 27. Paper Prepared by JSSC and Representatives of Department of State, 8/3/51, and MemCon by Ferguson, FRUS, 1951, 1:866-880. 28. MemCon by Jessup, 9/11/51, and MemCon by Nitze, 9/13/51, FRUS, 1951,1:880-890; CIA, SE-13, "Probable Developments in the World Situation through Mid-1953," 9/24/51, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 215, TL; Memo by McMahon to President, 12/5/51, and Gifford to Department of State, 12/28/51, FRUS, 1952-54, VL695-698, 720-723; Outline for Discussion at JCS Meeting, 11/21/51, and Substance of Discussion of State-JCS Meeting Held in Room 2C-923, Pentagon Building, 11/21/51, RG 59, S/P Files, Lot 64 D563, Box 728, NA. 29. Memo by Arneson re: "The Strategic Air Plans and Use of the Atomic Weapon," 1/3/52, Truman Papers, PSF, Box 116, General File, Churchill-Truman Meetings—Papers Prepared for USUK Relations, TL. 30. Memo by SecState of a Dinner Meeting at the British Embassy, 1/6/52, FRUS, 1952-54, VL.742-746; MemCon at Dinner at British Embassy, Sunday, January 6, 1952, 1/7/52, FRUS, Microfiche Supp. Meetings/Visits of Foreign Dignitaries 1949-1952. 31. U.S. Delegation Minutes of 2nd Formal Meeting of Truman-Churchill, 1/7/52, FRUS, 1952-54, VL763-766. 32. U.S. Delegation Minutes of Meeting of Truman-Churchill, 1/18/52, FRUS, 1952-54, VL846-857; Hansard, 5th series, vol. 496, p. 964; William Shakespeare, Richard II, act II, scene 1. 33. Poole, JCS and National Policy, 1950-1952, pp. 158-159; Letterto Dean by Oppenheimer, 2/17/52, and Memo for Commissioners by Dean, 3/10/52, and Letter to SecDef by Dean, 4/8/52, and Report by Director of Military Applications, AEC, 4/18/52, and Memo for ExecSec NSC by Dean, 5/27/52, and AEC Meeting 1393 Minutes, 7/29/58, all from DOE Archives; Memo Prepared by Department of State, 6/11/52, and Staff Study Prepared by Representatives of the Special Committee of the NSC on Atomic Energy, 6/11/52, and Memo by Lay to SecState, SecDef, Chairman AEC, 9/10/52, FRUS, 1952-54, 11:969-979, 1010-1013. 34. JCS to Clark and Radford, 9/23/52, and Memo by Dulles to Eisenhower, 11/26/52, FRUS, 1952-54, XV:527-528, 692-693.

CHAPTER 6: THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE 1. Memo for the SecState, Denver, Colorado, 9/8/53, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 3, DDE Diary Aug.-Sept. 1953 (2), EL. 2. Notes Handwritten on Memo for ExecSec Lay by Wilson, "Transfer and Deployment of Atomic Weapons," 6/8/53, WHO, OSANSA, NSC Series, Subject Subseries, Box 1, Atomic Energy Misc. (3), EL; JIC 382/30, "JIC Presentation for the Ad Hoc Study Group on Continental Defense," 7 January 1953, RG 218, CCS 381 US(5-23-46), Sec. 23, NA, in Leffler, Preponderance, p. 487. 3. James F. Schnabel and Robert J. Watson, The Korean War, vol. 3 in The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of+StafandNationalPolicy(Wilmington, Del.: Glazier, ++ 1979), 111:932-34; Memo on Ending the War, by MacArthur, New York, 12/14/52, Dulles Papers, Subject Series, Box 8, Korea, EL. 4. Clark to JCS, 2/9/53, and Memo of Discussion at 131st NSC Meeting, 2/11/53, both in FRUS, 1952-54, XV:758-759, 769-772; Steven Ambrose, Eisenhower, Vol. II: The President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), p. 51. 5. "Visit of Foreign Secretary and Chancellor to USA," 6 March 1953, Record of Meeting at State Department, and "Record of Meeting with the President in the White House," 9 March 1953, PREM 11/431 56513, Public Record Office, U.K., in Simon Duke, United States Defence Bases in the United Kingdom: A Matter for Joint Decision? (London: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 83-84; Dulles Calls Eisenhower, 3/7/53, Minutes of Telephone Conversations of Dulles and Herter, 1953-61 (Washington, D.C.: University Publications of America, 1980), Reel 8, p. 704.

Notes

261

6. Memo by Cutler to Wilson, 3/21/53, and Memo of Substance of State-JCS Meeting, 3/27/53, FRUS, 1952-54, XV:815-818. 7. Memo of Discussion at Special NSC Meeting, 3/31/53, FRUS, 1952-54, XV-.825-827. 8. NSC 147, 4/2/53, and Memo of Discussion at 139th NSC Meeting, 4/8/53, both inFRUS, 1952-54, XV.839-857, 892-895; Notes Handwritten on Memo for ExecSec Lay by Wilson, "Transfer and Deployment of Atomic Weapons," 6/8/53, EL. 9. Handwritten Notes by Minnich on Legislative Leaders Meeting, 4/30/53, Records of White House Staff Secretary, Legislative Meetings, Box 1, L-3, EL. 10. Memo to NSC by Lay, 7/22/53, FRUS, 1952-54, 11:399-434. But AEC concern about military custody of thermonuclear weapons, albeit with military officers acting as representatives of the AEC, was revived in 1958 after Strauss left office. See AEC Meeting 1393 Minutes, 7/29/58, Commission Minutes, Comm. Secretariat, RG 326 U.S. Atomic Energy, DOE Archives. 11. Memo of Discussion at 143rd NSC Meeting, 5/6/53, and Memo of Discussion at 144th NSC Meeting, 5/13/53, both in FRUS, 1952-54, XV:975-978, 1012-1017. 12. Memo of Discussion at 144th NSC Meeting, 5/13/53, FRUS, 1952-54, XV: 1012-1017. 13. Ibid. 14. Memo of Discussion at 145th NSC Meeting, 5/20/52, FRUS, 1952-54, XV: 1064-1068. 15. Memo of Discussion at 156th NSC Meeting, July 23, 1953, 7/24/53, Eisenhower Papers, NSC Series, Box 4, EL. 16. Radford, Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, pp. 321, 323-325; Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 57; Herken, Cardinal Choices, pp. 74, 244 fn. 20. 17. Memo for the SecState, Denver, Colorado, 9/8/53, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 3, DDE Diary Aug.-Sept. 1953 (2), EL. 18. Ibid.; Hewlett and Holl, Atomsfor Peace and War, pp. 59-61; MemCon, 10/21/53, Doc. 275 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemoCons of SecState 1952-54. 19. Peter Pringle and James Spigelman, The Nuclear Barons (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981), pp. 121-122. 20. NSC 167/2, "U.S. Courses of Action in Korea in the Absence of an Acceptable Political Settlement," 11/6/53, RG 273, S/S-NSC Files, Lot 63 C351, NA. 21. Memo of Discussion at 168th NSC Meeting, 10/29/53, and Memo by JCS to SecDef Wilson, 11/27/53, both inFRUS, 1952-54, XV: 1570-1575,1626-1629; JCS 1776/405,14November 1953, RG 218, CCS 383.21 (3-19-45) Sec. 140, NA, in Robert J. Watson, The History of the JCS, Vol. 5, JCS and National Policy 1953-1954 (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1986), pp. 228-229. 22. Memo by Bowie to Dulles, 12/3/53, FRUS, 1953-54, XV: 1634-1636; Memo by Gleason on 173rd Meeting of NSC, December 3, 1953, 12/4/53, Eisenhower Papers, 1953-61, AWF, Box 5, EL. 23. Eisenhower-Churchill Meeting, Bermuda, 12/4/53, FRUS, 1952-54, V: 1739-1740, 17671769; MemCon at Dinner Given by Prime Minister Churchill, Bermuda, 12/5/53, Doc. 310 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemoCons of SecState 1952-54. 24. Confidential Annex, 4th Meeting, 7th December 1953—10:30 a.m., Bermuda, 12/8/53, Doc. 311 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Notes Prepared by Merchant on Restricted Session of NAC, 12/16/53, RG 59, 740.5/122453, NA; Memo of Discussion at 177th NSC Meeting, December 23, 1953, 12/24/53, FRUS, 1952-54, V:479-485. 28. Memo for President by Smith, 12/3/53, and Memo for President by Smith, 12/22/53, and Memo for SecState, SecDef, and Chairman AEC by Lay, 1/4/54, "Policy Regarding Use of Nuclear Weapons," and Memo for the Record by Cutler, 3/11/55, all in WHO, OSANSA, NSC Series, Subject Series, Box 1 Atomic Weapons, Corr., and Background for Presidential Approval, Policy re: Use (1), EL; Memo on "The Meaning of Paragraph 39b, NSC 162/2, as Understood by the

262

Notes

DOD," 12/1/53, WHO, NSC Staff Records, ExSec's Subject File, Box 5, No. 19 Policy re: Use of Nuclear Weapons (File No. 1) 1, EL. 29. Memo of Discussion at 179th NSC Meeting, 1/8/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XV: 1704-1710.

CHAPTER 7: FRENCH CHESTNUTS IN THE FIRE 1. Statement by SecState to NAC Closed Ministerial Session, Paris, 4/23/54, FRUS, 1952-54, V:509-514. 2. Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1954 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), pp. 7-15. 3. Curtis LeMay on "The Strategic Air Command," 1/28/54, LeMay Papers, Box 204, Folder B-33815, LC. 4. Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace, pp. 173-178. 5. MemCon by Dulles, 3/24/53, FRUS, 1952-54, XIIL419-420. 6. Charge in France Achilles to Department of State, Paris, 3/5/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1096-1097. 7. George C. Herring and Richard H. Immerman, "Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dienbienphu: 'The Day We Didn't Go to War' Revisited," Journal ofAmerican History 71 (Sept. 1984), pp. 347348; Radford, Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, pp. 391-395; JohnPrados, The Sky Would Fall, Operation Vulture: The U.S. Bombing Mission in Indochina, 1954 (New York: Dial Press, 1983), p. 80. 8. Herring, "Day We Didn't Go to War," p. 348; Memo by JCS to Wilson, 3/31/54, and Memo of Discussion at 191st NSC Meeting, 4/1/54, both in FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1198-1202. 9. Herring, "Day We Didn't Go to War," p. 350; Memo for Secretary's File, 4/5/54, Doc. 406 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 10. Memo of Discussion at 192nd NSC Meeting, 4/6/54, and Memo by Ridgway to JCS, 4/6/54, both in FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1250-1270. 11. Ibid.; Memo by MacArthur II, 4/7/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1270-1272 12. Memo of Discussion at 192nd NSC Meeting, 4/6/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1250-1265; Prados, Sky Would Fall, p. 115. 13. Warren I. Cohen and Akira Iriye, eds., Great Powers in East Asia 1953-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 251; Memo on Joint Action in Southeast Asia, 4/12/54, Doc. 418 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 14. Memo of a Conference with President Eisenhower, 4/19/54, Doc. 424 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; Prados, Sky Would Fall, pp. 152-156; Herring, "Day We Didn't Go to War," p. 357; Memo for File by Radford, Paris, 4/24/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1396-1397. 15. MemCon of a meeting on April 24, 1954, 4/26/54, Doc. 432 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 16. MemCon, 4/25/54, Doc. 433 inFRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; CAB 129/68, 4/25/54 in Cohen, Great Powers, p. 256. 17. MemCon with Eden, Geneva, 4/30/54, Doc. 440 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; Radford, Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, pp. 407-409; Radford to Consulate in Geneva, 4/27/54, FRUS, 1952-54, VI: 1030-1032. 18. Memo of Discussion at 194th NSC Meeting, 4/29/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1431-1445. 19. MemCon, White House, 5/5/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1466-1470; Secretary's Briefing for Members of Congress, 5/5/54, Doc. 446 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemoCons of SecState 195254. 20. Memo of Discussion at 195th NSC Meeting, 5/6/54, FRUS, 1952-54, 11:1423-1429. 21. Memo of Luncheon Conversation with the President, 5/11/54, Doc. 457 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; MemCon by SecState, 5/11/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1532-1534. After leaving office, Eisenhower gave historical interviews in the 1960s about his

Notes

263

alleged abhorrence of the idea of using atomic weapons a second time in ten years against Asian peoples. "You boys must be crazy!" is what he said he told Cutier when brought an NSC draft sometime in spring 1954 for using atomic bombs in Vietnam (see Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 184). While it is true that Eisenhower opposed using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki when informed of the plan in July 1945 (see Bradley, General's Life, p. 444) upon taking office as President he was aggressive in his examination of the possibility of using those weapons to end the Korean War and a willing participant in the continuing consideration of employing nuclear weapons against the Chinese Communists in the Formosa crises of 1954-1955 and 1958. It hardly seems likely, therefore, that concern about a racial aspect of using atomic weapons was a controlling factor in the Dienbienphu problem or any other crisis. 22. MemCon, Secretary's Residence, 5/9/54, Doc. 451 in FRUS,Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; MemCon by MacArthur II, 5/14/54, and Memo by JCS to Wilson, 5/20/54, both in FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1562-64, 1590-1592. 23. Conference in the President's Office, 5/28/54, Doc. 481 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; NIE 10-3-54, 6/1/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1652-1657; "Modern Evolution of Armed Forces," 5/25/54, RG 218, 045.8 Naval War College, NA, in Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 183-184. 24. MemCon with President, 5/25/54, and Conference in the President's Office, 5/28/54, Docs. 478, 481 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 25. Conference in the President's Office, 5/28/54, and Conference in the President's Office, 6/2/54, Docs. 481, 488 (2) in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 26. MemCon on ANZUS Meeting, 6/4/54, and MemCon "Overt Chinese Communist Aggression in Southeast Asia," 6/4/54, Docs. 493, 494 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; SNIE 10-4-54, 6/15/54, and Memo of Discussion at 202d NSC Meeting, 6/17/54, both in FRUS, 1952-54, XIII: 1702-1709, 1713-1718. 27. Robert H. Ferrell, ed., The Diary of James C. Hagerty: Eisenhower in Mid-Course, 19541955 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), p. 69. 28. MemCon, White House, 6/25/54, RG 43, CFM Files, Lot 88, Box 169, Churchill-Eden Visit, NA; Memo of Meeting of Eisenhower and Churchill, 6/25/54, FRUS, 1952-54, VI: 1085-1086; MemCon by Lodge, 6/26/54, Dulles Papers, Subject Series, Box 4, Churchill-Eden Visit, June 2529, 1954 (1), EL. 29. Memo of Telephone Conversation 9:30-10:30 a.m. by Dulles, 7/25/54, and MemCon 7/26/54, Docs 568, 572 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 30. Hagerty Diary, 7/27/54, FRUS, 1952-54, XV: 1839-1847.

CHAPTER 8: THE PRESIDENT VACILLATES 1. Memo for SecDef by Radford, 11 September 1954, RG 218, CJCS, 091 China, NA. 2. Memo for Forrestal by Bradley, 22 March 1949, RG 330, CD 6-6-6, NA; Memo for President, 50th NSC Meeting on December 29, 1949, 12/30/49, Truman Papers, PSF, TL. 3. Memo by Dulles to SecState, 5/18/50, FRUS, 1950,1:314-316; Memo by JCS to Marshall, 1/2/51, FRUS, 1951, VII: 1474-1476; Substance of Discussions of State-JCS Meeting Held in Room 2C-923, Pentagon, November 21, 1951, RG 59, S/P Files, Lot 64 D563, Box 728, NA. 4. U.S. Delegation Minutes of 1st Meeting of Dulles-Eden, 3/5/53, FRUS, 1952-54, VL904907; MemCon, 3/19/53, Doc. 82 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; "U.S. Policy Regarding Offshore Islands Held by Chinese Nationalist Forces," 6 September 1954, RG 218, CJCS, 091 China, NA. 5. Conference with the President, 5/22/54, and MemCon with President, 5/22/54, and Memo for the Record, 8/31/54, Docs. 472, 473, 633 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; "U.S. Policy Regarding Offshore Islands Held by Chinese Nationalist Forces," 6 September 1954, RG 218, CJCS, 091 China, NA.

