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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ISSN 0096-3402 Print 1938-3282 Online Journal homepage www tandfonline com journals rbul20 Where they were Robert S Norris William M Arkin William Burr To cite this article Robert S Norris William M Arkin William Burr 1999 Where they were Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 55 6 26-35 DOI 10 1080 00963402 1999 11460389 To link to this article https doi org 10 1080 00963402 1999 11460389 Published online 15 Sep 2015 Submit your article to this journal Article views 237 View related articles Citing articles 4 View citing articles Full Terms Conditions of access and use can be found at https www tandfonline com action journalInformation journalCode rbul20 GIVEN THE ENORMOUS ATTENTION PAID to nuclear weapons it may come as a surprise to most people that until now we have had only fragmentary information about where when and under what circumstances the United States deployed nuclear bombs overseas But now an important historical document has been provided to the authors in response to a Freedom of Information Act request The document titled History of the Custody and Deployrnent of Nuclear Weapons July 1945 through September 1977 is a lengthy narrative complete with charts and appendices that documents the growth of the U S nuclear arsenal 1 It also includes what wereuntil now-some of the U S government's most closely guarded secrets the deployment of nuclear weapons in such sensitive places as Japan Greenland Iceland and Taiwan The entire document will be a valuable source of information for historians of the Cold War Due to space constraints however we have limited the focus of this article to only one section Appendix B titled Chronology Deployment by Country 19511977 Appendix B includes an alphabetical list of the localities where U S nuclear weapons were deployed including the types of weapons systems deployed and their entry and withdrawal dates See NRDC Nuclear Notebook page 66 After an extensive declassification review the Pentagon provided the names of nine places where bombs were locatedAlaska Cuba Guam Hawaii Johnston Island Midway Puerto Rico Britain and West Germany The names of 18 other locations were Robert S Norris is a senior research analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington D C He is currently writing a biography of Gen Leslie R Groves William M Arkin is co-author of Nuclear Battlefields 1985 the first book to docurnent the deployrnent of U S nuclear weapons overseas ·william Burr is a senior analyst at the National Security Archive and director of the U S nuclear history documentation project 26 The Bullt tin of the Atomic Scientists Northern Italy July 1957 Members of the 510th Rocket Battalion stand at attention in front of their Honest John missile while they wait for review by the president of Italy Between 1945 and 1977 the United States based thousands of nuclear weapons abroad The weapons' hosts did not always know they were there U S ARMY blacked out but because the list is alphabetical it is not terribly difficult to identif · them-with the exception of one mvsterv countrv listed between Canad t aml Cuba · First deployments and the question of custody Several earlier official histories have provided limited information about the circumstances under which the first U S nuclear bombs were deployed overseas The issue of foreign deployment is closely entwined with the issue of civilian versus militarv custody another theme of the Histo y On June 11 1950 President Harry Tmman authorized the movement to Britain of 89 sets of non-nuclear components-bomb casings or assemblies-to support Strategic Air Command SAC bomber units located there In Appendix B these non-nuclear components are referred to as non-nuclear bombs The logic of the move was that pre-positioning the larger and heavier assemblies would make it easier and quicker to deliver complete bombs if war vith the Smiet Union broke out By the end of July these first non-nuclear components were in place ' At the time bomb design technolo- capsules until the president authorized that thev be turned over to the military In the event of war capsules were to he rushed to bases and onto bombers where after take ofl' on the wav to Soviet targets they would be inse1ted into the assembly making a complete bomb Inexplicably these first deployments are not listed in Appendix B The outbreak of the Korean 'Varon June 2 5 1950 accelerated m·erseas deployments Some U S officials felt that the North Korean invasion was merelv a diversion for a Soviet im·asion ofWestem Europe On July l Truman took another step toward wider dispersal and hiller militarv custodv authorizing some non-nu lear con ponents to he deployed to Guam and another 1 5 sets of non-nuclear components to be stored aboard the aircraft carrier Coral Sea which was bound f ' the Mediterranean ' During the transfer