264

Notes

6. "U.S. Policy Regarding Offshore Islands Held by Chinese Nationalist Forces," 6 September 1954, RG 218, CJCS, 091 China, NA. 7. Ibid.; Memo for JCS by Cams re: "U.S. Military Assistance to the Defense of Quemoy Islands," 7 September 1954, and Memo for SecDef by Radford, 11 September 1954, with Enclosures A and B, both in RG 218, Chairman's File, 091 China (Sept. 1954), Box 6, NA. 8. "U.S. Military Assistance to the Defense of Quemoy Islands," 7 September 1954, RG 218, Chairman's File, 091 China (Sept. 1954), Box 6, NA. 9. Ibid; CIA, "The Chinese Offshore Islands," 9/8/54, Eisenhower Papers, International Series, Box 9, Formosa (1), EL; Robert Accinelli, "Eisenhower, Congress, and the 1954-55 Offshore Island Crisis." Presidential Studies Quarterly 20 (Spring 1990), pp. 329-48; Memo of Conference with President, White House, 10/18/54, FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 10. MemCon by MacArthur il, 10/30/54, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series, Box 1, Meetings with President 1954 (1), EL; 6 UST 433. 11. CNO to CINCPAC, telegram 110145Z, 1/10/55, RG 218, CCS 381 Formosa (11-8-48), Sec. 16, NA; Memo of Discussion at 231st NSC Meeting, 1/13/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:17-25. 12. Memo of Discussion at 232d NSC Meeting, 1/20/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:69-82. 13. Ferrell, Diary of Hagerty, pp. 171-172; Meeting of SecState with Congressional Leaders, 1/20/55,9 a.m., Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series, Box 2, White House Memos 1955 (3), Formosa Straits, EL; MemCon, 1/20/55, 6:30 p.m., FRUS, 1955-57, 11:86-89. 14. Memo of Discussion at 233rd NSC Meeting, January 21,1955, 1/24/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:89-96; CNO to CINCPAC, Telegram 051923,2/5/55, RG 218 CCS 381 Formosa (11-8-48), Sec. 19, NA; Ferrell, Diary of Hagerty, p. 179. 15. Special National Intelligence Estimate, 1/25/55, and Memo of Discussion at 234th NSC Meeting, 1/27/55, both inFRUS, 1955-57, 11:125-128, 135-140 and 234th NSC Meeting also in XXIV:2-11; JCS to COMSAC, 1 February 1955, RG 218, CCS 381, NA in H. W. Brands, Jr., "Testing Massive Retaliation: Credibility and Crisis Management in the Taiwan Strait," International Security 12 (Spring 1988), pp. 124-51. 16. Memo for Record by Eisenhower, 1/29/55, RG 218, Chairman's File, Radford, 091 China (Jan. 1955), Box 6, NA. 17. Gordon H. Chang and He Di, "The Absence of War in the U.S.-China Confrontation over Quemoy and Matsu in 1954-1955: Contingency, Luck, Deterrence?" American Historical Review 98 (December 1993), pp. 1500-1524, talks about Chicom sealift limitations; Accinelli, "Offshore Island Crisis," p. 332; Ferrell, Diary of Hagerty, pp. 193-197. 18. MemCon, Eisenhower and Dulles, 3/6/55, FRUS, 1955-57,11:336-338. 19. Memo of Discussion of 240th NSC Meeting on March 10, 1955, 3/11/55, and Memo for Record by Cutler, 3/11/55, both in FRUS, 1955-57, 11:345-350, 355-360; Memo for Record by Cutler, 3/11/55, Eisenhower Papers, International Series, Box 9, Formosa Visit to CINCPAC 1955 (D, EL. 20. Memo for Record by Cutler, 3/11/55, FRUS, 1955-57,11:355-360; Memo for Record by Cutler, 3/11/55, Eisenhower Papers, International Series, Box 9, Formosa Visit to CINCPAC 1955 (1), EL; Memo by Lay to SecState, SecDef, and Chairman AEC, 3/14/55, WHO, OSANSA, NSC Series, Subject Series, Box 1, Atomic Weapons, Corr., & Background for Presidential Approval, Policy re Use (1), EL. 21. Memo for the President by Goodpaster, 3/15/55, Eisenhower Papers, International Series, Box 9, Formosa Visit to CINCPAC 1955 (1), EL. 22. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 239; Public Papers of the Presidents, Eisenhower, 1955, p. 332. 23. "U.S. Military Courses of Action to Meet a Chinese Communist Attack against the Quemoy or Matsu Island Groups," undated, RG 218, CJCS file, 091 China (Feb.-Mar. 1955), NA; LeMay to Twining, 31 March 1955, Twining Papers, Box 100, Office File Messages (Jan.-Mar. 1955), LC; Editor's note, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:452-453. 24. NIE 100-4-55, 3/16/55, and Memo of Discussion at 242d NSC Meeting, 3/24/55, and MemCon, Department of State, 3/26/55, and Diary Entry by President, 3/26/55, and Memo from JCS to SecDef, 3/27/55, all in FRUS, 1955-57, 11:376-380, 389-391, 400-408; JCS to SecDef,

Notes

265

"Improvement of Military Situation in Far East in Light of Situation Now Existing in Formosa Area," 27 March 1956, CCS 381 Formosa (11-8-48), Sec. 20, NA. 25. Accinelli, "Offshore Island Crisis," p. 332; Ferrell, Diary of Hagerty, pp. 218-219. 26. Memo of Meeting Held in the Secretary's Office, March 28, 1955, 4:30 p.m., 3/29/55, Dulles Papers, Wliite House Memoranda Series, Box 2, White House Memos 1955, Formosa Straits (D, EL. 27. Ibid.; Cochran, Nuclear Weapons Databook, p. 15. 28. Eleanora W. Schoenebaum, ed., Political Profile: The Eisenhower Years (New York: Facts on File, 1977), p. 57, says Bowie warned Dulles about the possibility of millions of Chinese deaths in spring 1954. Considering all the other documentary evidence, the correct date should be spring 1955, probably at the end of March; Ferrell, Diary of Hagerty, pp. 219-220; MemCon, 3/30/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:424-429. 29. Memo of Discussion at 243rd NSC Meeting, 3/31/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:431-433. 30. Ferrell, Diary of Hagerty, pp. 224-225; Memo of Discussion at 234th NSC Meeting, V21/55,FRUS, 1955-57, XXIV-.2-11. 31. Memo from the President to SecState, 4/5/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:445-450; CHMAAG Formosa to CNO, 4/25/55, RG 218, Chairman's File, Radford, 091 China (April-Dec. 1955), NA. 32. Telegram from Chief of MAAG Formosa Chase to Stump, 4/8/55, and Memo from Bowie to Dulles, 4/9/55, and MemCon between President and SecState, 4/11/55, and Message from Robertson to Dulles, Taipei, 4/25/55, all in FRUS, 1955-57, 11:465-466, 473-476, 510-517; CHMAAG Formosa to CNO, 4/25/55, RG 218, Chairman's File, Radford, 091 China (April-Dec. 1955), NA. 33. MemCon between President and SecState, Augusta, Georgia, 4/17/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:491-495. 34. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 244; MemCon, Department of State, 6/14/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:595-602. 35. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 245. 36. Stump to CNO, Honolulu, 4/8/55, FRUS, 1955-57, 11:471-473.

CHAPTER 9: MUSCLING UP 1. DOD's Secretaries' Conference, "Strategic Air Command" address by LeMay, 7/16/55, LeMay Papers, Box 205, Folder B-46967, LC. 2. Ibid. 3. MemCon, 12/4/54, and MemCon 12/8/54, Docs. 827 and 838 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54. 4. Memo by Goodpaster for Radford, summarizing Eisenhower's views at a meeting with Dulles, Wilson, and Radford on December 8, 1954, 12/8/54, OCJCS, File 092.2 NATO (Aug.-Dec. 1954), NA. 5. MemCon, 12/16/54, Quai d'Orsay, Doc. 853 in FRUS, Microfiche Supp. MemCons of SecStates 1952-54; Message, USRO Paris, DEFTO 363 to OSD, 17 December 1954, CCS 092 Western Europe (3-12-48), Sec. 319, 1954 Blue Book, pt. I, in Robert J. Watson, The History of the JCS, Vol. 5, JCS and National Policy 1953-1954 (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1986), p. 317. 6. NSC 5440, 12/13/54, and Memo by JCS to Wilson, 12/17/54, both in FRUS, 1952-54, 11:806-822, 828-832. 7. Ferrell, Diary of Hagerty, pp. 133-134, 138-142. 8. Memo of Discussion at 230th NSC Meeting, 1/5/55, and NSC 5501, 1/7/55, both in FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:9-38. 9. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 312; Ashton B. Carter, John D. Steinbruner, and Charles Z. Zraket, eds., Managing Nuclear Options (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1987), pp. 31-32; Herken, Cardinal Choices, pp. 87-90; Report by Technological Capabilities Panel of the Science Advisory

266

Notes

Committee, 2/14/55, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX.41-56; Letter from Murray to President, 3/14/55, FRUS, 1955-57, XX:56-57. 10. Khrushchev, Glasnost Tapes, p. 181; CIA, NIE 11-3-55, "Soviet Capabilities and Probable Courses of Action Through 1960," 17 May 1955, in John Prados, The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis and Russian Military Strength (New York: Dial Press, 1982), pp. 42-43; NIE 100-5-55, 6/14/55, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:85-86. 11. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 245-246; Paul Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 61; Minutes of the Second Plenary Meeting of the Interim Assembly, Ravenrock Conference Room, 6/17/55, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, Cabinet Series, Box 5, EL; Memo of Conference with President on 6 July 1955, 7/7/55, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, ACW Diary Series, Box 6, ACW Diary, July 1955 (5), EL. 12. Memo of Discussion at 258th NSC Meeting, 9/8/55, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX: 111-122; Telegram by Ambassador in ROC Rankin to Department of State, Taipei, 10/20/55, and MemCon, Department of State, 12/6/55, both inFRUS, 1955-57, 111:132-134, 201-205. 13. Memo of Discussion at 275th NSC Meeting, 2/7/55, FRUS, 1955-57, XX:319-328; Memo of Discussion at 277th NSC Meeting, 2/27/55, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:201-218. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Memo from JCS for Wilson, 3/12/56, and Memo of Conference with President, 3/13/56, both in FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:229 fn 9, 234-238. 17. Memo by Lay to SecState, 3/15/56, and NSC 5602/1, 3/15/56, and Memo of Discussion at 280th NSC, 3/22/56, and MemCon with President, 3/30/56, all in FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:239-274, 280-83; Memo for Chairman JCS by JSSC, 22 March 1956, RG 218, Chairman's File, Admiral Radford 1953-57, CCS 381 (Military Strategy and Posture) 1956, NA. 18. Memo of Discussion at 284th NSC Meeting, 5/10/56, and Memo from Stassen to President, 6/29/56, both in FRUS, 1955-57, XX:393-400, 402-408; MemCon with President, 5/14/56, and Memo of Discussion at 285th NSC Meeting, 5/17/56, both in FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:301-303, 305-311. 19. MemCon with President, 5/24/56, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:311-315. 20. Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, pp. 345-346; New York Times, July 13,1956; Kenneth W. Condit, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vol. VI, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy 1955-1956 (Washingont, D.C., GPO, 1992), pp. 36-37; Paper on "Evolution of NATO Defense Concepts" sent by Norstad to JCS, undated, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 97, Atomic Nuclear Policy [1960-62] (3), EL. 21. Cochran, Nuclear Weapons Databook, p. 15; Condit, History of the JCS, Vol. VI, p. 146; Carter et al., Managing Nuclear Options, p. 38; MemCon, London, 7/16/56, FRUS, 1955-57, XXVII.663-664; Memo from Robertson to Murphy, 8/22/56, FRUS, 1955-57, XXIII:300-301. 22. Memo for Record of Meeting, 9/11/56, and Memo from Wilson to Lay, 11/2/56, both in FRUS, 1955-57, XX1IL305-309, 341-342; MemCon, Paris, 12/11/56, and Telegram from U.S. Delegation at NAC Ministerial Meeting to Department of State, Paris, 12/14/56, both in FRUS, 1955-57, IV: 123-133, 149-156. See John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA (From Wild Bill Donovan to William Casey) (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), pp. 305-306, for information about a proposal by Robert Amory, Jr., CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence, to issue an ultimatum to the Soviets over Hungary in November 1956, then resort to a "massive preemptive use of nuclear weapons" if necessary against Russian rail and road connections from Poland, Russian Ruthenia, and Rumania into Hungary. 23. Report by ODM-Defense Working Group, 12/20/55, and Memo of Discussion at 288th NSC Meeting, 6/15/56, both in FRUS, 1955-57, XIX. 173-177, 317-333; Memo by Lay for SecState, SecDef, Chairman AEC enclosing "Authorization for the Expenditure of Atomic Weapons in Air Defense" and "Policy Statement on Interception and Engagement of Hostile Aircraft," 4/18/56, WHO, NSC Staff, ExSec's Subject File, Box 5, No. 19 Policy re Use (File No. 1) (3), EL; NSC 5605, 5/24/56, White House Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Series, Policy Papers Subseries, Box 17, NSC 5605, "A Net Evaluation Subcommittee," EL; Dino A.

Notes

267

Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Random House, 1991), pp. 30-32. 24. See Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Harper, 1957). 25. Memo of Conference with President on December 19,1956,12/20/56, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, EL. 26. Ibid.; Dulles to Wilson, 3/29/57, RG 59, 711.56341/3-2957, NA; Memo of Conference with President, Bermuda, 3/22/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XXVIL733-736. 27. Gregg Herken, Counsels of War (New York: Knopf, 1985), p. 129; Summary Discussion at 317th NSC Meeting on March 28, 1957, 3/29/57, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, NSC Series, Box 8, EL. 28. Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 195; Policy Recommendation Prepared by Stassen, London, 5/9/57, and Letter from Quarles to Dulles, 6/5/57, and Telegram from Embassy in Federal Republic Germany to Department of State, 6/5/57, all in FRUS, 1955-57, XX:504-510, 599-607. 29. Most documents pertaining to predelegation authority are still classified. What is available can be found at the Eisenhower Library in the WHO, NSC Staff files, ExSec's Subject files and WHO, OSANSA, NSC Series, Subject Subseries files. Also documents in the DOE Archives, including AEC Meeting 1393 Minutes, 7/29/58. See JCS to CINCAL, CINCLANT, CINCARIB, CINCONAD, CINCPAC, and CINCSAC, 12/14/56, LeMay Papers, Box 206, Folder B-58619, for expanded authority to use atomic weapons in the air defense of U.S. territories and possessions and coastal air defense identification zones. 30. Memo of Discussion at 325th NSC Meeting, 5/27/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:488-507. 31. Ibid.; NSC 5707/8, 6/3/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:507-524. 32. Strauss Briefs Eisenhower and NSC, 6/6/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:524 fn. 3; Memo of Discussion at 326th NSC Meeting, 6/13/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XXIIL443-454. 33. Memo of Discussion at 334th NSC Meeting, 8/8/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XXIII:480-489. 34. Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 132-134, 146-152. 35. Dulles Calls Allen Dulles, 10/8/57, Minutes of Telephone Conversations, Reel 6, p. 752; Memo from Director INR (Cumming) to Acting SecState, 10/11/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XXIV: 169; Memo of Discussion at 339th NSC Meeting, 10/10/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:601-605. 36. MemCon with President, 10/29/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:615-617. 37. Allen Dulles Calls John Foster Dulles, 10/23/57, Minutes of Telephone Conversations, Reel 6, p. 689; MemCon with President, 10/31/57, and NIE 11-4-57, 11/12/57, both in FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:617-619, 665-672. 38. MemCon with President, 11/4/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:620-624; "Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age," Report to the President by the Security Resources Panel of the Science Advisory Committee (Gaither Report), 11/7/57, White House Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Series, Policy Papers Subseries, Box 22, NSC 5724, EL; Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 146-152. 39. MemCon, 1/3/58, Dulles Papers, General Correspondence and Memoranda, Box 1, Memoranda of Conversation General (G), EL.

CHAPTER 10: SWORD OF DAMOCLES 1. "The Establishment and Use of Missile Bases in Stockpiles of Nuclear Weapons in the NATO Countries": Replies Made by SecState Dulles to Questions Asked at News Conference, 11/19/57, in U.S. Department of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1957 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1961), pp. 400, 371-373. 2. See FRUS, 1949, 111:819-830. 3. Memo by JCS to Marshall, 2/7/51, and Draft NSC Staff Study, 3/26/51, both in FRUS, 1951, 111:1892-1894, 1904-1911; NSC 132/1, "U.S. Policy and Courses of Action to Counter Possible Soviet or Satellite Action against Berlin," 6/12/52, FRUS, 1952-54, VII: 1261-1269.

268

Notes

4. MemCon, White House, 2/1/56, FRUS, 1955-57, XXVII:643-650. 5. Memo of Discussion at 325th NSC Meeting, 5/27/57, FRUS, 1955-57, XIX:488-507. 6. See Botti, Long Wait and Ian Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship: Britain's Deterrent and America, 1957-1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), for more on AngloAmerican negotiations for the IRBM agreement; Elbrick to Secretary of State, 12/27/57, RG 59, 711.56351/12-2757, NA; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Brussels: NATO Information Service, 1984); Jan Melissen, The Struggle for Nuclear Partnership: Britain, the United States, and the Making of an Ambiguous Alliance 1952-1959 (Groningen, Netherlands: STYX, 1993), pp. 97-98. 7. Minutes of Meeting between Secretary of State and German Foreign Minister, 11/21/57, RG 59,740.5/11-2157, NA. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid.; Exchange of Views, Dulles and Von Brentano/Blankenhorn, 11/24/57, RG 59, 611.62A/11-2457, NA. 12. MemCon with Chancellor Adenauer, Paris, 12/14/57, Dulles Papers, General Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Box 1, Memos of Conversations-General A-D (1), EL. 13. Telegram MAAG Germany to Dulles, 12/20/57, RG 59, 762A.5/12-2057, NA. 14. Summary Discussion at 364th NSC Meeting on May 1, 1958, 5/2/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, NSC Series, Box 7, EL. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid.

CHAPTER 11: THE LAST SIDESHOW 1. Memo for Twining by Burke, 9/7/58, RG 218, 381 Formosa (11-8-48), Sec. 37, NA. 2. See FRUS, 111:332-333, 341-352, 356-357, 360, 411-417, 424, 456-459; CINCPAC to CNO, Message No. 9480, 8/28/57, Carrollton Press Collection, in Betts, Nuclear Blackmail, p. 70. 3. NIE 13-57, 3/19/57, FRUS, 1955-57, 111:497-510; Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: Last Testament, pp. 254-255, 258-59, 264; M. H. Halperin and Tang Tsou, "The 1958 Quemoy Crisis." in M. H. Halperin, ed., Sino-Soviet Relations and Arms Control (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967), pp. 269, 278-279. 4. MemCon with President by Gray, 8/11/58, White House Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Special Assistant Series, Presidential Subseries, Box 3, Meetings with President 1958 (4), EL; Memo of Conference with President, 8/11/58, White House Office, NSC Staff, Box 35, August 1958 Staff Notes (2), EL. 5. Memo for Sprague, 8/22/58, RG 218, Chairman's File, 091 China, Box 7, NA; Memo for President by McNamara, 6/25/62, POF, Departments & Agencies, DOD, 4/62-6/62, KL. 6. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail, pp. 68-71. Betts also cites M. H. Halperin, The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis: A Documented History (U), RM-4900-ISA (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1966, portions declassified 1975), pp. 109, 113, 184. In the "Power in the Pacific" broadcast by the Public Broadcasting System, 10/16/90, the assertion was made that CINCPAC believed he had authority to use nuclear weapons on his own initiative if Chinese forces attacked the offshore islands and/or Taiwan and if communications were cut from the Seventh Fleet to Hawaii to Washington. 7. Memo of Conference with President by Goodpaster, 8/29/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 35, August 1958 Staff Notes (7), EL. 8. Telephone Call to Twining by Dulles, 9/2/58, Dulles Papers, Telephone Calls, Box 9, Memoranda of Telephone Calls between 8/1/58 and 10/31/58 (4), EL; MemCon re: Taiwan Straits Situation, 9/2/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, International Series, Formosa 1958 (2), EL.

Notes

269

9. Ibid. 10. Memo by Dulles, 9/4/58, Eisenhower Papers, International Series, Box 9, Formosa/China 1958-61 (3), EL; Memo of Conference with President by Goodpaster, 9/4/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 36, Staff Notes September 1958, EL; see John P. Rose, The Evolution of U.S. Army Nuclear Doctrine, 1945-1980 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980), pp. 34-39, for a summary of nuclear weapons effects. 11. Ibid; "United States Appraisal of the Situation Resulting from Aggressive Chinese Communist Military Actions in the Taiwan Straits Area": Statement by SecState Dulles, Newport, R.I., 9/4/58, in U.S. Department of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1958 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1962), pp. 1146-1147. 12. Memo of Conference with President on September 6, 1958, 9/8/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 36, Staff Notes September 1958, EL.; Memo for Twining by Burke, 9/7/58, RG 218, 381 Formosa (11-8-48), Sec. 37, NA; Halperin, Sino-Soviet Relations, pp. 276277; Letter by Khrushchev to Eisenhower, 9/7/58, in American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1958, pp. 1149-1152. 13. Memo for Record by Gray of a Meeting on September 10, 1958, 9/12/58, White House Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Special Assistant Series, Presidential Subseries, Meetings with the President 1958 (3), EL; Memo for SecState by Eisenhower, 10/7/58, Eisenhower Papers, DDE Diary Series, Box 36, DDE Dictation, October 1958, EL. 14. Memo of a Conference with the President on September 11, 1958, 9/15/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 36, Staff Notes September 1958, EL; "The Communist Threat to Peace in the Taiwan Area": Address by President Eisenhower to the Nation, 9/11/58, in American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1958, pp. 1155-1161. 15. SNIE 100-11-58, "Probable Chinese Communist and Soviet Intentions in the Taiwan Strait," 9/16/58, CIA; Letter to Eisenhower by Khrushchev, 9/19/58, in Jonathan T. Howe, Multicrises: Sea Power and Global Politics in the Missile Era (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971), p. 249. 16. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 37-38; Harold Macmillan, [Memoirs] vol. 3, Riding the Storm, (New York: Harper & Row, 1966-1973), pp. 554-555; MemCon with President by Dulles, 9/23/58, Dulles Papers, White House Memos Series, Box 7, White House Meetings with President, 7/1-12/31/58, EL; Memo of Conference with President on September 29, 1958, 9/30/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 36, Staff Notes September 1958, EL. 17. Herken, Counsels of War, p. 126; Betts, Nuclear Blackmail, p. 70. Again, Betts relies on Halperin's Rand Corporation partially declassified study, The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis, p. 544; Admiral H. G. Hopwood to CINCPAC, 12/20/58, DOD in McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 285.

CHAPTER 12: THE AUTOBAHN TO ARMAGEDDON 1. Memo of Telephone Conversation with President by Herter, 11/22/58, Eisenhower Papers, Dulles-Herter Series, Chronological, Box 6, November 1958, EL. 2. Memo from Timmons to Merchant, 11/25/58, RG 59, 762A.5611/11-2558, NA. 3. Letter by Timmons to Guthrie, 9/5/58, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, AtomNucl Policy 1957-59 (2), EL; Message, OSD Wash DC to USCINCEUR Paris, 10/15/58, and Message, USCINCEUR to JCS, 11/3/58, both in Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 97, Atomic Nuclear Policy (8), EL; Memo by Vandevanter to Norstad, 12/10/58, and Message, HEDUSAF to USCINCEUR, 12/18/58, both in Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 97, Atomic Nuclear Policy (7), EL; Telegram from U.S. Embassy Paris to Secretary of State, 12/20/58, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series, Box 8, Dulles December 1958, EL. 4. Telegram from Department of State to Embassy in Germany, 11/17/58, FRUS, 1958-60, VIII.-47-48.

270

Notes

5. British Views on Khrushchev's Ultimatum, 11/17/58, Foreign Office Files, FO 371/13 7337, UK-PRO. 6. Notes of the Secretary's Staff Meeting, 11/18/58, FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL84; Kohn and Harahan, "U.S. Strategic Air Power," p. 90; Memo by Hillyard to JCS, 11/24/58, RG 218, CCS 381 (8-20-43), Sec. 41, NA. 7. Memo of Telephone Conversation with President by Herter, 11/22/58, Eisenhower Papers, Dulles-Herter Series, Chronological, Box 6, November 1958, EL. 8. Telegram from Ambassador Thompson to Department of State, Moscow, 12/3/58, FRUS, 1958-60, VIII: 148-152. 9. Prados, Soviet Estimate, p. 89; Telegram from U.S. Embassy Paris to Secretary of State, 12/20/58, and Circular Telegram to U.S. Embassy Paris by Herter, London, 12/22/58, both in Eisenhower Papers, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series, Box 8, Dulles December 1958, EL; Memo for Record of Luncheon Meeting between McElroy, Strauss, and Irwin of 17 December 1958,12/31/58, N. S. Archive; Telegram from Ambassador Bruce to U.S. Embassy France, No. 507, 1/23/59, Norstad Papers, Box 48, Germany 1956-60 (7), EL. 10. Secretary's Conversation with General Norstad, MemCons of February 4, 1959, London, 2/12/59, RG 59, 762.0221/2-1259, NA. 11. Twining Testimony before Executive Session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vol. XI, p. 41, FRUS, 1958-60, VIII.265 editorial note. 12. Memo of Discussion at 394th NSC Meeting, 1/22/59, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, NSC Series, Box 11, EL. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Secretary's Conversation with General Norstad, MemCons of February 4, 1959, London, 2/12/59, RG 59,762.0221/2-1259, NA; MemCon with President Eisenhower, 1/29/59, FRUS,195860, VIIL299-305. 16. MemCon with President Eisenhower, 1/29/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIII:299-305. 17. Ibid. 18. Memo of Discussion at Special NSC Meeting, 3/5/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL419-425, also 449-455; Memo of Conference with President, 3/6/59, WHOOSS, International Series, Box 6, Berlin Vol. I (4), EL. 19. MemCon, 1/2/59, and Memo of Substance at Discussion at State-JCS Meeting, 1/14/59, and Memo of Discussion at Special NSC Meeting, 3/5/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL225-228, 259-265, 419-425; Despatch from U.S. Embassy Moscow to Department of State, February 2, 1959, RG 59, 661.00/2-259, NA; Memo for Record, 1/29/59 by Whisenand, RG 218, Twining Records, CJCS091 Germany, Jan.-Feb. 1959, NA; Telegram No. 1687, Thompson (Moscow) to Secretary of State, 2/25/59, RG 59, 761.13/2-2559, NA. 20. Synopsis of State and Intelligence Material Reports to President, 1/21/59, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 38, Goodpaster Briefings, EL; Telegram from Embassy in France to Department of State, 3/4/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL417-419. 21. Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Ruler 1945-1970(New York: Norton & Co., 1991), p. + 381; Secretary's Conversation with General Norstad, MemCons of February 4, 1959, London, 2/12/59, RG 59, 762.0221/2-1259, NA. 22. Secretary's Conversation with General Norstad, MemCons of February 4, 1959, London, 2/12/59, RG 59, 762.0221/2-1259, NA; Message, OSD to USMNR, 1/24/59, and Message, CHMAAG Paris to USCINCEUR, 3/4/59, and Message, CINCUSAREUR to USCINCEUR, 3/6/59, and Cross Reference Sheet re: France, 3/21/59, all in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom-Nucl Policy 57-59 (1), EL. 23. MemCon, Bonn, 2/8/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL346-348. 24. Ibid. 25. Telegram from Embassy in Germany to Department of State, 3/2/59, and Message from Bruce to DCIA Dulles, Undated, both in FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL402-407, 478-482; Telegram No. 2119, Bruce to Secretary of State, 3/24/59, RG 59, 762.00/3-2459, NA.

Notes

271

26. Telegram from Houghton (Paris) to Secretary of State, 3/17/59, N. S. Archive; Telegram from SACEUR to Twining, Paris, 3/17/59, and Memo from McElroy and Herter to President Eisenhower, 3/17/59, both in FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL495-497, 500-502. 27. MemCon, 3/20/59, USDEL MC/1, Washington, 11:20 a.m., and MemCon, 3/20/59, USDELMC/10, Camp David, 3-4:40p.m., and MemCon, Camp David, USDELMC/11, 3/20/59, 3-4:40p.m., and MemCon, 3/20/59, Camp David, 6:30-7:30p.m., allinFRUS, 1958-60, VIIL512521; MemCon, 3/20/59, 11:20 a.m., and MemCon, 3/20/59, Camp David, USDELMC/9, 3-4:40 p.m., both inFRUS, 1958-60, VIL832-845. 28. MemCon, 3/20/59, Camp David, 6:30-7:30 p.m., all in FRUS, 1958-60, VIII:520-521. 29. Memo for Chief of Staff U.S. Army, 4/6/59, RG 319, Folder OPS-091 Germany, NA; MemCon, New State Department, 4/16/59, RG 59, 762A.5/4-1659, NA; MemCon, 4/16/59, RG 59, 762A.5/4-1659, NA. 30. Memo from Henry to Freers, 4/24/59, RG 59, 611.61/4-2459, NA; Memo by Kohler to Murphy, 4/17/59, RG 59, 762.0221/4-2059, NA; MemCon with President by Herter, 5/2/59, N. S. Archive. 31. MemCon, 4/24/59, Walter Reed Hospital, N. S. Archive; MemCon by Greene, Walter Reed Hospital, 4/24/59, RG 59, 611.61/4-2459, NA. 32. Telegram from Embassy in U.K. to Department of State, 4/25/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL641-643. 33. Memo by Watlington to Norstad, 7/20/59, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 96, Atomic Nuclear Policy (3), EL; CINC U.S. Navy Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean to CINCEUR, 2/24/60, USN Operations Archives, Naval Historical Center; Message, CINCUSAREUR to USCINCEUR, 4/25/59, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom-Nucl Policy 57-59 (1), EL.

CHAPTER 13: COCKED GUN 1. Telegram from Embassy in Soviet Union to Department of State, Moscow, 6/25/59, 2 p.m., FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL941-943. 2. Kohler to Herter, 6/2/59, RG 59, 762.00/6-259, NA. 3. Charles de Gaulle, Lettres, notes, etcarnets, 1958-1960 (Paris: Plon, 1980-85), pp. 225-228 in Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 477-478; Memo of Conference with President, 6/9/59, 2:00 p.m., Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 42, Staff Notes, EL. 4. Memo for President by Herter, 7/1/59, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series, Box 9, Herter July 1959, EL. 5. Telegram from Embassy in Soviet Union to Department of State, Moscow, 6/25/59,2 p.m., FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL941-943. 6. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 39-40; Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, pp. 268-269. 7. Memo for SecDef by Burke, 7/10/59, RG 218, 9172 Berlin/9105, NA; CIA, "U.S. Negotiating Position on Berlin 1959-1962," 7/13/59, WhiteHouseOfficeof Staff Secretary, Subject Series, DOD Subseries, Box 4, JCS, EL. 8. Memo ofMeeting with President by Gray, 13July 1959,10:30 a.m., 7/16/59, White House Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Special Assistant Series, Presidential Subseries, Box 4, Meetings with President, June-Dec. 1959, EL. 9. Telegram, Bruce (Embassy in Germany) to Delegation to Foreign Ministers Meeting, Bonn, 7/15/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIIL990. 10. Telegram from Herter to Department of State, 7/15/59, 9:00 p.m., RG59,762.00/7-1559, NA. 11. Memo of Discussion at 413th NSC Meeting, 7/16/59, FRUS, 1958-60, VIII: 1000-1001. 12. Summary of Discussion between Vice President Nixon and Khrushchev on July 26,1959,

272

Notes

7/27/59, RG 59, 611.61/7-2759, NA; MemCon, Ogorevo, 7/26/59, 3:30 p.m., FRUS, 1958-60, VIII: 1057-1069 and X:359-371; Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 250-271. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid; Letter to Kohler from Raymond L. Thurston (at SHAPE in Paris), 8/17/59, RG 59, 762.0221/8-1759, NA. 15. Vernon A. Walters, Services discrets (Paris: Plon, 1979), pp. 254-257 in Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Ruler, pp. 368-369. 16. MemCon, 9/15/59, and MemCon, 9/15/59, 5:00 p.m., both in FRUS, 1958-60, X:392402, 409-10. 17. MemCon by Lodge, 9/17/59, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, International Series, Box 48, Khrushchev Visit September 15-27,1959). SeeFRUS, 1958-60, X:414-59 for Lodge Memos during Khrushchev's tour and other documents prior to Khrushchev's return for the Camp David summit. 18. Department of Army to Major Army Commands, 8/23/59, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 96, Atom Nucl Policy (3), EL; MemCon, 9/26/59, Camp David, 9:20 a.m., and MemCon, 9/27/59, Camp David, 11:45 a.m., both in FRUS, 1958-60, IX:35-45; MemCon, 9/26/59, Camp David, 1:00 p.m., FRUS, 1958-60, X.462-468. 19. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, pp. 411-412. 20. MemCon, 9/27/59, Camp David, 9:30 a.m., and MemCon, 9/26 & 27/59, Camp David, both in FRUS, 1958-60, X:470-482; Record of a Meeting at Rambouillet at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, December 20, 1959, PREM 11/2991, UK-PRO; Memo of Conference with President on November 4, 1959, 11/6/59, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 45, Staff Notes. 21. Memo for Secretary by Kohler, 11/4/59, RG 59, 740.5/11-459, NA; Memo of Conference with President on November 4, 1959, 11/6/59, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 45, Staff Notes; Memo from Kohler to Herter, 11/30/59, RG 59, 740.5/11-3059, NA; Norstad would speak about his multinational atomic authority idea in a speech in California, which was revealed publicly in the London Times, December 12, 1959. 22. Record of Meeting at Elysee at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, December 19, 1959, and Record of Meeting at Rambouillet at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, December 20, 1959, both in PREM 11/2991, UK-PRO. 23. Herken, Counsels of War, p. 130; NIE 11-4-59, 2/9/60, in Prados, Soviet Estimate, p. 89; Office of the Historian, HQ SAC, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, Alert Operations and the Strategic Air Command, 1957-1991 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992), p. 87. 24. Memo for Goodpaster by Calhoun, 3/8/60, and Telegram to American Embassy Moscow, 3/12/60, both in Eisenhower Papers, AWF, International Series, Box 49, Khrushchev, EL. 25. MemCon, 3/28/60, Camp David, FRUS, 1958-1960, IX:258-262; US-UK Bilateral Agreement for Mutual Defense Purposes, Record of the Third Semi-Annual Review of Co-operation, May 10th and 11th 1960, at Ministry of Defence, London, DOE Archives; Memo for Files, 3/29/60, and Memo from President Eisenhower to Prime Minister Macmillan, 3/29/60, Camp David, both inFRUS, 1958-1960, VIL861-864. 26. Memo for Files, 3/29/60, and Memo from President Eisenhower to Prime Minister Macmillan, 3/29/60, Camp David, both in FRUS, 1958-1960, VIL861-864. 27. Briefing Sheet for Chairman JCS for Operations Deputies Meeting on 10 May 1960, 5/9/60, RG 218, 9172 Berlin/9105, March 28, 1960, NA; Memo on Berlin Contingency Planning, 5/17/60, White House Office of Staff Secretary, International Preparations and Meetings, Box 11, Summit Meeting-Paris-May 1960 (IV), EL. 28. Circular Telegram by Department of State, 6/10/60, White House Office of Staff Secretary, Subject Series, State Department Subseries, Box 4, State Department, 1960, EL; Scott D. Sagan, "Nuclear Alerts and Crisis Management," International Security 9 (Spring 1985), pp. 102-106; Memo of Discussion at 445th NSC Meeting, 5/24/60, FRUS, 1958-60, X:522-528. 29. MemCon, 5/16/60, Paris, and Memo of Discussion at 445th NSC Meeting, 5/24/60, both inFRUS, 1958-60, IX.455-456, 505-513. 30. MemCon, 6/9/60, and Report Prepared in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research,

Notes

273

7/25/60, both m FRUS, 1958-60, IX:519-526, 531-534; Memo for Goodpaster by Krebs, 7/22/60, White House Office of Staff Secretary, International Series, Box 15, USSR, vol. II of II, EL; Memo of Conference with President on July 19, 1960, Newport, 7/21/60, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary Series, Box 51, Staff Notes, EL; William Safire, ed., Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1992), pp. 379-383. 31. Summary Discussion at 451st NSC Meeting, Friday, July 15, 1960,7/18/60, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, NSC Series, Box 12, EL.; Prados, Soviet Estimate, p. 89; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, p. 53. 32. Memo of Meeting with President by Gray on February 16, 1959, 10:00 a.m., 2/18/59, WTiite House Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Special Assistant Series, Presidential Subseries, Box 4, Meetings with President 1959 (6), EL. 33. Ibid.; Kaplan, Wizards ofArmageddon, pp. 243-244; Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 53-54. 34. Notes for File, 9/25/60, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, ACW Diary Series, Box 11, EL; Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 268-69; Ball and Richelson, Strategic Nuclear Targeting, pp. 55-62. 35. Ibid. 36. Telegram, Herter to USRO Paris, 3/24/60, and Presentation by Loper before NSC Planning Board, 4/26/60, both in Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 96, Atomic Nuclear Policy (2), EL. 37. MemCon on Nuclear Sharing, 8/2/60, and MemCon on Nuclear Sharing, 8/24/60, and Herter to Embassy, USRO and Thurston, 10/21/60, all in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1960 (2), EL; Memo of Conference with President by Goodpaster, August 16, 1960, 8/19/60, Eisenhower Papers, AWF, DDE Diary, Box 51, Staff Notes, EL; Memo for President by Komer, 3/6/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 321, Staff Memos, Robert W. Komer, 1/1/61-3/14/61, KL. 38. Message, Thurston to SecState, 10/15/60, and Message, Burgess to SecState, 11/7/60, both in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1960 (2), EL; New York Times, November 23, 1960. 39. Ibid.; MemCon, Meeting between SecDef, Norstad, JCS, and others on September 13, 1960, 9/16/60, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 91, U.S. Support for NATO 1958-60 (2), EL. Norstad's precise opinion about the Bowie Report and the various aspects of NATO nuclear defense are sometimes difficult to decipher because as a skilled bureaucratic infighter, he gave a little here, took a little there, dissembled, retreated, attacked, and generally shifted position with great subdety, depending upon the skillrulness of the opposition and pressure from higher-ups. In the end, however, as the Berlin crisis played out, his true feeling became known. 40. Message, Irwin to Norstad, 11/9/60, and Message, Norstad to Irwin, 11/16/60, and Telegram, Herter to USRO, 12/7/60, and Telegram, Herter to USRO, 12/10/60, all in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1960 (1), EL. 41. Memo by Downey for Knowles, 12/8/60, and Memo for Record of McCone-Norstad Conversation, 12/8/60, both in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1960 (1), EL. 42. Memo from JCS to Gates, 9/29/60, FRUS, 1958-60, IX:593-594. 43. COS (60) 213, Ministry of Defence Memo to Chiefs of Staff Committee re: "Berlin Contingency Planning," 7/27/60, Ministry of Defence Records, DEFE 5/105, UK-PRO. 44. Ibid.; Confidential Annex to COS (60), 50th Meeting Held on Tuesday, 9th August 1960, and Confidential Annex to COS (60), 52nd meeting Held on Tuesday, 23rd August 1960, both in Ministry of Defence Records, DEFE 4/128, UK-PRO. 45. MemCon, 9/23/60, New York, FRUS, 1958-60, IX:583-585; COS (60) 325, 11/14/60, Ministry of Defence Records, DEFE 5/108, UK-PRO.