of non-nuclear components to Guam a spectacular accident occurred that must have caused deep concern in ' 1ashington about the dispersal of the U S arsenal On the evening of August 5 a B-29 from the 9th Bombardment 'Ving was canying one of the non-nuclear assemblies hound for Andersen Air Force Base ia Hickam airhase Hawaii It crashed and burned five minutes after By RobertS Norris William 1 f Arkin William Burr Where they were i- 'Y required that the nuclear capsule the plutonium and or uranium core or pit he kept separate from the non-nuclear assemhk Civilians from the Atomic Ener J' - Commission EC maintained pJ1 ·sical custody of the take off fi-om Fairfield-Suisun nmv Travis Air Force Base in California Twelve of the 20 crew and passengers on board wpre killPd including Brig Gen Robert F Trmis Fm-t ·-t•ight house trailers ancl20 au- 'on•mlwr Det·t•mh 'r l J J J 27 Heidelberg Gennany 1976 U S Anny soldiers prepare to fire a Lance missile As a frontline state in the Cold War Germany hostea by far the most nuclear weapons with 21 different types deployed from 19 55 to the present 28 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists tomobiles were damaged or destroyed Nineteen people were killed in all and 58 required hospitalization According to the accident report Shortly after the crash trucks arrived in position beside the burning aircraft and began to extinguish the fire the explosion occurred All the fire fighting equipment and crews in place fighting the fire were disabled Burning gasoline and wreckage from the explosion were strewn over an area of approximately two square miles 5 The explosion of nearly 5 000 pounds of high explosive was felt 30 miles away Of course there was no mention at the time that a nuclear weapon was involved The air force cover story was that 10 500pound conventional bombs had exploded-apparently all at exactly the same time At the same time another secret operation involved the transfer of non-nuclear components to Canada in July and August of 1950 6 SAc sought permission to move a number of Mark IV non-nuclear assemblies to Goose Bay Labrador as well as to deploy three bomber and two refueling squadrons to the north closer to Soviet targets B-50A bombers from the 43rd Bombardment Wing based at DavisMonthan Air Force Base Arizona stopped at Gray Air Force Base near the AEC's Killeen Base Site Baker one of three National Stockpile Sites where the nuclear weapons were stored at the time to pick up bomb assemblies for delivery to The Goose as SAC called the base 7 The first of these arrived on August 26 8 Fifteen assemblies were stored in the woods about four miles from the airfield where 43 bombers were deployed Canadian Prime Minister Louis St Laurent granted permission for a six-week deployment period Very few members of the Canadian government knew of this arrangement When the time was up the bombers returned to Davis-Monthan in September but the assemblies remained until November While transporting one of the Mark IVs back to the United States on November 10 a B-50 bomber experienced trouble over Canadian territory First one engine failed and then a second began to backfire With little hope of reaching a U S base $tandard procedure called for the bomb assembly to be jettisoned over water Fuzes were set to detonate at an altitude of 2 500 feet and the bomb was dropped in the middle of the 12-mile wide St Lawrence River not far from Riviere du Loup Quebec The explosion of the Mark IVs nearly 5 000 pounds of chemical high explosive frightened residents and rattled windows up and down the river The air force used a cover story to explain the blast-the facts did not emerge until four decades later 9 A growing presence in the real nuclear club No ot _ 1953 U S Nuclear Deployments in NATO Europe 59 61 n • Brackets indicate authors' edditions rization was also given for the deployment of non-nuclear components to France and these were deployed in August 1958 In the late 1950s weaponeers began designing bombs that incorporated the fissile core or capsule inside the bomb casing thus making the bombs all one piece These were called wooden bombs or sealed pit weapons The military had by then taken greater but still not complete control of the arsenal Nevertheless the History reveals that the AEC continued to make some types of bombs with removable capsules for quite some time Having a supply of bombs with removable capsules was no doubt politically advantageous-it accommodated the sensitivities of allies France and Japan The last non-nuclear components were withdrawn from Alaska and Okinawa in June 1967 from Canada in June 1971 and from Guam in 1978 The first overseas movement of nuclear components--capsules--came in 1951 President Truman authorized the transfer of nuclear capsules to Guam on April6 1951 after Chinese forces launched a major offensive in Korea He designated air force Chief of Staff Gen Hoyt S Vandenberg acting as executive