274

Notes

CHAPTER 14: AMATEUR HOUR 1. Safire, Lend Me Your Ears, p. 812. 2. McNamara admits his lack of qualifications for the position of secretary of defense, and by inference his general incompetence, throughout Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995). In fact, a charge of criminal incompetence would not be going too far, in my opinion. 3. For information about Kennedy administration officials, the relationship between civilians and military officers, and various anecdotes, see Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years 1953-1971 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 115-117, 134; Clifford, Counsel to the President, pp. 327-344; Kaplan, Wizards ofArmageddon, p. 254-255; Radford, Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, p. 323; Kohn and Harshan, "U.S. Strategic Air Power," pp. 91-92; Peter Wyden, Wall: Inside Story of Divided Berlin (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989) pp. 53-54. Another indispensable source can be found in Oral Interview records at the Kennedy Library, for example, those of Admiral George W. Anderson, Roswell Gilpatric, General Earl G. Wheeler, and many others. See McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 21-22, on the ridiculous number of studies McNamara ordered upon taking office. A "Master List of Planning Problems," Third Revision, 7/31/61, can be found in NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 318, Key National Security Problems, General 3/61-9/61, KL. 4. Oral Interviews, Admiral Anderson, pp. 18-19, and Herbert York, pp. 11-13, both at KL. 5. Herken, Counsels of War, pp. 137-138; Wall, p. 63; McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 345. 6. Kaplan, Wizards ofArmageddon, pp. 258-259, 278-281; Herken, Counsels of War, p. 139; "Key National Security Problems," by Robert H. Johnson of NSC staff, 2/10/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 318, General 1/61-2/61, KL; Memo to President by Bundy, 1/30/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 318, Key National Security Problems, General 1/61-2/61, KL. 7. Memo to President by Bundy, 1/30/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 318, Key National Security Problems, General 1/61-2/61, KL; Letter by Gilpatric to Rusk, 3/17/61, NSF, Departments and Agencies, Box 273, DOD General 3/61, KL; Oral Interview, Wheeler, pp. 3-4. 8. For example, Memo for President from Kissinger, "Major Defense Options," 3/22/61, Cambridge, Mass., NSF, Box 320, Staff Memoranda Henry Kissinger, May 1961, KL. 9. Memo for Chairman JCS by McNamara, 2/10/61, RG 218, CCS 3001 BNSP, RG 218. As originally designed, the Minutemen had to be launched fifty at a time. 10. Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 294-295; Carter et al., Managing Nuclear Options, pp. 487-489; Prados, Soviet Estimate, p. 116. 11. McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 20-21; Memo for Sorenson by Bundy, 3/13/61, NSF, Departments and Agencies, Box 273, DOD General 3/61, KL. 12. Notes on Norstad's Meeting with Military Committee, 2/2/61, and Message, Norstad to McNamara, 2/11/61, and Cross Reference sheet summarizing Harriman message, 3/8/61, and Memo for Record on Norstad visit to Volkel Air Base, 4/5/61, all in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1961 (2), EL; Letter by Loper to Norstad, 2/17/61, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 97, Atom Nucl Policy [1960-62] (7), EL; Telegram from Bonn (Dowling) to SecState, 3/8/61, Norstad Papers, Policy Files Series, Germany, Problems (2), EL. 13. Memo for President by Komer, 3/6/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Robert W. Komer, Box 321,1/1/61-3/14/61, KL; Letter, Fessendenn to Thurston, 4/15/61, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1961 (2), EL; Message, OSD to SHAPE, 5/6/61, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 97, Atom Nucl Policy [1960-62] (6), EL. 14. Memo for President by Acheson, 4/3/61, NSF, Germany, Berlin, General, April 1961 or POF, Countries, UK-Security, March 27-April 1961, KL. 15. Ibid. 16. Telegram from Dowling (Bonn) to SecState Rusk, 3/8/61, noon, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Germany, Problems (II), EL. 17. Record of a Meeting Held at the White House on Wednesday, 4/5/61, 11:00 a.m., CAB 133/244, UK-PRO.

Notes

275

18. Ibid. 19. MemCon, 4/5/61, 3:10 p.m., and MemCon, 4/6/61, 3:45 p.m., both in FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:36-44. 20. Memo by Bundy, 4/24/61, containing NSAM-40, "Policy Directive re: NATO and the Adantic Nations," 4/20/61, Vice President Security File, Box 4, NSC 1961, JL. 21. Ibid.; Record of a Meeting Held at the White House on Wednesday, 4/5/61, 11:00 a.m., CAB 133/244, UK-PRO. 22. Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, 7/6/61, POF, Box 117, Countries, GermanySecurity, July 1961, KL. 23. Letter to Kohler by Nitze, 10/27/61, RG218, Tele 4712, October 10, 1961, NA; Telegram from Kohler to SecState, 12/8/61, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Atom Nucl Policy 1961 (I), EL; Memo for Bundy and Rostow by Komer, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Robert Komer, Box 321, 5/16-6/14/61, KL. 24. Memo for Record by Colonel S.K. Eaton, 5/25/61, Norstad, Box 96, Assistant SecDef/ISA, EL. 25. Letter by Finletter to President, 5/29/61, NSF, Regional Security, Box 220, NATO General, 5/1-5/31/61, KL; MemCon, 6/1/61, Paris, 3:30 p.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL309-316. 26. MemCon, 6/2/61, Paris, 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL662-668. 27. Memos on the Vienna summit can be found in FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV:231-236 and XIV:87-98; Oral Interview, Wheeler, pp. 38, 62, KL. 28. Memo by Thompson to Rusk, 6/19/61, N. S. Archive. 29. MemCon with President and Congressional Leaders of June 6, 1961 Meeting, 6/7/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 317, Meetings with President, General 1/61-6/61, KL; Memo for JCS by Burke, 6/19/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 129-130; Memo by Mansfield to Kennedy, 6/23/61, NSF, Box 81, Germany-Berlin General, June 13-28, 1961, KL; Memo by Kohler to Acheson, 6/23/61, "The Importance of Berlin," N. S. Archive; Letter by Acheson to Truman, 6/24/61, Acheson Papers, Box 166, Acheson-Truman Correspondence 1961, TL; Brinkley, Acheson: Cold War Years, pp. 137-138. 30. MemCon, 7/15/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:202-207; Honore M. Catudal, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis: A Case Study in U.S. Decision Making (Berlin: Verlag, 1980), p. 157; J. C. Hopkins, The Development of SAC, 1946-1981 etc.,+in Betts,Nuclear Blackmail+p103. Office of + Historian, HQ SAC, "Alert Operations and SAC 1957-1991," p. 87.

CHAPTER 15: HAREBRAINED SCHEMES 1. Wyden, Wall, p. 229. 2. Record of Meeting of Interdepartmental Coordinating Group on Berlin Contingency Planning, 6/16/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 119-124. 3. Wyden, Wall, pp. 63-66; Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 203. 4. "Berlin Contingency Plan," undated, NSF, Countries, Box 84, Germany, Berlin, KL; JCS 1907/433, 12 October 1961, D/Plans File, in History of the Directorate of Plans, Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Programs, HQ USAF, vol. 22, 1 July 61—31 December 61; Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 203. 5. Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 200-201; Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 296-297; Memo from McNamara to President Kennedy, 5/5/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:61-63; Memo for Bundy by Kaysen, 7/3/61, NSF, Box 81, Germany-Berlin General, July 1-6, 1961, KL. 6. Memo for President on Military Planning for a Possible Berlin Crisis, 5/5/61, NSF, Box 81, Germany-Berlin General, Proposal of JCS, KL; Confidential Annex to COS (61) 32nd Meeting Held on Tuesday, 30th May 1961, Ministry of Defence Files, DEFE 4/135, UK-PRO; Confidential Annex to COS (61) 38th Meeting Held on Tuesday, 20th June 1961, Ministry of Defence Files, DEFE 4/136, UK-PRO.

276

Notes

7. Telegram from Norstad to JCS, 6/27/61, Paris, 1:35 p.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:136-138; Talking Paper by Burke on Berlin Situation, 6/24/61, N. S. Archive. Italicized text was underlined by Burke in his original document. Memo for Bundy by Nitze, 6/26/61, Doc. 75, in Microfiche Supplement to Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI (State Department, 1995). 8. Report by Dean Acheson, 6/28/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 138-159. 9. Memo for Record of NSC Meeting on 6/29/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 313, NSC Meetings 1961 No. 486, Folder 13; NSAM-58, 6/30/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 160-165. 10. Memo from Schlesinger to President Kennedy, 7/7/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 173-176; Wyden, Wall, pp. 73-76; Memo for Bundy by Kaysen on "Berlin Crisis and Civil Defense," 7/7/61, NSF, Box 81, Germany-Berlin General, July 7-12, 1961, KL; Catudal, Kennedy and Berlin Wall Crisis, pp. 160-163; Memo for Taylor by Legere, 7/10/61, Doc. 80, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 11. MemCon, 7/12/61, and Memo of Discussion in the NSC, 7/13/61, and Notes on NSC Meeting by Lemnitzer, 7/13/61, 4:10 p.m. all in FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 187-196, and fn on p. 186 for Taylor taking the sun with Kennedy at Hyannisport. 12. Memo by Taylor, 7/12/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 313, NSC Meetings 1961, No. 487, July 13, 1961, Folder 14, KL. 13. JP (61) 82 (Final) Report by Joint Planning Staff on Berlin Contingency Plan, 14 July 1961, Ministry of Defence Files, DEFE 6/71, UK-PRO; Rose, Evolution ofArmy Nuclear Doctrine, pp. 99-100. 14. Memo for SecDef by Taylor, 5/25/62, NSF, Departments and Agencies, Box 274, DOD General, 4/62-5/62, KL. 15. Telegram from Embassy in U.K. by Bruce to Department of State, 7/17/61, FRUS, 196163, XIII: 1042. 16. NSAM-59, 7/14/61, and Memo of Meeting on Berlin, 7/18/61, and Memo from Bundy to Kennedy, 7/19/61, and Memo of Minutes of NSC Meeting, 7/19/61, all in FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 197-198, 215-222; Memo of Meeting on Berlin by Bundy, 7/17/61, NSF, Countries, Box 88, Germany, Berlin, KL. 17. Memo of Minutes of NSC July 20, 1961, 7/25/61, NSF, Countries, Box 88, Germany, Berlin, KL; Letter to Truman by Acheson, 8/4/61, Acheson Papers, Box 166, Acheson-Truman Correspondence 1961, TL; Letter to Eden by Acheson, 8/4/61, Acheson Papers, SI, B9, Fl 17, Yale University Library, in Brinkley, Acheson: Cold War Years, p. 148. 18. MemCon, 7/15/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:202-207. 19. Telegram from Embassy in Soviet Union to Department of State, Moscow, 7/28/61, and Telegram from Embassy in Soviet Union to Department of State by Thompson, 7/31/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:231, 241-245. 20. Paper Prepared by Thomas C. Schelling, 7/5/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 170-172. 21. Memo of Conference with President, 7/27/61, NSF, Chester V. Clifton, Box 345, Conferences with President, JCS 3/61-9/61, KL. 22. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail, pp. 100-102; Herken, Counsels of War, pp. 158-159; Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 299-300; Thomas B. Allen, War Games (New York: McGraw Hill, 1987), p. 162; Memo for Bundy by Komer, 7/20/61, Doc. 97, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 23. Memo by CIA, "Current Status of Soviet/Satellite Military Forces and Indications of Military Intent," 9/6/61, POF, Box 117, Countries, Germany-Security, Aug.-Dec. 1961, KL; Ball, Strategic Nuclear Targeting, p. 65. 24. Record of Meeting, 8/3/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:264-67; Memo for Bundy by Kissinger, 7/21/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 320, Staff Memos, Henry Kissinger, 6/61-7/61, KL. 25. MemCon, 8/5/61, Paris, 10:30 a.m., and MemCon 8/5/61, Paris, 3:30 p.m., and MemCon, 8/6/61, Paris, 10:30 a.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:269-303. 26. MemCon, 8/8/61, Paris, 6:00 p.m., and MemCon, 8/9/61, Paris, 10:00 a.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:312-323.

Notes

277

27. Minutes of Meeting of Steering Group on Berlin of August 15, 1961, 8/16/61, NSF, Countries, Box 88, Germany, Berlin, KL; Lemnitzer to Norstad, 8/16/61, Doc. 118, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 28. Wyden, Wall, pp. 217-218, 229; Record of Meeting of Berlin Steering Group, 8/17/61, and Message from SACEUR to JCS, 8/18/61, both inFRUS, 1961-63, XIV-.347-351; JCS to Rusk, 8/19/61, Doc. 131, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 29. Record of Meeting of Rusk, McNamara, and JCS, 8/21/61, and Telegram from JCS to Norstad, 8/25/61, both in FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:362-364, 370-371; NSAM 86, 8/31/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 331, NSAM 86 Command and Control Task Force, 8/31/61, KL; Confidential Annex to COS (61) 56th Meeting Held on Monday, 28 August, 1961, Ministry of Defence Records, DEFE 4/138, UK-PRO; Telegram by Stoessel in Paris to Secretary of State, 9/7/61, 8 p.m., Norstad, Policy File Series, Germany Problems (II), EL. 30. History of the Directorate of Plans, Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Programs, HQ USAF, vol. 22, 1 July 61 - 31 December 61, N. S. Archive. 31. Kaplan, Wizards ofArmageddon, p. 302; Memo by Taylor on Berlin War Games, 9/23/61, Taylor Papers, NDU; Memo for Record by Komer re Berlin War Game, 27-29 September 1961, 10/5/61, NSF, Countries, Box 83, Germany, Berlin, KL; Memo for President by Kaysen, 9/22/61, Doc. 182, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 32. Memo for Record by Komer re Berlin War Game, 27-29 September 1961, 10/5/61, NSF, Countries, Box 83, Germany, Berlin, KL.

CHAPTER 16: MUDDLING THROUGH 1. Personal for Secretary McNamara from General Norstad, 9/16/61, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 7, U.S. Support of NATO 1961, July 1- December 31, 1961 (II), EL. 2. Notes on Meeting of Berlin Steering Group, 9/7/61,4:00 p.m., and NSAM-92,9/8/61, both in FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:395-399; Memo for President on Status of Berlin Build-up and Planning, 9/7/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 331, NSAM 93 Berlin Buildup, 9/7-9/12/61, KL; Letter to Truman by Acheson, Acheson Papers, Box 166, Acheson-Truman Correspondence 1961, TL. 3. Memo for President on Status of Berlin Build-up and Planning, 9/7/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 331, NSAM 93 Berlin Buildup, 9/7-9/12/61, KL; Memo by Kennedy to SecState and SecDef, 9/8/61, NSF, Bundy Correspondence, Box 398A, Chronological File, 9/1-9/15/61, KL; Meeting of the Interdepartmental Steering Group, Office of the SecState, July 24, 1961, 7/25/61, NSF, Countries, Box 88, Germany, Berlin, KL. 4. Memo for SecState by Bundy, 9/11/61, with "Draft Opening Proposal" and "Notes on the Road to a Serious Negotiating Position" attached, NSF, Bundy Correspondence, Box 398A, Chronological File, 9/1-9/15/61, KL; Memo to SecState by JFK on Berlin Negotiations, 9/12/61, POF, Departments and Agencies, Box 88, State Department, 8/61-9/61, KL. 5. Memo for President by Dillon, 9/14/61, and Memo for President by Taylor, 9/15/61, both in NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 331, NSAM 92 Increase of Forces in Europe, KL. 6. "Briefing for President by Chairman JCS on JCS SIOP 1962, 9/15/61, in Betts, Nuclear Blackmail, p. 102; Personal for Secretary McNamara from General Norstad, 9/16/61, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 7, U.S. Support of NATO 1961, July 1- December 31, 1961 (II), EL; Memo for General Taylor on General Norstad's Views, 9/28/61, Taylor Papers, NDU. 7. MemCon, 9/15/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:411-415; Memo to Bundy by Kaysen, 9/20/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 320, Staff Memos, Carl Kaysen, 9/7-11/30/61, KL; Memo of Conference with President by Clifton, 9/20/61, NSF, Chester V. Clifton, Box 345, Conference with President, JCS 3/61-9/61, KL; Memo for President by McNamara, 9/18/61, Doc. 177, inMicrofiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 8. Memo to Bundy by Kissinger, 10/3/61, NSF, Box 320, Staff Memoranda Henry Kissinger, September-October 1961, KL; Memo for Rusk by Kohler, 10/2/61, Doc. 188, in Microfiche

278

Notes

Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 9. MemCon by Bundy, Tuesday, October 3, 1961, 4:30 p.m., 10/4/61, Taylor Papers, Box 37, NDU. 10. Letter by McNamara to President, 10/7/61, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1961 (1), EL. 11. MemCon, 10/6/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:468-480. 12. Letter from Kennedy to Clay, 10/8/61, and Minutes of Meeting, 10/10/61, 11 p.m., both inFRUS, 1961-63, XIV:484-489; NSAM-103, 10/10/61, NSF, Box 332, NSAM-103, KL. 13. Minutes of Meeting, 10/10/61, 11 p.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIV.-487-489. 14. Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 204. 15. Memo from Ball to Kennedy, 10/14/61, and Letter from Clay to Kennedy, 10/18/61, and Telegram from Mission at Berlin to Department of State, 11/18/61, all in FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:498502, 509-513, 585-587. 16. Letter from Kennedy to Khrushchev, Hyannis Port, 10/16/61, and Memo of Meeting, 10/20/61, and Letter from Kennedy to SACEUR, 10/20/61, all inFRUS, 1961-63, XIV.502-508, 517-523; Wyden, Wall, pp. 253-254; NSAM 107, 10/18/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 332, NSAM 107 Friedrichstrasse Crossing Point, 10/18/61, KL; NSAM 109, 10/23/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 332, NSAM 109 U.S. Policy on Military Actions in a Berlin Conflict, 10/23/61, KL. 17. DOD, Office of Public Affairs, News Release, Saturday, October 21, 1961, "Address by Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense, before the Business Council at the Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia," Saturday, October 21, 1961—9:00 p.m. (EST). 18. Office of the Historian, HQ SAC, Alert Operations and the Strategic Air Command, 19571991 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992), pp. 73-89. 19. Letter by Kohler to Nitze, 10/27/61, and Letter to Kohler by Nitze, 12/6/61, both in RG 218, Tele 4712, October 10, 1961, NA; Zuckerman (Ministry of Defence) to Ramsbotham (Foreign Office), 11/3/61, PREM 11/159659, UK-PRO. 20. Letter to Kennedy by Norstad, 11/2/61, POF, Subjects, NATO, Norstad Correspondence, March 1961-March 1962, KL; Memo for President by Rusk and McNamara, 12/1/61, Taylor Papers, Box 37, NDU; Memo to SecState by Kennedy, 11/8/61, NSF, Bundy File, Box 399, Chronological 11/1-11/10/61, KL; Memo by Kissinger on Military Briefing for Chancellor Adenauer, 11/20/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 320, Staff Memos, Henry Kissinger, 11/6112/61, KL; For Adenauer's meetings with Kennedy November 20 to 22, 1961, see FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:590-595, 614-618, 620-632. 21. For the Foreign Ministers Meeting in Paris December 10 to 12, 1961 and the Bermuda meeting, see FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:650-678, 696-701; Harold Macmillan, At the End of the Day, 1961-1963 (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), pp. 145-146.