agent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as his personal representative to take custody of the weapons Nine nuclear capsules arrived in Guam in late June 10 In January 1952 President Truman authorized the storage of non-nuclear components at three SAC bases-Ben Guerir Nouasseur and Sidi Slimanein French Morocco where U S B-36 and B-47 bombers were located The French government was not informed of the move Appendix B shows that non-nuclear components actually arrived in July 1953 and were there for Deployments to Europe 12years The president granted authority to Appendix B provides precise informadeploy complete weapons to Britain tion about the introduction of U S nuand Morocco in April1954 and stor- clear weapons into eight NATO counage of both nuclear and non nuclear tries between 1954 and 1963 Various components was authorized in June types of fission and fusion bombs and In May 1954 complete nuclear bombs other nuclear weapons were introwere deployed in Morocco and in duced in Britain in September 1954 September 1954 in Britain It is worth West Germany March 1955 Italy noting that contrary to most scholars' April 1957 France August 1958 assumptions complete nuclear weap- Turkey February 1959 Netherlands ons were deployed in Morocco before April1960 Greece October 1960 and they were deployed in Britain Autho- Belgium November 1963 As a frontline state in the Cold War Germany hosted by far the most nuclear weapons with 21 different types of U S warheads having been deployed on its soil from 1955 to the present 11 When NATO's nuclear weapons peaked at more than 7 000 Germany stored approximately half of them Guam an American territory in the Pacific had 20 types deployed but the numbers were far fewer than in Germany The Japanese island of Okinawa hosted 19 different types of nuclear SEE APPENDIX B PAGE 66 weapons during the period 1954-72 but at no time were more than about 1 000 warheads deployed there The History provides charts indicating the numbers of nuclear weapons in various categories Although the figures on the vertical axis-the number of nuclear weapons -are blacked out enough supplementary information exists to provide reasonable estimates of what the numbers on the axis are and thus to determine what the numbers were over time As indicated· in the chart above weapons began to be introduced in NATO in 1955 and rose to almost 3 000 by 1960 This number doubled to 6 000 by 1965 The number of U S nuclear weapons in NATO Europe peaked in 1971 at approximately 7 300 To give European NATO members a greater role in nuclear policy and planning in the late 1950s the United November December 1999 29 States began to establish Japan relations 15 No of Pacific Deployments On Shore weapons mechanisms to provide nonA wide variety of nuclear U S NATO forces with nuclej@ weapons and delivery sysar weapons and delivery sys- 13200 1 terns began arriving in the terns Later known as Proa Pacific region starting in grams of Cooperation Pocs 1956 Army air force and a series of presidentially apnavy nuclear weapons were 15 proved agreements autho deployed to Guam Okinarized the Defense Depart wa and Hawaii From 1957 ment to provide nuclear to 1958 South Korea Taiweapons training support wan and the Philippines be came new locations for Presand certification to foreign ident Eisenhower's nuclear nations and delivery units weapons dispersal policy Although the U S military Okinawa Beginning in January 1958 would supposedly keep the U S nuclear-armed Matabombs and warheads in spedor cruise missiles were decial areas under tight control _ ployed on Taiwan less than initial arrangements under I ' I ' 200 miles from mainland President Dwight D Eisen Korea ' China Also in early 1958 hower were amazingly lax - - Guam West German Luftwaffe - the United States deployed ' -'' ' atomic artillery Honest John fighter-bomber pilots for ex ' 'tl hilippines ------ Taiwan missiles bombs and atomic ample had virtual control of demolition munitions to the bombs when on alert To South Korea Matador mistighten up control of nuclear siles were also sent to South weapons in Europe Presi• Brackets indicate authors' additions Korea a development that dent John F Kennedy instituted the use of permissive action links that a communication breakdown the compilers of the History mistakenmight make emergency transfers diffi- ly overlooked locking mechanisms At the end of the Eisenhower adFrom the 1960s to the early 1970s cult if not impossible Deployment of complete weapons ministration U S nuclear deployroughly 35 to 40 percent of all nuclear weapons deployed in Europe were re- and components coincided with the ments on shore in the Pacific-at Okiserved for non-U S NATO forces The U S -China crisis over the Taiwan nawa Guam the Philippines Korea POCs of course continue to this day straits in 1954-55 The Eisenhower and Taiwan but not Hawaii -totaled We estimate that roughly half of the administration worried that Chinese approximately 1 700 weapons There 150 nuclear weapons currently de- forces might attack the offshore islands were about a dozen weapons on Taiployed in Europe are allocated to six of Quemoy and Matsu or even Taiwan wan 60 in the Philippines 225 on NATO countries Belgium Germany itself made nuclear threats and devel- Guam and 600 in Korea The lion's Greece Italy the Netherlands and oped contingency plans for the use of share-nearly 800 weapons-were loTurkey nuclear weapons against China Com- cated at Kadena airbase Okinawa the plete nuclear weapons were deployed location of SAc's strategic bombers to Okinawa in December 1954 That New dispersals to the Pacific region Deployments to the Pacific same month the nuclear-armed air- began with the Kennedy administraDespite the Korean War the overseas craft carrier U S S Midway deployed tion By the beginning of 1963 onU S nuclear presence in the Pacific to Taiwanese waters 13 shore deployments-to Guam Okiremained relatively modest throughout In an extraordinary development in nawa the Philippines and Taiwanmost of the Truman administration 12 December 1954 the Eisenhower ad- grew to about 2 400 a 66 percent inIn mid-1952 however the Joint Chiefs ministration approved the transfer of crease from 1961levels The on-shore proposed that Truman authorize addi- non-nuclear components to U S bases stockpile in the Pacific peaked in midtional deployments of non-nuclear in Japan Japan would be used for nu- 1967 at about 3 200 weapons 2 600 of components to other bases under U S clear operations against China or the which were in Korea and Okinawa control-in Alaska Guam Hawaii Soviet Union in the event of war 14 The Several unusual deployments which and Okinawa Deployment of nuclear History reveals that non-nuclear com- have yet to be fully explained took and non-nuclear components to for- ponents remained in Japan until June place in the Pacific during the midward areas was considered essential 1965 The U S government has never 1960s From 1963 to 1966 the army for war-fighting if hostilities were to acknowledged their presence given stationed a Nike Zeus anti-ballistic break out Military leaders believed the sensitivity of the issue in U S - missile system with W50 nuclear war- S --- -- -- 30 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists _7' - -------- heads on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands Also from 1964 to 1971 nuclear-armed Thor intermediaterange ballistic missiles were deployed on Johnston Island in support of Program 437 an anti-satellite system based on the island Beginning in 1967 Pacific on-shore deployments began to decrease By the end of the Nixon administration in 1974 the total was cut to half of peak levels-from 3 200 to 1 600 By 1977 it had fallen to about 1 200 warheads Politically sensitive warheads were withdrawn from Japan and the Philippines was denuclearized virtually in secret SAC reduced its presence in the Pacific and U S warheads were withdrawn from Okinawa soon after it reverted to Japan in 1972 By the end of the 1970s only South Korea remained a forward base for U S nuclear weapons The last weapons were withdrawn from Korea in 1991 Sensitive areas The History adds details about several politically sensitive nuclear weapons deployments and withdrawals notably those in Japan Greenland Iceland and Taiwan Japan The United States removed non-nuclear bomb components from Japan in mid-1965 more than a decade after their initial deployment The precise circumstances of the withdrawal remain classified During the late 1950s the Pentagon had hoped to cure the Japanese of their nuclear allergy so that they would accept ongoing nuclear weapons storage on their territory But by 1965 Pentagon officials apparently decided that the allergy was too difficult to cure In any event U S bombers and warships continued to use bases and port facilities in Japan for routine transitofnuclearweapons whichwaspermitted in a secret codicil of the 1960 U S -Japan SecurityTreaty 16 Greenland and Denmark Japan was not the only nation that required special handling in the deployment of nuclear weapons Denmark had a policy of no nuclear weapon deployments within its borders Its declaratory poli- The first simultaneous launch of two Pershing missiles in 1967 The bombs and warheads were control but suppose d t 0 be und er t ght I I initial arrangements under President Eisenhower were amazingly lax ' member December 1999 31 No of weapons Atlantic Deployments On Shore No of weapons Deployments At Sea lz 15 · Total ' 0 Atlantic -' _' _ _ _ _ _ - ------- • Brackets indicate authors' additions - - _ Pacific - - - 0 l '------------' w 0 - - - - - I --- 9 --------------77 cy also covered Greenland a Danish colony though it was assumed in the 1960s that American bombers armed with nuclear weapons routinely flew over Denmark's Arctic possession In 1994 Danish researchers uncovered important new