CHAPTER 17: MULTILATERAL FOLLY 1. Macmillan, End of the Day, p. 335. 2. History of the Directorate of Plans, Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Programs, HQ USAF, vol. 22, 1 July 61—31 December 61; Memo of Conference with President, 7/27/61, NSF, Chester V. Clifton, Box 345, Conferences widi President, JCS 3/61-9/61, KL; Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 251 -252; John Prados, Keeper of the Keys: History of the NSC from Truman to Bush (New York: William Morris & Co., 1991), pp. 101-103; Ball, Strategic Nuclear Targeting, pp. 63-64; Lemnitzer to Norstad, 1/18/62, Norstad, Policy File Series, Berlin, LIVE OAK, 1962 (III), EL. 3. Letter by Collins to Fessenden, 1/24/61, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1961 (2), EL; Telegram by Department of State to Embassy in U.K., 4/20/61, and Telegram SACEUR to McNamara, Paris, 4/25/61, and Telegram Embassy in France (Gavin) to Department of State, Paris, 5/14/61, and MemCon, 6/13/61, and Memo by McGhee to Bundy,

Notes

279

6/22/61, all inFRUS, 1961-63, XVL695-704, 714-717. 4. Memo for President on Further Dispersal of Nuclear Weapons in Support of non-US NATO Forces, 3/16/62, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 335A, NSAM 143, Folder 1, KL; Memo for Record on Norstad visit to Volkel Air Base, 4/5/61, all in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1961 (2), EL; Points of Interest Made by General Norstad during Lunch at Lancaster House on November 1, 1961, PREM 11/159659, UK-PRO. 5. Memo for Bundy from Komer, 10/31/61, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 322, Staff Meetings, Robert Komer, 10/61, KL; Telegram, Rusk to USRO Paris, 1/9/62, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (5), EL; Telegram, Rusk to Gavin, 2/20/62, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (4), EL. 6. Letter from de Gaulle to Kennedy, Paris, 1/11/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:748-751. 7. Telegram from Department of State (Rusk) to Embassy in U.K., 2/16/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1059-1061. 8. Telegram, Embassy in Germany to State, 2/17/62, and MemCon, 2/19/62, and Telegram, Embassy in Germany to State, 3/7/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:824-827, 830-834, 864; Letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy, 3/10/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV:7-15. 9. Oral Interview, Wheeler, pp. 54-56, KL; Norstad to OSD, 3/3/62, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 97, Atom Nucl Policy [1960-62] (4), EL; Message, Norstad to Lemnitzer, Exclusive, 3/8/62, Norstad Papers, Policy Files Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (4), EL; Letter by Stoessel to Fessenden, 3/17/62, and U.S. Statement on Nuclear Strategy at NAC Meeting, 3/21/62, both in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (3). 10. MemCon, Taylor et al, 3/20/62, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (3). 11. Interim Report on Command and Control, undated, Norstad Papers, Subject Series, Box 97, Atom Nucl Policy [1960-62] (4), EL. 12. Memo for President, 3/29/62, NSC, Meetings and Memos, Box 336, NSAM 160, Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO, 6/6/62, KL; Paper Prepared by Departments of State and Defense, 3/22/62, and Memo of Meeting, 3/15/62, both inFRUS, 1961-63, XIII:384-387, 366-368. 13. Letter from Taylor to Kennedy, 4/3/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIII:368-373. 14. Gavin to State, 4/7/62, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (2), EL. 15. Letter, Stoessel to Fessenden, 4/10/62, and Letter, Stoessel to Fessenden, 4/12/62, both in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (2), EL. 16. Telegram, Rusk to USRO Paris, 4/17/62, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (2), EL. 17. Memo from Rusk to Kennedy, 4/13/62, and Minutes of Meeting, 4/16/62, both in FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL374-380. 18. Minutes of Meeting, 4/16/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XIII:377-380. 19. Scope Paper Prepared in Department of State, 4/20/62, and Memo from Bundy to Kennedy, 4/24/62, and Memo from Kohler to Rusk, 5/24/62, all in FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 10641076; Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 246. 20. See FRUS, 1961-63, XIII:700-718. 21. See FRUS, 1961-63, XIII.399-407. 22. NSAM 143, 4/10/62, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 335A, NSAM 143, Folder 1, KL; Message from Norstad, 5/3/62, and Message from Norstad, 5/28/62, both in Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom Nucl Policy 1962 (1), EL; MemCon re: Meeting of Strauss with President, 6/22/62, Doc. 350, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 23. Memo for President by Wiesner, 5/29/62, and NSAM 160,6/6/62, both in NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 336, NSAM 160, Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO, KL. 24. Memo for SecDef by Taylor, 5/25/62, and Memo for President by Taylor, 5/25/62, both in NSF, Departments and Agencies, Box 274, DOD General, 4/62-5/62, KL. 25. Letter by Johnson to Nitze, 5/23/62, and Memo for President by Bundy, 6/1/61, with draft

280

Notes

speech enclosed, both in POF, Departments and Agencies, Box 77, Defense 4/62-6/62, KL; Memo for President by Bundy, 6/7/61, and Memo for Record by Lennartson, 6/18/62, NSF, Departments and Agencies, Box 274, DOD General 6/62, KL; Macmillan, End of the Day, p. 123. 26. FRUS, 1961-63, XIII:408-425, XV:200-203. 27. MemCon by Kissinger of Meeting with Stikker on June 26,1962,7/13/62, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 321, Staff Memos, Henry Kissinger, 6/62-12/62, KL; Letter, Norstad to Lemnitzer, 7/11/62, Norstad Papers, Policy File Series, Box 85, Atom-Nucl Policy 1962 (1), EL. 28. MemCon, 2/13/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV:808-811; MemCon, 7/17/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV:223-229. 29. Memo for Record by Legere, 7/19/62, and Memo from Bundy to Kennedy, 7/20/62, and Memo from Smith to Taylor, 8/9/62, all in FRUS, 1961-63, XV-.230-234; 266-269; Memo for McNamara by Nitze, 7/20/62, Doc. 363, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 30. Briefing for Kennedy on Berlin by John C. Ausland, N. S. Archive; Memo for McNamara by Nitze, 7/20/62, Doc. 363, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 31. Memo from Smith to Taylor, 8/9/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV:266-269. 32. Briefing for Kennedy on Berlin by John C. Ausland, N. S. Archive; see Memo from McNamara to Kennedy, 6/21/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV: 192-195 for information on Soviet forces. 33. Memo from Smith to Taylor, 8/9/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV.266-269. 34. Ibid. 35. Memo for McNamara by Nitze, 7/20/62, Doc. 363, in Microfiche Supplement to FRUS, 1961-63, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 36. Ibid. 37. Memo from Legere to Taylor, 8/23/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV:281-283. 38. Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 208; Memo from Bundy, 9/10/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV-.313-315. 39. Ibid.; Memo for President by Kaysen, 9/28/62, NSF, Regional Security, Box 216, MLF General, KL. 40. MemCon Between Udall and Khrushchev, Petsunda, Georgia, USSR, 9/6/62, FRUS, 196163, XV:308-310.

CHAPTER 18: HIGH NOON 1. Meeting With Congressional Leaders, 5:00 p.m., POF, Presidential Recordings Transcript, Cuban Missile Crisis Meeting, 10/22/62, KL. 2. See James G. Blight and David A. Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Hill & Wang, 1989), p. 31 for Raymond A. Garthoff s 1987 estimate of the strategic balance at the time of the Cuban Missile crisis. Also Office of the Historian, HQ SAC, Alert Operations and the Strategic Air Command, 1957-1991, pp. 73-89. The low estimate of Soviet ICBMs comes from comments by Ray Cline during the "History of the CIA" program, part 1, broadcast on the Time Machine show on the A&E Network, 10/30/92. Cline said that a U.S. satellite found evidence of less than 25 ICBMS in the entire USSR just prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis. 3. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes, p. 170. 4. Confidential Memo by Arthur Krock on chronology of intra-administration meetings and discussions ending with President's October 22, 1962 speech, 11/30/62, N. S. Archive. 5. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 96-97, 104, 135-138; Clifford, Counsel to the President, p. 357'; Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Norton, 1969), pp. 2-5; CIA, "Recent Soviet Military Activities in Cuba," 9/6/62, NSF, Box 51, Cuba Intelligence Materials, 10/1-11/12/62, KL. 6. Colonel Burris to Vice President Johnson, 9/17/62, N. S. Archive.; Memo to McNamara

Notes

281

by Kennedy, 9/21/62, POF, Departments and Agencies, Box 77, DOD, 7/62-12/62, KL. 7. CIA, SNIE 85-3-62, "The Military Buildup in Cuba," 9/19/62, N. S. Archive; Clifford, Counsel to the President, p. 357. 8. Memo for President by McNamara, 10/4/62, NSF, Countries, Cuba, 10/1-10/14/62, Box 36, KL; "Department of Defense Operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis," a report by Adam Yarmolinsky, Special Assistant to Secretary of Defense, 2/13/63 in Naval War College Review 32 (July-August), p. 15, inSagan, "Nuclear Alerts," p. 106; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 168-170; Confidential Memo by Arthur Krock on chronology of intra-administration meetings and discussions ending with President's October 22, 1962 speech, 11/30/62, N. S. Archive. 9. Brinkley, Dean Acheson: Cold War Years, p. 159; Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Ploughshares (New York: W.W. Norton, 1972), pp. 279-280. 10. "Off-the-Record Meeting on Cuba," 10/16/62, 11:50 a.m. to 12:57 p.m., POF, Presidential Recordings Transcript, Cuban Missile Crisis Meeting, KL. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 156-157; "Off-the-Record Meeting on Cuba," 10/16/62, 6:30 p.m. to 7:55 p.m., POF, Presidential Recordings Transcript, Cuban Missile Crisis Meeting, KL. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Memo to SecDef by Lt. Gen. Joseph F. Carroll, 10/17/62, DIA, N. S. Archive; Memo for President by Dillon, 10/17/62, NSF, Box 37, Cuba General, 10/26-10/27/62, KL; [Review of Agreed Facts/Premises on Cuban Situation, Possible Courses of Action, and Unanswerable Questions] by Sorenson, 10/17/62, KL, N. S. Archive; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, p. 538. 18. Letter by Stevenson to Kennedy, [Recommended Courses of Action Stressing That the Existence of Missile Bases Anywhere Is Negotiable], 10/17/62, Sorenson Papers, Box 49(1), Classified Subjects Files 1961-64, Cuban Subjects, Standing Committee, KL. 19. Oral Interview, Dean Acheson, p. 22, KL; Acheson's Handwritten Notes of 10/17/62 ExCom Meeting, Acheson Papers, Post-Administration Files, Box 85, TL; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 12-13. 20. Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 12-13; Oral Interview, Sorenson, p. 57, KL; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 256-257. 21. Circular Telegram 674, State Department, 10/17/62, 7:32 p.m., N. S. Archive. 22. Memo for McCone by William K. Harvey, re: Human Intelligence Reports on Missiles in Cuba, 10/18/62, CIA, N. S. Archive; Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 220-224; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 13-16; Oral Interview, Sorenson, p. 51, KL. 23. Ibid.; Oral Interviews, Acheson, pp. 22-23, and Sorenson, pp. 50-52, KL. 24. Ibid. 25. Oral Interview, Acheson, pp. 22-23, KL. 26. MemCon Part I, 10/18/62, 5:00 p.m., N. S. Archive (also in FRUS, 1961-63, XV:370387); MemCon Part II, 10/18/62, 5:00 p.m., N. S. Archive; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 17-20. 27. CIA, [Numbers and Capabilities of Cuban MRBM and IRBM Sites Under Construction], 10/19/62, and CIA, [Map Indicating Ranges of SS-3, SS-4, SS-5 Missiles Deployed in Cuba], 10/19/62, and, CIA, SNIE 11-18-62, "Soviet Reactions to Certain U.S. Courses of Action on Cuba," 10/19/62, all at N. S. Archive. 28. Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares, p. 269. 29. Minutes of October 19, 1962, 11:00 a.m. ExCom Meeting at State Department, N. S. Archive; Oral Interview, Sorenson, pp. 53, 57, KL. 30. Ibid.; "Air Strike Scenario, October 19, 1962," and Air Strike Scenario, 10/20/62, and Minutes of October 19, 1962, 11:00 a.m. ExCom Meeting at State Department, and "Possible Courses of Action [full spectrum], and "Position of George Ball," undated, and "How Nuclear Threat Can Be Eliminated under Blockade Plan," undated, and "Possible Actions by Soviets and

282

Notes

Allies in Event of Surprise Air Strike on Cuba," undated, all at N. S. Archive; Oral Interview, Sorenson, pp. 53, 57, KL. 31. [Courses of Action Involving POL Blockade and Possible Air Strike and Invasion by the End of the Week], 10/19/62, N. S. Archive; Possible World Consequences of Military Action by Sorenson, 10/19/62, Sorenson Papers, Box 49(111), Classified Subjects Files, 1961-64 Cuba, KL. 32. Oral Interview, Acheson, p. 24, KL. 33. CIA, SNIE 11-19-62, "Major Consequences of Certain U.S. Courses of Action in Cuba," 10/20/62, CIA. 34. Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 25-26; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 315-319; "The Cuban Crisis, 1962," History by Frank Sieverts, pp. 73-77, NSF, Box 49, History of the Cuban Crisis, KL; "Political Program to be Announced by the President" by Stevenson, 10/20/62, N. S. Archive. 35. [Intelligence Report on Status of Missile Installations in Cuba], 10/21/62, NSF, Box 313, NSC 506th Meeting, KL; [Readiness Status of Soviet Missiles in Cuba], 10/21/62, document retyped by Kennedy Library staff. 36. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 326-327; Notes on October 21, 1962 Meeting with President by McNamara, N. S. Archive; Oral Interview, Sorenson, p. 54, KL. 37. Wyden, Wall, p. 280; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 327, 345-346. 38. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 328-330; Macmillan, End of the Day, pp. 188-189; Telegram from President to SecState, 10/22/62, and Telegram from Lyon to SecState, 7:29 p.m., and Telegram from White House to SecState (containing MacMillan message to President), 7:43 p.m., and Telegram from Dowling in Bonn to SecState, 10/22/62, 9:00 p.m., and Telegram from Finletter in Paris to SecState, 10/23/62, 8:00 p.m., all at N. S. Archive.; ExCom Record of Action, Meeting No. 2 by Bundy, 10/23/62, 6:00 p.m., NSF, Box 315, M&M ExCom Meetings, Meetings 1-5, 1023-1025/62, KL. 39. Presidential Recordings, Cuba, 10/22/62, 11:45 a.m., KL. 40. Minutes of 507th NSC Meeting, Monday, October 22, 1962, 2:00 p.m., Cabinet Room, NSF, Box 313, NSC 507th Meeting, KL. "Black boxes" might have been devices to detect nuclear detonations in the Soviet Union after a U.S. attack. 41. Ibid; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 356-362; Oral Interview, Anderson, pp. 5-7, KL. 42. Handwritten Notes on Senator Russell's October 22 Meeting with Kennedy by Russell, 10/23/62, Russell Papers, RBR Cuba Notes, Special Presidential File, Series XV October 1962, University of Georgia Library; Meeting With Congressional Leaders, 5:00 p.m., POF, Presidential Recordings Transcript, Cuban Missile Crisis Meeting, 10/22/62, KL. 43. Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 32-33; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 364, 366-368; Blight, On the Brink, p. 75; Letter to Khrushchev from Kennedy, 10/22/62, KL, N. S. Archive. 44. Memo by Bundy for President, 10/22/62, NSF, Box 35, Cuba General, vol. Ill (B), KL. 45. Meeting With Congressional Leaders, 5:00 p.m., POF, Presidential Recordings Transcript, Cuban Missile Crisis Meeting, 10/22/62, KL; Possible Reactions to Quarantine by Colonel Yeager, 10/23/62, N. S. Archive.

CHAPTER 19: TWO BLUFFS 1. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, p. 464. 2. CIA, Office of Current Intelligence on Photography results 10/20-10/22/62, 10/23/62, and CIA, "Soviet Bloc Shipping to Cuba," 10/23/62, both at N. S. Archive. 3. ExCom Meeting on October 23, 1962 by Bundy, 10:00 a.m., State Department; LBJ Handwritten Notes on ExCom Meeting, Tuesday, October 23, 1962, * J : 0 0 a.m., NSF, Box 8, Vice Presidential Security File, LBJ Handwritten Notes, JL. 4. Ibid. 5. Memo from Garthoff to Rostow, "Reflections on the Confrontation over Cuba," 10/23/62,

Notes

283

N. S. Archive. 6. LBJ Handwritten Notes on ExCom Meeting, Tuesday, October 23, 1962, 6:00 p.m., NSF, Box 8, Vice Presidential Security File, LBJ Handwritten Notes, JL; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 38-40; Carter, Managing Nuclear Operations, pp. 541-543. 7. Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 43-44; Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, pp. 497-498. 8. Macmillan, End of the Day, pp. 190-194; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 44-45; Telegram from Bruce in London to SecState, 10/23/62, N. S. Archive. 9. CIA, "The Crisis-USSR/Cuba," 10/24/62, CIA, and Air Force Deployment and Force Status as of 10/24/62, 1200 hours, and Telegram from State to Embassy Dakar, 10/24/62, all at N. S. Archive; LBJ Notes of ExCom Meeting, Wednesday, 10/24/62, 10:00 a.m., NSF, Box 8, Vice Presidential Security File, LBJ Handwritten Notes, JL; Notes from ExCom Meeting, 10/24/62, 10:00 a.m., N. S. Archive; ExCom Record of Action, Meeting No. 3 by Bundy, 10/24/62, NSF, Box 315, M&M: ExCom Meetings, Meetings 1-5, 10/23-10/25/62, KL. 10. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 399-400, 415-417; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, p. 54; Oral Interviews, Anderson, p. 20, and Gilpatric, pp. 59-62, and Rear Admiral Charles D. Griffin, p. 555, KL. 11. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 546-547. 12. Telegram from JCS to SecState, 10/25/62, NSF, Box 41, Cuba Cables 10/215/62, KL; Memo to Secretary from Tyler, Rostow, and Talbot, 10/25/62, and Memo to Rostow from Garthoff, 10/25/62, all at N. S. Archive. 13. Telegram from Finletter in Paris to SecState, 10/25/62, 9:00 p.m., at N. S. Archive. 14. Memo for Rostow by Kitchen, 10/25/62, N. S. Archive; Memo for SecDef from Taylor, 10/25/62, NSF, Box 36, Cuba General, 10/24-10/25/62, KL. 15. ExCom Record of Action by Bundy, Meeting No. 4, 10/25/62, 10:00 a.m., and Scenario for Airstrike Against Offensive Missile Bases and Bombers in Cuba by Dillon, 10/25/62, both in N. S. Archive. 16. Summary Record of NSC ExCom Meeting No. 5 by Bromley Smith, 10/25/62, and ExCom Record of Action by Bundy, Meeting No. 5, 10/25/62, 5:00 p.m., both at N. S. Archive. 17. Telegram from CNO to DIA, 10/25/62, NSF, Box 37, Cuba General, 10/24-10/25/62, KL; Memo to Secretary from Hilsman (INR) on Knox-Khrushchev Meeting Summary, 10/26/62, and Telegram from John W. Henderson in Djakarta to SecState, 10/25/62, 5:00 p.m., and Scali Notes on 1st Meeting with Alexandr S. Fomin, 10/26/62, all at N. S. Archive. 18. CIA, "The Crisis, USSR/Cuba Information as of 0600," 10/26/62, CIA; Telegram from Bohlen in Paris to SecState, 10/26/62, N. S. Archive. 19. "Removal of the Offensive Threat in Cuba" by DOD, 10/26/62, at N. S. Archive. 20. Summary Record of NSC ExComMeeting No. 6, 10/26/62, 10:00 a.m., at N. S. Archive; Transcript of LBJ Handwritten Notes on ExCom Meeting, 10/26/62, 10:00 a.m., NSF, Box 8, Vice Presidential Security File, Policy Papers and Background Studies on Cuba Affairs (IV), JL; Transcript of LBJ Handwritten Notes on ExCom Meeting, 10/26/62, 10:00 a.m., NSF, Box 8, Vice Presidential Security File, LBJ Handwritten Notes, JL. 21. Telegram from Hare to Rusk (two Sections), 10/26/62, 6:00 p.m., N. S. Archive; Memo from Norstad in Paris to President, 10/27/62, POF, Box 103, NATO-Norstad, 7/62-12/62; KL; Macmillan, End of Day, pp. 210-211. 22. Letter to President by Khrushchev, 10/27/62, at N. S. Archive. 23. Texts of Kennedy-Khrushchev Understanding of October 26,27, and 28,1962, and "Cuba Fact Sheet," 10/27/62, and CIA, "The Crisis, USSR/Cuba, Information as of 0600, 10/27/62, and Memo by Garthoff, "The Military Significance of the Soviet Missile Bases in Cuba," 10/27/62, all at N. S. Archive; Teletype from CINCLANT to Marine Corps Emergency Action Center, Washington, 10/27/62, USMC Archives. 24. Kennedy, Thirteen Days, p. 71; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 473-474. 25. Summary Record of NSC ExCom Meeting No. 7, 10/27/62, 10:00 a.m., NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 316, ExCom Meetings 6-10, 10/26-10/28/62, KL; Presidential Recordings Transcript of 10/27/62 ExCom Meeting on Cuban Missile Crisis, POF, Tapes of JFK, Presidential

284

Notes

Recordings, KL. 26. Ibid.; CIA, "The Crisis, USSR/Cuba, Information as of 0600," 10/27/62, N. S. Archive. 27. Lieutenant General David A. Burchinal, Oral History, U.S. Army Historical Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., pp. 114-115, in Sagan, "Nuclear Alerts," p. 118; Khrushchev, Glasnost Tapes, pp. 178, 182. See Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 2, 1990, for a reprint of Castro's letter to Khrushchev, dated 10/26/62 but cabled to Moscow 10/27/62, calling for a preemptive nuclear attack and Khrushchev's rejection of the idea. 28. Presidential Recordings Transcript of 10/27/62 ExCom Meeting on Cuban Missile Crisis, POF, Tapes of JFK, Presidential Recordings, KL; Summary Record of NSC ExCom Meeting No. 8 by Bromley Smith, 10/27/62, 4:00 p.m. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., see p. 49. The description of panic over the Soviet plane flying from Canada to Cuba is contained in Oral Interview, Gilpatric, pp. 58-59, KL. Gilpatric gave no hint how this threat was dealt with. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 308-310, 548; "Cuban Missile Crisis," A&E Television Network, 10/16/94 broadcast; McNamara on "Larry King Live," Cable News Network, 1/23/92 broadcast; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 97 fn, 338-342. McNamara believes everything the Russians say on the Cuban Missile Crisis, especially since their statements justify to him the blockade decision and indicate that local Soviet commanders would have used tactical nuclear weapons against American invasion forces. That assumes, of course, that the 2,000 sorties U.S. Air Force and Navy planes would have launched over a seven-day period would have missed Soviet MiG fighters, FROG rockets, and other weapons allegedly equipped with nuclear warheads—a highly unlikely scenario. Since Russian pride was severely stung by the crisis outcome, and since losing the Cold War reopened that wound, it may well be that the Russians are trying to salvage some honor by boasting what they would have done had the U.S. attacked Cuba in October or November 1962. Until more credible evidence than statements by ex-Soviet generals and officials that anywhere from 9 to 162 Soviet nuclear warheads were in Cuba during the crisis is forthcoming, this author will adopt the same position of skepticism voiced by the fictitious General Buck Turgidson: "Sounds like a load of Commie bull." 36. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 471-472; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 83-84; Blight, On the Brink, p. 114. 37. Presidential Recordings Transcript of 10/27/62 ExCom Meeting on Cuban Missile Crisis, POF, Tapes of JFK, Presidential Recordings, KL; Summary Record of NSC ExCom Meeting No. 9 by Bromley Smith, 10/27/62, 9:00 p.m., N. S. Archive. 38. Ibid. To "philcox" someone means to pull the rug out from under him, then quickly replace it with a cheap substitute, something undesired, and/or a thing that will not serve the same purpose as the original item. 39. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 478-480; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, pp. 85-87; Texts of Kennedy-Khrushchev Understanding of October 26, 27, and 28, 1962, at N. S. Archive. 40. CIA, "The Crisis, USSR/Cuba, Information as of 0600," 10/28/62, CIA; Texts of Kennedy-Khrushchev Understanding of October 26, 27, and 28, 1962, and Telegram by JCS to SecState, (two Sections), 10/28/62, 8:00 p.m., and Summary Record of NSC ExCom Meeting No. 10 by Bromley Smith, 10/28/62, 11:10 a.m., and [Recommended Definition of Offensive Weapons] for Discussion with McNamara, 10/29/62, and Summary Record of NSC ExCom Meeting No. 12 by Bromley Smith, 10/29/62, 6:30 p.m., all at N. S. Archive; Kennedy, Thirteen Days, p. 97; Blight, On the Brink, p. 51; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, p. 530; Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 237. On negotiations with the Turks, see FRUS, 1961-63, XVL740-760. On November issues, especially IL-28s, see N. S. Archive microfiche records of the crisis as well as ExCom meeting summaries and other documents in the NSF files at the Kennedy Library.

Notes

285

41. Blight, On the Brink, p. 65; "Summary of Items of Significant Interest," Marine Corps Emergency Action Center, Washington, 10/31/62, USMC Archives; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, p. 510-12,530; Nitze, Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 236-237; "Chairman's Talking Paper for Meeting with President, 11/16/62, NSF, Box 35, Cuba General, Vol VI (B), KL; MemCon with President, 11/16/62, NSF, Chester V. Clifton, Box 345, Conferences with President, JCS 1061-11/62, KL; Oral Interview, Wheeler, pp. 60-61; Memo from Acting Chairman JCS LeMay to SecDef McNamara, 12/10/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XV:460-464. 42. See Clifford, Counsel to the President, p. 358 for the PFIAB's conclusion in March 1963 that the U.S. had suffered a significant intelligence failure because of no reconnaissance over Cuba from August 29 to October 14, 1962; Dean Acheson, "Dean Acheson's Version of Robert Kennedy's Version of the Cuban Missile Affair," Esquire vol. 71 (Feb. 1969), pp. 76-77. 43. "Some Lessons from Cuba," Defense Draft, 2/14/63, NSF, Countries, Box 37, CubaGeneral, February 1963, KL.

CHAPTER 20: BEST-LAID PLANS 1. Dean Acheson, "Our Adantic Alliance: The Political and Economic Strategy," speech at U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, 12/5/62, quoted in Brinkley, Dean Acheson: Cold War Years, pp. 176-182. 2. Letter by Macmillan to Kennedy, 8/3/62, mentioned in FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL439, fn. 1. 3. "The Unsolved Problems of European Defense" (comments on Kissinger's July 1962 Foreign Affairs article), 10/25/62, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 321, Staff Memos, Henry Kissinger, 6/62-12/62, KL; Memo by Department of State, "Implications for U.K. of Decision to Abandon Skybolt," and Notes on Conversation Relating to Skybolt by McNamara, and Letter from Rusk to McNamara, 11/24/62, all inFRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1083-1088. 4. Memo for President by McNamara on Recommended FY 1964-FY 1968 Strategic Retaliatory Forces, 11/21/62, N. S. Archive; Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 22-22A, 59; Brinkley, Dean Acheson: Cold War Years, pp. 176-182; MemCon, 12/16/62, noon, FR US, 1961-63, XIII: 1088-1091; Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Ruler, pp. 355-357. 5. "Last Conversation with President before NATO Meeting of December 1962" on December 10, 1962, 12/13/62, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 317, Meetings with President, General 6/6212/62, KL. 6. Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 62-69. 7. Ibid; MemCon, 12/16/62, noon, FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1088-1091. 8. Ibid. 9. Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 80-83. 10. MemCon, 12/16/62, noon, FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1088-1091; Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 78-79. 11. MemCon by Thompson, 12/19/62, Nassau, 9:45 a.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1091-1101.

12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. MemCon, 12/19/62, Nassau, 4:30 p.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1102-1105. 17. MemCon, 12/20/62, Nassau, 10:00 a.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1109-1112. On the other hand, Kennedy's sister Kathleen married a British marquess who died in the invasion of Normandy in 1944, as did the President's older brother Joe, Jr. in an airplane explosion on a secret mission. Kathleen's death four years later in an airplane crash was mourned on both sides of the Adantic. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 92-96.

286

Notes

21. Ibid., pp. 97-98. 22. Telegram from Delegation to Heads of Government Meeting to Embassy in France, 12/20/62, Nassau, FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1112-1114; Memo for Secretary by Tyler re Nuclear Sharing with France, 10/25/62, N. S. Archive; Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 97-98, 100102, 106. 23. Record of Meeting, 12/28/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XIII: 1116-1123.; Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 97-98. 24. Memo of Conference with President on December 27, 1962, 1/10/63, NSF, Chester V. Clifton, Box 345, Conferences with President, JCS 12/62-1/63, KL. 25. Telegram from Embassy in France to Department of State, 1/4/63, Paris, 7:00 p.m., FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL745-748. 26. Telegram from Mission to NATO and European Regional Organization to Department of State, 1/11/63, Paris, 9:00 p.m., and Memo for Record, 11/12/63, both in FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL471,475-477; "Conversation with General Paul Stehlin, January 13,1963," by Kissinger, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 321, Staff Memos, Henry Kissinger, 1/63. 27. Neustadt, "Skybolt and Nassau," pp. 106-107; Remarks of President Kennedy to NSC Meeting, 1/22/63, and Summary Record of NSC ExCom Meeting No. 38 (Part II), 1/25/63, both inFRUS, 1961-63, XIII:484-491. 28. "The Unsolved Problems of European Defense" (comments on Kissinger's July 1962 Foreign Affairs article), 10/25/62, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 321, Staff Memos, Henry Kissinger, 6/62-12/62, KL; Circular Telegram 1257 by Rusk, 1/17/63, and MemCon by Garthoff re European Views on Nassau and MLF (Kissinger trip), both in NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 321, Staff Memos, Henry Kissinger, 1/63, KL; Memo for Bundy by Legere, 1/30/63, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 322, Staff Memos, Colonel Lawrence Legere, 11/62-2/63, KL; Letter to Legere by B.W.R., 1/31/63, NSF, Carl Kaysen, Box 376, NATO European Nuclear Force, Nassau Agreement, 1/63, KL. 29. Summary Record of ExCom Meeting 40, 2/5/63, and Summary Record of ExCom Meeting 41, 2/12/63, both in NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 316, ExCom Meetings 38-42, 1/25-3/29/63, KL. 30. Summary Record of ExCom Meeting 41, 2/12/63, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 316, ExCom Meetings 38-42, 1/25-3/29/63, KL. Also FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL494-502. 31. Ibid. 32. MemCon, 2/18/63, and Memo for Record, 2/28/63, FRUS, 1961-63, XIIL502-506, 516518; Memo for SecState by Kennedy, 2/20/63, NSF, Departments and Agencies, Box 286, State, General, 2/1-2/27/63, KL. 33. MemCon in President's Office re Berlin, 2/15/63, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 317, Meetings with President, General, 1/1-2/17/63, KL; Memo for Record on Meeting with President on MLF, 4/24/63, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 317, Meetings with President, General 4/63, KL; Memo for Bundy by Legere re Strength of U.S. Force in Europe, 5/6/63, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 322, Staff Memos, Legere, 3/63-6/63, KL; "Conversation with Franz-Josef Strauss," 5/17/63, and Dinner (with various German industrialists), 5/17/63, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 321, Staff Memos, Kissinger, 6/63-9/63, KL; Oral Interview, Wheeler, pp. 64-65, KL; Safire, Lend Me Your Ears, pp. 493-495.

CHAPTER 21: STRATEGIC INCOMPETENCE 1. Memo from Parsons to Acting SecState, 9/15/59, and Memo of Discussion at 419th NSC Meeting, 9/17/59, and NSC 5913/1, 9/17/59, all in FRUS, 1958-60, XVL114-127, 134-144. 2. See FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV: 1-8, 19-25, 41-42, for Eisenhower's frustration with the allies over Laos and four different versions of the January 19, 1961 meeting; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 35-37.

Notes

287

3. Memo from Nitze to McNamara, 1/23/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV:26-40; "The Problem We Face," Memo to President by Rostow, 4/21/61, NSF, Subjects, Box 303, Policy Planning, 2/11/615/61, KL. 4. Memo of President's Meeting with Congressional Leaders on April 27, 1961, 5/4/61, NSF, Conferences with President, Box 345, Congressional Leaders 1961-62, KL. 5. Ibid. 6. MemCon, 4/29/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV: 150-154. 7. Notes on 481st NSC Meeting by McNamara, 5/1/61, and Memo from McNamara and Gilpatric to Kennedy, 5/2/61, both inFRUS, 1961-63, XXIV: 163-165, 166-169. 8. Memo for JCS by Burke, 6/19/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XIV: 129-130; Talking Paper by Burke on Berlin Situation, 6/24/61, N. S. Archive; Memo from JCS to SecDef by Lemnitzer, 7/12/61, and Memo from Rostow to Kennedy, both inFRUS, 1961-63, XXIV:292-294, 341-345; Memo from Rostow to Kennedy, FRUS, 1961-63, 1:215-216. 9. Memo from JCS to SecDef, 8/24/61, FRUS, 1961-63, 1:283-284; Memo by JCS to McNamara, 10/5/61, FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV:449 fn. 6. 10. Taylor Report on Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, 11/3/61, FRUS, 1961-63,1:477-532. 11. Notes by SecDef on JCS views, 11/6/61, and Memo from SecDef to President, 11/8/61, both inFRUS, 1961-63,1:543-544, 558 fn. 1, 559-561; Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares, pp. 245246; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 38-39. 12. Memo from Bundy to President, 11/15/61, FRUS, 1961-63, 1:605-607. 13. Memo from Mansfield to President, 11/2/61, FRUS, 1961-63, 1:467-470. 14. Notes of Meeting at White House, 1/11/12, and Memo from Rostow, 11/12/61, and Notes onNSC Meeting, 1/15/61, all inFRUS, 1961-63,1:577-579,607-610; Prados, pp. 126-128; Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares, pp. 245-246. 15. Memo for SecDef, 1/13/62, Pentagon Papers, Senator Gravel Edition, vol. II (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), pp. 663-666, emphasis added by me; Memo from JCS to SecDef, 5/11/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV:742-744. 16. Memo of Telephone Conversation Between Kennedy and Ball, 5/11/62, and Memo of Discussion with Former President Eisenhower, 5/13/62, FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV:741-742,760-761. 17. Memo to SecDef by Taylor, 5/31/62, and MemCon, 6/2/62, both in FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV:797-799, 809-813; Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares, pp. 256-257. 18. Oral Interview, Wheeler, pp. 65-66, KL; Memo for Bundy by Chase, containing "A HighLevel Look at the Cold War" by Landsdale, 6/18/63, NSF, Departments and Agencies, Box 274, DOD General, Cold War Strategy Study, 4/63-6/63, KL. 19. Safire, Lend Me Your Ears, pp. 493-495; Memo Prepared in CIA for McCone (of President's Meeting of 6/19/63), undated, FRUS, 1961-63, XXIV: 1032-1034; Memo for Bundy by Legere, 6/4/63, NSF, Meetings and Memos, Box 322, Staff Memos, Legere, 3/63-6/63, KL. 20. See McNamara, In Retrospect, chapter 3, for more information on the coup. 21. Memo for Taylor by President, 12/2/63, and Memo to President by Taylor, 12/6/63, in FRUS, 1961-63, IV:651, 679; Memo from Bundy to President, 3/14/64, FRUS, 1964-68,1:148-149. 22. See for example Meeting of 4/19/64, 10:00 a.m., NSF, Country File, Vietnam, Vol. 9, Box 4, JL. 23. Memo from JCS to McNamara, 1/22/64, cited in McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 107-110; Memo from SecDef to Taylor, 2/21/64, and Memo from JCS to McNamara, 3/2/64, and Memo from SecDef to President, 3/16/64, both inFRUS, 1964-68, 1:97-99, 112-118, 153-167. 24. SNIE 50-2-64, 5/25/64, and Summary Record of Meetings, 6/2/64, both in FRUS, 196468,1:378-380, 428-433; Memo for Record of Special Meeting on Southeast Asia Plenary Session, 6/1/64, 2:00 to 6:15 p.m. meeting, HQ CINCPAC, Honolulu, Hawaii. 25. Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares, pp. 315-316. 26. Allen, War Games, pp. 193-206; Sigma 11-64 Final Report, Johnson Library, cited in McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 153. 27. Safire, Lend Me Your Ears, pp. 819-826. 28. Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares, pp. 326-327; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 159-161.

288

Notes

29. McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 166-168, 170-172. 30. Memo of a Meeting with President by Goodpaster, 2/17/65, 10:00 a.m. Meeting with General Eisenhower and Others, Meeting Notes File, Box 1, JL; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 172174. The 2/17/65 document is sanitized in part so that it is unclear whether Eisenhower advised Johnson to use nuclear weapons if necessary in the event of Chinese intervention in Indochina or only to bluff. 31. MACV 19118, Westmoreland to Sharp and Wheeler, 6/7/65, in "Deployment of Major U.S. Force to Vietnam, vol. 4, tabs 258-280," NSF, NSC History, Box 41, JL; Draft Memo for President by McNamara, 6/26/65, "Deployment of Major U.S. Forces to Vietnam, vol. 3, tab 35," NSF, NSC Meetings File, Box 1, JL; Memo by Bundy to McNamara, 6/30/65, and Memo for President by Bundy, 6/30/65, "Deployment of Major U.S. Forces to Vietnam, vol. 6, tabs 341-356," NSF, NSC Histories, Box 43, JL; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 179-205; Bradley, Soldier's Life, p. 667. 32. JCSM 286-67, Memo for SecDef, "Operations against North Vietnam," 5/20/67, NSF, Country File, Vietnam, Box 75, JL; JCSM 288-67, Memo for SecDef, "Worldwide U.S. Military Posture," 5/20/67, NSF, Agency File, Box 30, JL; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 221-229, 275, 306-311. 33. Taylor, Swords into Ploughshares, pp. 399, 405-406. 34. Nightline, Television appearance by Clark Clifford, 1983, quoted in Allen, War Games, p. 244; William C. Westmoreland,/I Soldier Reports (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1976), p. 338.

CHAPTER 22: UNPLAYABLE CARD? 1. In Measure for Measure, act II, scene 2, William Shakespeare wrote, "O, it is excellent, To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous, To use it like a giant." 2. Britannica Book of the Year, 1995, World Data, Comparative National Statistics, pp. 756757. 3. Leffler, Preponderance, p. 511.

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Magazines/Newspapers Cleveland Plain Dealer London Times Manchester Guardian New York Times Time Magazine

Television Broadcasts "Cuban Missile Crisis," A&E Television Network, 10/16/94. "History of the CIA" (part 1), Time Machine, A&E Television Network, 10/30/92. "Interview with Robert S. McNamara," Larry King Live, Cable News Network, 1/23/92. "Power in the Pacific," Public Broadcasting System, 10/16/90.

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INDEX Acheson, Dean G., 18; A-bomb political use, 38; A-bomb, no veto on U.S. use, 35; atomic weapons authority, 19; Berlin crisis (1961), 164; Berlin scheme, 153; Bowie Report, 142; consultations with British, 30; Cuban crisis outcome, 215; Cuban missiles air strike option, 190; ExCom meetings withdrawal, 194; Flexible Response, 145; Formosa, 66; Jupiters for Turkey, 172; Kennedy administration leaders, 149; Korea atomic bomb use, 41; limited war policy in Korea, 24, 32-34; National Press Club speech (January 1950), 23; NATO nuclear decision-making, 227; nuclear weapons and NATO strategy, 143; vital interests, 3; West Point speech (December 1962), 217 Adenauer, Konrad, 90; ABC weapons, 97, 180; British sell-out of Berlin, 123; NATO nuclear stockpile, 99; naval counterblockade response over Berlin, 173; nuclear decisionmaking authority for NATO, 142; nuclear war fear, 116 AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), 5 AFSWP (Armed Forces Special Weapons Project), 8, 28 Alphand, Herve, 178 Anderson, George W., 165; AAA fire

in Cuba, 187; blockade operation argument with McNamara, 204 Anderson, Orville A., 29 Anderson, Rudolph Jr., 210 Armstrong, Dewitt; graduated escalation plan for Berlin, 151 Aron, Raymond, 175 Atoms for Peace, 50, 52 Attlee, Clement R., 12; advocates withdrawal from Korea, 33; British right of consultation, 32, 34; fear of war, 10 Ausland, John C , 181 Balance of payments: American troop withdrawals from Europe, 227; British conventional force deployment cost, 156, 164; U.S. problem, 156, 179, 226 Ball, George: Cuban missile-Jupiter trade, 211; French hegemony in Europe, 225; MLF negotiations, 225; NATO's value to U.S., 211; U.S. veto over MLF, 217; Vietnam morass, 235 Ballistic Missiles: alert forces during Cuban crisis, 204; Minuteman, 141; missile gap exploded, 131; Soviet, 85, 92, 93, 112, 122, 124, 128, 141, 158; Soviet ICBM defect, 93; strategic balance (fall 1962), 185; U.S., 82, 87-89, 94,

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Index

96, 112, 128, 135, 139, 169 Beam, Jacob D., 107 Berlin: and Acheson's plan to buttress NATO, 143; blockade by Soviets, 9; FREE STYLE probe, 136, 152, 181; graduated escalation to defend (1948), 11; graduated escalation to defend (1959), 114; graduated escalation to defend (1961), 151; JACK PINE airlift, 152, 181; JCS contingency plan (March 1959), 115; Phase IV of contingency plan, 167, 181; TRADE WIND attack, 136, 152, 181, 183 Bevin, Ernest, 12 Bidault, Georges, 59 Bismarck, Otto von, 241 Blankenhom, Herbert A. von, 112 Bohlen, Charles E., 22 Bolte, Charles L., 26, 30; possibility of atomic bomb use in Korea, 26 Bombers: B-29 Silver Plate, 4, 10, 26, 27; B-29s to Britain, 9; B-36, 5, 14; B-50, 6; B-52, 88, 93; B-52 crash (January 1961), 139; B-70, 139; Chinese, 73; Soviet, 17, 20, 24, 82; Soviet in Cuba, 186, 189, 191, 195, 201,214 Bowie, Robert R., 67, 76; and atomic bomb use in Far East, 51; and atomic bomb use over offshore islands, 75; State Department MRBM plan and new NATO strategy (August 1960), 133 Bowles, Chester E.: showdown with China inevitable, 233 Bradley, Omar N., 7, 11, 19; atomic bombs custody issue, 12; draw line against Communists in Formosa, 33; draw line against Communists in Korea, 24; mistaken belief U.S. forswore A-bomb use, 38; opposes atomic bomb use in Korea, 45, 48; possibility of atomic bomb use in Korea, 41 Bradley, Sladen, 48 Brentano, Heinrich von, 97 Bundy, McGeorge, 138; Cuban missile

effect on strategic balance, 199; French hegemony in Europe, 225; nuclear war winnability, 141; SIOP, 140; U-2 flights over Cuba, 186; Vietnam escalation (January 1965), 240 Burchinal, David A., 158 Burke, Arleigh A., 92; desires worldwide showdown over Berlin, 153; urges U.S. intervention in Laos, 232 Bush, George H., 250 Byrnes, James F., 4 Cabell, Charles P., 26 Carney, Robert A., 74; early resort to nuclear weapons, 47 Carter, Marshall, 186 Castro, Fidel, 186; wants preemptive nuclear attack on U.S., 209 Chayes, Abram, 154 Churchill, Winston L., 12; atomic bomb use in Korea, 41, 52; fear of nuclear war, 60, 64; returns to power (October 1951), 41; right of veto on use of atomic bomb, 5; U.S. emergency war plan (January 1952), 42; world opinion opposes use of nuclear weapons, 52 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 11; Cuban missile effect on strategic balance, 192, 193, 201, 206; estimate of Soviet threat, 21, 30, 82, 93; U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia brings Chinese intervention, 235 Clark, Mark W., 45 Clay, Lucius D.: armed ground convoy plan, 9; urges tough stand over Berlin (1961), 168; war scare (spring 1948), 7; warlord of fortress Berlin, 160 Clifford, Clark, 187 Cline, Ray, 196 Cole, Sterling W., 64 Collins, J. Lawton, 26, 28; atomic bomb use in Korea, 32, 33; Soviet atomic technology, 38; strategic

Index

303

bombing of China, 46 Conferences: Eisenhower-Churchill (December 1953), 52; EisenhowerChurchill (June 1954), 64; Eisenhower-Khrushchev (September 1959), 126; Eisenhower-Macmillan (March 1959), 118; Kennedy-Adenauer (November 1961), 170; Kennedy-de Gaulle (June 1961), 148; Kennedy-Khrushchev Vienna Summit (June 1961), 148; Kennedy-Macmillan (April 1961), 145; Kennedy-Macmillan, Bahamas (December 1962), 220; Key West (March 1948), 8; Paris Summit (May 1960), 130; Truman-Attlee (December 1950), 32; Wake Island (October 1950), 29; Western leaders (December 1959), 128 Containment Policy, 3 Cutler, Robert, 70, 72

shore islands with atomic bombs, 71; domino theory, 59, 70; Far East trip with Eisenhower, 45; Formosa policy, 66; graduated escalation to defend Berlin, 114; hot pursuit policy against China, 65; Indochina as vital U.S. interest, 56; limited atomic strikes in Far East, 51, 52; limited war doctrine for NATO (May 1958), 100; Massive Retaliation speech (January 1954), 55; NATO nuclear response to Soviet attack, 45, 53, 61; NATO right of consultation on U.S. use of nuclear weapons, 79; nuclear response over Berlin, 117; offshore islands policy (1958), 105; Operation VULTURE, 57; U.S. nuclear lead, 50; United Action plan for Southeast Asia, 57; world opinion opposes use of nuclear weapons, 46

Davy Crockett, 120, 135, 147, 170, 179, 183 Dean, Gordon E., 39 Decker, George H., 169; possibility of atomic attack on China, 233 DEFCON (Defense Condition), 130, 187, 198 Denfield, Louis E., 8, 15 Dillon, C. Douglas, 123; calculates cost of U.S. conventional buildup over Berlin, 164; urges air strike against Cuban missiles, 190; warns of U.S. balance of payments difficulties, 156 Domino Theory, 58, 143, 190, 231, 236 Dowling, Walter C , 144 Dulles, Allen, 75; Soviet jumping over bombers to missiles a mistake, 93 Dulles, John Foster: American nuclear commitment to NATO, 98; atomic bomb use over offshore islands, 74, 75; atomic bombs reserved for allies, 59; atomic retaliation policy against China, 62; British deal with Soviets, 119; consultant to State Department, 12; defense of off-

Eden, (Robert) Anthony: atomic bomb use in Korea, 41, 52; British intervention in Indochina, 59; British right of consultation, 45; opposes atomic bomb use in Korea, 52; procedure to decide use of nuclear weapons, 79 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 26; allied support for A-bomb use, 61, 114; atomic bomb use in renewed Korean war, 49; atomic bombs cheaper than conventional, 48; atomic bombs reserved for allies, 59; British right of consultation, 45; domino theory, 58; fear of nuclear war, 65, 89; heart attack (September 1955), 83; hypothetical nuclear use situations, 84; ileitis (April 1953), 46; Indochina as vital U.S. interest, 56; Indochina policy, 60; Kennedy to consult JCS over Cuba, 196; limited atomic strikes in Far East, 51; Marine deployment for Laos (January 1961), 231; Massive Retaliation over Flexible Response, 101; NATO right of consultation,

304

Index

79; New Look reliance on nuclear deterrence, 44, 81; nuclear destruction warning to military (June 1954), 63; offshore islands policy (April 1955), 76; preauthorization for atomic bomb use in Far East, 53, 69; preauthorization for nuclear use over Berlin, 96; preventive war, 50; public nuclear warning to Peking, 73, 106; SACEUR autonomy on atomic targeting, 35; stroke (November 1957), 94; tactical nuclear weapons for Laos (May 1962), 236; U.S. bombing and ground troops in Vietnam, 240; U.S. commitment to Berlin, 111; United Action plan for Southeast Asia, 57 Ely, Paul, 57; requests U.S. air strikes at Dienbienphu, 59 Emergency War Plan; FROLIC, 8; HALFMOON, 9; OFFTACKLE, 19, 24; SAC, 27, 36 En Lai, Chou, 76 Enthoven, Alain, 176 Fechter, Peter, 183 Felt, Harry D., 104 Finletter, Thomas K.: Cuban missileJupiter trade, 205; MLF and U.S. strategy (April 1961), 147; wargame briefing idea for NATO, 174 Flanders, Ralph E., 46 Flexible Response, 139, 145, 147, 155, 172, 175, 181,218,228 Formosa Resolution, 70 Forrestal, James V.: atomic bombs custody issue, 8, 10; fear of surprise attack, 7; war plan briefing for Truman (December 1948), 14; war preparations, 12 Fuchs, Klaus, 21 Fulbright, J. William: Berlin crisis, 157; Cuban blockade, 198; U.S. intervention in Laos, 232 Gaither Report, 93 Garthoff, Raymond L.: Cuban missile-

Jupiter trade, 204; U.S.-Soviet military balance (1960), 202 Gates, Thomas S. Jr., 129; DEFCON alert (May 1960), 130 Gaulle, Charles de, 97; Anglo-French nuclear deal, 219; Berlin position, 116, 159; Cuban position, 196; Franco-German nuclear partnership, 175; French nuclear policy, 148, 173; NATO antagonism, 119, 121, 128; U.S. nuclear assistance, 225 Gavin, James M.: testimony on nuclear war casualties (1956), 86 General war: danger if U.S. attacks China, 31, 34; danger if U.S. intervenes in Indochina, 60; debate over finality of, 113; fear of Soviet intention to launch, 35; JCS desire for showdown, 122; Korean war as an excuse, 23; presumed if Soviet attack in Korea, 25, 41; resulting from Soviet attack on Berlin, 96; war aims (1950), 28 Giap, Vo Nguyen, 57 Gilpatric, Roswell L., 139; speech reveals U.S. nuclear strength (October 1961), 169 Goldwater, Barry: willing to delegate nuclear weapons authority to military, 240 Goodpaster, Andrew J., 73 Gray, Gordon, 103, 106 Graybeal, Sidney, 188 Grey, Edward, 118 Gribkov, Anatoly, 212 Gromyko, Andrei A., 106; fears German possession of nuclear weapons, 121; links Berlin to Cuba, 192 Groves, Leslie R., 4 Gruenther, Alfred M., 79, 80, 87 Hagerty, James C , 75 Hague Convention (1899, 1907), 18 Hallstein, Walter, 50 Hare, Raymond A., 205 Harmon, Hubert R., 15; strategic bombing study, 15

Index Harriman, W. Averell, 122 Herter, Christian A., 104; domino theory, 231 Home, Alexander F., 145 Hoover, J. Edgar, 208 Hull, John E.: atomic bomb use in Korea, 48; CINCFE, 53; war plan briefing for Truman (January 1950), 20 Humphrey, George M.: expense of overseas deployment of tactical atomic systems, 92; Far East trip with Eisenhower, 45 Humphrey, Hubert H., I l l ; U.S. intervention in Laos, 232 Interallied Nuclear Force, 223, 227 JCAE (Joint Committee on Atomic Energy), 5, 17 JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff): atomic bombs in Manchuria, 49; Berlin armed convoy idea, 95; Berlin importance (1948), 13; Cuban missile air attack plan, 193; Cuban missile effect on strategic balance, 206; Cuban missile post-crisis belligerence, 214; ExCom meetings exclusion, 197; Formosa importance (1949), 66; graduated escalation plan for Berlin, 152; Key West conference, 8; nuclear weapons needed to counter Chinese in Vietnam (1964), 239; opinion that Berlin not vital to U.S., 13; preemptive attack on USSR, 51; SEATO 5 plan in Laos as counter to Soviet pressure over Berlin, 234; Southeast Asia importance (1962), 236; Southeast Asia policy (1961), 232; U.S.-Soviet balance of forces (1951), 38; Vietnam policy (1964), 238 Jessup, Philip C , 30, 35 Johnson, Harold K., 241 Johnson, Leon W., 27, 111 Johnson, Louis A., 19; cancels Navy's supercarrier, 15

305

Johnson, Lyndon B., 58; Cuban missile-Jupiter trade, 212; fear of nuclear war with China, 238; U.S. commitment to Berlin, 160; Vietnam vital importance (1963), 238 Judd, Walter H., 60 Kai-shek, Chiang, 70, 76; accepts American veto over offensive action, 69; ousted from mainland China, 24 Kassem, Abdul Karim al-, 222 Kaysen, Carl, 154 Keating, Kenneth B., 187 Kennan, George F.: qualms about atomic bomb, 18, 21 Kennedy, John F.: Berlin contingency plans, 154, 158, 169, 181; Berlin reinforcements, 160; command and control task force, 160; Cuban blockade, 206, 213; Cuban missile crisis meeting with congressional leaders, 198; Cuban missile crisis surgical strike plan, 188; Cuban SAM sites, 201; domino theory, 231; early resort to nuclear weapons to defend NATO, 182; French hegemony in Europe, 177, 225; Jupiter missiles, 210, 217; limited test ban treaty, 82; Massive Retaliation, 218, 224, 228; MLF plan, 226; NATO conventional defense, 164; Southeast Asia contingency plan, 237; Southeast Asia policy (1961), 234; U.S. nuclear commitment to NATO, 148; U.S. nuclear commitment to West Germany, 170; U-2 flights over Cuba, 186; Vietnam policy, 235 Kennedy, Joseph P., 222 Kennedy, Robert F.: Cuban missile warning to Dobrynin, 203, 213; Pearl Harbor analogy to attack on Cuba, 192 Khanh, Nguyen, 238 Khrushchev, Nikita S., 23; Berlin deadline, 111; Cuban missile deployment rationale, 186; Cuban mis-

306

Index

sile-Jupiters in Turkey link, 206; Cuban missiles in Soviet custody, 207; Kremlin pressure to achieve Berlin success, 180; offshore islands crisis support for Mao, 103; Soviet nuclear rocket threat, 122, 124, 126, 131, 149, 157 Killian Report, 81 Killian, James R. Jr., 81 Kissinger, Henry A., 88; limited war, 141; Norstad problem, 166 Kistiakowsky, George, 132 Knowland, William F., 58 Knox, William, 206 Komer, Robert W., 158 Kozlov, Frol R., 125 Kullgren, John, 20

136; British opposition comes into open (summer 1961), 153; British stonewall planning (summer 1959), 123; Norstad single integrated plan intention, 136 Lloyd, Selwyn, 107, 130 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 126; North Vietnam air strike option (June 1964), 239 Loper, Herbert B., 21; atomic bomb use in Korea, 29 Lovett, Robert A., 10; atomic bomb discussions with British, 42; JCS Berlin abandonment proposal, 13; Korean war atomic bomb use, 41; no veto on U.S. A-bomb use, 34 Lucky Dragon, 56

Lake Como meeting, 134 Land, Edmund, 82 Landahl, Arthur, 188 Lansdale, Edward G., 237 Leahy, William T., 9, 11 Legere, Lawrence, 183 LeMay, Curtis E., 12; Berlin withdrawal option (December 1962), 215; Massive Retaliation briefing (January 1954), 55; preauthorization to use atomic weapons, 24, 37; SAC bases in Spain, 158; SAC X-ray command in Tokyo, 27; SAM sites in Cuba, 187; SIOP attack over Berlin, 168; Southeast Asia bombing option (1961), 233; Soviet nuclear capabilities, 92 Lemnitzer, Lyman L., 139; MLF, 226; NATO SIOP briefing, 176; NATO tactical nuclear weapons plans, 228; SACEUR of NATO, 183; SIOP preference over limited war scenarios, 165 Lilienthal, David E., 4 Limited war, 3, 18, 32, 34, 37, 39, 79, 91, 96, 100, 108, 113, 141, 165, 170, 234; alternative to use of nuclear weapons, 3 LIVE OAK, 117, 123; British Chiefs hide opposition to plans (fall 1960),

MacArthur, Douglas, 23; American Far East defense perimeter, 23; Korean war atomic bomb planning, 25, 26, 31, 33, 36, 39, 45; Wake Island conference with Truman, 29 MacArthur II, Douglas, 58 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 237 Macmillan, (Maurice) Harold, 89; Berlin negotiations, 117; British nuclear deterrent, 173, 222; Cuban missiles-Jupiters trade, 196; Cuban missiles-Thor trade, 207; fear of nuclear war, 170; Moscow trip (February 1959), 115; nuclear war evacuation plans, 118; Polaris as long-term British nuclear deterrent, 216; U.S. attack on British national nuclear forces, 179 Makins, Roger M., 63, 70 Malenkov, Georgi M., 60 Malraux, Andre, 177 Mansfield, Mike, 149; U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia, 232, 235 Marshall, George C , 10, 11; A-bomb as political weapon, 38; Korea limited war policy, 32 Massive Retaliation, 50, 55, 81, 100, 218; world opinion opposes, 56 Matthews, Francis P., 29 McCloy, John J., 123

Index McCone, John A., 186; Cuban missile briefing for congressional leaders, 198; Cuban missile-Jupiter trade, 212 McElroy, Neil H., 107 McNamara, Robert S., 138; Cuban blockade, 204; Cuban missile-Jupiter trade, 194; French hegemony in Europe, 225; Indochina limited war policy, 239, 240; Jupiter missile withdrawal from Turkey/Italy, 209; MLF, 219; national nuclear forces, 177, 179; NATO conventional defense, 182; nuclear assistance to France, 177; nuclear strategy, 140; Polaris system for France, 224; Polaris system for U.K., 217; Skybolt negotiations, 217-219; sneak attack plan on Soviet strategic forces, 168; Southeast Asia plan, 233, 235, 236; Soviet nuclear warheads and Cuba, 186, 188, 191; U-2 flights over USSR, 209 Menshikov, Mikail A., 157 Merchant, Livingston T., 67 Mikoyan, Anastas, 112 Minn, Ho Chi, 57 MLC (Military Liaison Committee), 5 MLF (Multilateral Force), 146; allied control, 217; Ball briefing for NAC (January 1963), 225; Berlin crisis effect, 172; British opinion, 173, 220, 221; de Gaulle opinion, 225; early plan, 146; education/information idea, 174; Finletter briefing of NAC (April 1961), 147; Kissinger opinion plan is flawed, 226; McNamara opinion plan is unworkable, 219; Merchant trip to sell, 226; national nuclear forces, 216, 217; NATO proportional control idea, 227; Norstad's opposition, 172;

pilot Polaris program as replace-

ment for Jupiters, 204, 205; Polaris assignment variation (March 1962), 175; Polaris system for France, 223; Polaris system for U.K., 217; Rusk/McNamara explanation to

307

NAC (December 1961), 173; SAC forces assignment variation, 176; State Department insistence on sea-based component, 184; Stikker's displeasure with plan, 180; surface ship variation, 227, 228; Taylor/Bruce suggestion to chuck plan, 227; U.S. offer to contribute forces, 220; U.S. troop withdrawals, 226 Modus Vivendi, 5, 34 Montgomery, Bernard L., 79 Morrison, Herbert S., 39 Mountbatten, Louis F., 115, 153, 158 Mourville, Maurice Couve de, 121 Murphy, Robert D., 67 Murray, Thomas E., 82 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization): atomic weapons, 109; founding April 4, 1949, 14; MC 14/2, massive retaliation against USSR, 89; MC 48 policy on early use of atomic weapons, 79, 96; MC 70, shield concept, 127; MRBMs as counter to national nuclear aspirations, 133, 172; nuclear stockpile, 99, 109, 112, 116; QRA forces, 172, 178; trip wire strategy, 127; use of atomic bombs debated (December 1949), 19 Newport Declaration, 106 Nichols, Kenneth, 21 Nitze, Paul H., 18; Berlin and nuclear attack scenarios, 158; Flexible Response for NATO, 148; Korean war atomic bomb policy, 29; Laos graduated escalation plan, 232; NSC 68, 21; NSC 79 war aims, 28; nuclear threat against Soviets, 156; SIOP attack over Berlin, 167; war-game briefing idea for NATO, 174 Nixon, Richard M., 49; proposes air strikes in Indochina, 60; visit to Moscow (July 1959), 124 NME, 8 NORAD (North American Air Defense),

308

Index

92; false alarm, 139 Norstad, Lauris N.: Berlin armed convoy, 111; Berlin crisis (1948) mission to Britain, 12; Cuban missile-Jupiter trade, 213; de Gaulle request for nuclear briefing, 116; Flexible Response/MLF, 172; graduated escalation, 165, 166; NATO command and control, 143; NATO nuclear stockpile, 110, 133; nuclear demonstration shots, 142; Plan 103 for Berlin, 114; SACEUR, 90; U.S. nuclear weapons in France, 206; war game briefing for NATO, 176; war plan briefing for Truman (October 1946), 4; Washington visitors, 174 NSC (National Security Council), 18; NSAM-40, NATO and the Atlantic Nations, 146; NSC 100, 38; NSC 162, Basic National Security Policy, 53; NSC 24/3, Berlin policy (1949), 95; NSC 30, U.S. Policy on Atomic Warfare, 11; NSC 5410/1, U.S. Objectives in the Event of General War, 113; NSC 5440, Basic National Security Policy, 80; NSC 5501, Basic National Security Policy, 72, 81; NSC 5602, Basic National Security Policy, 85; NSC 5707, Basic National Security Policy, 89, 91; NSC 5803, policy on Berlin, 152; NSC 5810, Basic National Security Policy, 100; NSC 5913, U.S. Policy in the Far East, 231; NSC 68, Basic National Security Policy, 21; NSC 79, war aims, 28; procedure for deciding use of nuclear weapons, 43 Nuclear strategy: assured destruction, 140; counterforce, 132; countervalue, 132; limited finite deterrence, 140; proportional deterrence, 173 Nuclear war games, 82, 92, 120, 161 Nuclear weapons: American stockpile numbers, 3, 9, 11, 14, 17,20,32,

44, 74; Army tactical use war games, 155; British right of consultation on use, 10; Chinese Communist capability, 231, 233, 237, 239, 240; command and control, 174, 178; Cuban missile crisis, danger of Jupiter launch, 197, 213; Cuban missile crisis, use against Cuban sites, 199; Cuban missile crisis, warheads in Cuba, 188, 191, 193, 195, 201, 202, 204, 205, 209, 212, 284; custody issue, 8, 10, 12; decision on use issue, 97, 99; early atomic bomb designs, 4; hydrogen bomb, 1 8 , 2 0 , 2 1 , 5 0 , 83, 118, 149, 178; Korea, tactical use, 36, 40, 45; modern tactical types, 179; permissive links, 178; possibility of use at Khe Sanh, 242; possibility of warheads in Cuba, 188, 191, 206, 212; preauthorization for use, 10, 68, 69, 80, 84, 85, 88, 90, 98, 140, 174; presidential decision vs. NATO participation, 146; Soviet atomic bomb (August 1949), 17; Soviet stockpile numbers, 20, 24, 44, 93; Soviet tactical use war game, 155; Truman's wartime decision, 253; Vietnam, 235 Oppenheimer, Robert J., 20, 22; chief scientist of Manhattan Project, 4 ORACLE, 69-71 Ormsby-Gore, David, 203 Partridge, Earle E., 167 Patterson, Robert P., 4 Penkovsky, Oleg V., 141; arrested by KGB, 196 Pleven, Rene, 57 Polaris, 94, 139, 169; Jupiter substitute in Turkey, 205; MLF assignment, 175; Scotland base as quid pro quo for Skybolt, 129 POODLE BLANKET, 152, 169; allied acceptance of Phases I, II, and HI, 183; briefing for Kennedy (August 1962), 180

Index

309

Quarles, Donald A., 90; atomic weapons for West Germany, 118

Cuba, U-2 flights, 186; French hegemony in Europe, 226; Korea, use of atomic weapons, 39; MLF, 173, 217 Russell, Richard B. Jr.: Cuban missile crisis, 198, 202; Southeast Asia intervention, 232

Rabi, Isidor I., 93 Radford, Arthur W., 8; China, atomic retaliation, 62, 71, 74; Churchill meeting (April 1954), 60; CINCPAC, 16; early resort to nuclear weapons, 47; Far East trip with Eisenhower, 45; Indochina, use of atomic weapons, 58; Korea, use of atomic weapons, 26, 53; offshore islands, use of atomic weapons, 68; operation VULTURE, 57; pentomic units and atomic weapons, 86; possibility of atomic bomb use in Indochina, 58; predelegated authority for nuclear weapons use, 90; tactical use of atomic bomb, 72; Wake Island conference, 29 Rapacki, Adam, 110 Rhee, Syngman, 51, 65 Ridgway, Matthew B., 32, 38; early resort to nuclear weapons, 48; Indochina importance, 57; Korea, atomic bomb use, 39; New Look reliance on nuclear deterrence, 44; offshore islands importance, 68 Roberts, Frank, 149 Robertson, Reuben B., 84 Robertson, Walter S., 58; atomic retaliation against China, 74 Rostow, Walt R., 202; Cuban missileJupiter trade, 204; Southeast Asia graduated escalation, 234; Vietnam intervention, 232 Rowen, Henry S., 158 Royall, Kenneth C , 9, 11, 13 Rusk, (David) Dean, 18, 24; AngloAmerican atomic partnership, 176; Berlin crisis use of military force, 159; Cuba, air strike, 190; Cuba, presence of Soviet missiles, 186;

SAC (Strategic Air Command), 4, 12; alert status, 103, 131, 149, 179, 195, 198, 208; early problems, 12; emergency war plan, 27, 37, 78; Far East, 62, 73; Korean war, 25, 27, 36; NATO, 146; overseas bases, 4, 5, 41, 158; preemptive attack on USSR, 141, 158, 168; striking power, 14, 19, 55, 56, 71, 93, 199; Thor missiles, 135; threat from Soviet strategic forces, 82, 92, 94, 192, 194, 209 Sarper, Selim, 172 Scali, John, 206 Schelling, Thomas C , 157; Berlin war game, 161 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., 154 Schuman, Robert, 12 SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), 64 Sherman, Forrest P., 24, 32 Shoup, David M., 132 SIOP (Single Integrated Operations Plan), 131, 132, 152; JCS revision, 171; McNamara impact, 139, 141; NATO briefing, 174 Skybolt, 129; British negotiations, 220; operational deficiency, 216-218, 220; Polaris sub base, 179; Polaris substitute, 218, 219 Slim, William, 34 Smith, Walter Bedell, 38; Indochina intervention, 60; Korea atomic bomb use, 48 Snyder, John W., 34 Solarium Project, 47, 49 Sorenson, Theodore C , 141 Spaak, Paul-Henri, 134 Spaatz, Carl Tooey, 8 Sprague, Robert C : Eisenhower brief-

Power, Thomas S., 27; SAC orders without codes to intimidate Soviets, 199 Preventive war, 28, 50, 81, 94

310

Index

ing (November 1957), 93; Gaither Committee head, 92; preventive war, 94 Sputnik, 92 Stalin, Joseph V., 4; fear of U.S. atomic power, 23 Stassen, Harold E., 56, 75; arms control proposal, 83, 85; Indochina intervention, 60; nuclear use policy, 89 Stehlin, Paul, 225 Stevenson, Adlai E. HI, 190 Stikker, Dirk U., 180 Stilwell, Joseph L., 24 Stratemeyer, George E., 27 Strauss, Franz Josef, 112; atomic systems for West German forces, 118; Flexible Response, 144; NATO nuclear integration, 143; nuclear parity, 178 Strauss, Lewis L., 47; tactical nuclear weapons, 91 Stump, Felix B., 62, 73, 77; atomic strikes in China, 67; atomic strikes in Far East, 102 Sweeney, Walter S., 196 Symington, W. Stuart, 9, 13; atomic bomb political use, 37; Indochina atomic bomb use, 57 Taft, Robert A., 47 Talbot, Phillips, 204 Taylor, Maxwell D., 86, 154; Berlin contingency plans, 165, 180; Berlin war game, 161; Cuban blockade, 206; Cuban missile crisis air strike option, 189, 191, 193,210, 213; Cuban missile crisis command and control, 197; Flexible Response, 100, 105; Indochina report (November 1961), 234; Indochina report (September 1963), 238; Indochina, use of nuclear weapons, 233; NATO defense plans, 155; nuclear assistance to France, 175; predelegation authority for military commanders, 167, 174; Southeast Asia importance, 236, 242; tactical nuclear weapons, 179; tactical

nuclear weapons for U.S. Far East command (1962), 236 Tedder, Arthur W., 12, 34 Thailand: U.S. nuclear umbrella, 239 Thant, U, 205 Thompson, Llewellyn, 115, 149, 211 Thorneycroft, Peter, 179, 218 Thurston, Raymond L., 133 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 239 Truman, Harry S.: atomic bomb decision, 1,2; atomic bomb effectiveness, 14; atomic bomber deployment to Far East, 27; custody issue, 8, 10, 42; expansion of atomic program, 17; Korea atomic bomb use, 32, 39, 42; political use of atomic bomb, 37; Wake Island conference with MacArthur, 29; war plan briefing (December 1948), 14; war plan briefing (February 1950), 20; war plan briefing by Hull (January 1950), 20; war plan briefing by Norstad (October 1946), 4; war plan briefing by Vandenberg (September 1948), 11 Tse-tung, Mao, 17; urges nuclear war against West (May 1957), 103 Twining, Nathan F., 47; ballistic missile deployments, 88; early resort to nuclear weapons, 47; Flexible Response, 100; general nuclear war over Berlin, 114; limited nuclear warfare, 113; offshore islands use of nuclear weapons, 103; strategic bombing of China, 51 Tyler, William R., 204 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, 20 U-2: first flights over USSR (June 1956), 88; SAM sites in Cuba, 186; shootdown over Cuba, 210; shootdown over USSR (May 1960), 130; Soviet missiles in Cuba, 187; strays over Soviet territory, 209 Udall, Stewart, 184 USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics): fear of American nuclear attack, 14, 23

Index Vandenberg, Hoyt S., 9; atomic monopoly for Air Force, 16; Korea fighting withdrawal plan, 32; MacArthur meeting (July 1950), 26; predelegation authority to use nuclear weapons, 37; preemptive attack on USSR, 24, 35; strategic bombing of China, 46; war plan briefing for Truman (September 1948), 11 Vital interests: American list (August 1951), 40; Berlin 1961 (State Department opinion), 179; British need for nuclear weapons to protect, 222; corrupted view, 56; Eisenhower's definition, 47; general definition, 2; Rusk definition, 147; Southeast Asia, 56, 58, 236, 238; war plans to protect, 3 Walker, Walton H., 25 War Plans, 5; atomic retaliation against China, 73; Operation ROLLING THUNDER, selective bombing of North Vietnam, 241; OPPLAN 312, all-out air strike on Cuba (October 1962), 210; OPPLAN 316, invasion of Cuba (October 1962), 210, 212; OPPLAN 32-63, nuclear attack in Far East (1963), 237; OPPLAN 51-53, atomic attack on China (May 1954), 67; strategic air offensive, 18; U.S. vulnerability to Soviet attack, 20 Webb, James E., 28 Westmoreland, William C , 241, 242 Wheeler, Earl G., 189 White, Thomas D., 92, 100 Whitney, John Hay, 119 Wilson, Charles E., 67 Wise Men, 241 WSEG (Weapons Special Evaluation Group), 20 Yarmolinsky, Adam, 139 Zorin, Valerian A., 89

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About the Author TIMOTHY J. BOTTI is an unaffiliated historian who is the author of The Long Wait: The Forging of the Anglo-American Nuclear Alliance, 1945-1958 (Greenwood, 1987).