information that demonstrated the overflights had indeed occurred 17 This information which was published in the Danish press was a source of great embarrassment for the governments of both countries and forced them to negotiate over how to deal with the situation On June 29 1995 the Danish government delivered a four-page history to the Danish parliament In it the government admitted that nuclear-armed planes had flown over Greenland but concluded that the United States had acted in good faith Top Secret discussions in 1957 had produced an official gloss Washington asked Copenhagen if it wanted to be informed in advance if nuclear weapons were deployed The Danish response was exact yet noncommittal the question would never be asked Don't ask don't tell In 1968 however a B-52 bomber crashed on the Greenland icecap with four nuclear bombs aboard Non-nuclear pledges were made explicit thereafter These pledges did not however cover port visits by nuclear-armed ships which 32 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The gigantic Mk36 deployed in Greenland both sides continued to ignore The crisis caused by the Danish researchers was raised to a new level after a July 1995 press conference with Danish foreign minister Niels Helveg Petersen and then-U S Defense Secretary William Perry who was coincidentally on an official visit to Denmark when the Danish government's report was published Petersen said that despite the overflights he had been assured that nuclear weapons had never been deployed on the ground But 10 days later there was another bombshell Perry delivered a secret letter informing the Danish government that in fact nuclear weapons had been stored on the ground including army air defense warheads for Nike Hercules surface-to-air missiles Although the U S government asked the Danes to keep the information secret Petersen decided to go public with it A commission was fonned inquiries made dusty archives opened and a comprehensive report published According to Perry's secret letter four nuclear bombs were stored at Thule Air Base in Greenland in 1958 1' Given this there is no doubt that the deleted entry in Appendix B for the country between Cuba and Guam is Greenland That entry reads Bomb Entry Feb 58 Withdrawn Oct-Dec 58 From other official sources we also know that the 11th Aviation Depot Squadron was at Thule from January 15 to December 1 of the same year an excellent fit for this nuclear custodial unit 19 Hans M Kristensen the Danish researcher who first brought this story to light in Denmark has received additional official documents confirming that the four bombs were Mark 36 Mod 1s The Mk 36 was a huge thermonuclear bomb weighing 17 500 pounds It had a yield of 9-10 megatons and was in the stockpile from 1956 to 1962 The documents name Thule and also state that non-nuclear components for 15 Mark 6 bombs were also there a fact not noted in Ap- DECLASSIFICATION CAN BE A I ' SCHLTABLE PHOCESS Evidence of this is the decision bv the Office of the Secretary of Defense oso to delete references to Greenla d-and several other nuclear weapons deployment locations-in the declassified version of the History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons According to the oso the deletions were necessary because the information could reasonably be expected to damage U S national security or harm relations with other countries At first glance the claim seems reasonable The History contains infonnation about several sensitive deployment locations for U S nuclear weapons during the Cold War But much of the deleted information-particularly the references to Greenland-has already been revealed in other declassified documents Over the last five years extensive details about the deployment of U S nuclear weapons to Greenland in the late 1950s and 1960s have become available The deletion complete list of SAc's nuclear weapons deployments in 1958 The SAC history identifies 15 bases in seven locations around the world-including Thule Air Basewhere nuclear weapons were deployed The SAC history also discloses the specific types of nuclear weapons stored at each base and provides the first complete list of nuclear weapons deployments during the early phases of the Cold Var The Thulegate disclosures in Denmark and the air force's historical documents reveal so many details about the deployment of U S nuclear weapons in Greenland that it is difficult to understand why the OSD blacked out this location in the History The contradiction between the air force's willingness to release information about Greenland and the oso's unwillingness is particularly striking given that both departments are supposed to be implementing the same law But as air force officials explained to me every department reviews documents differently and it is eventually up to the individual who processes the request to determine Secrecy on a sliding scale of references to Greenland in the History is out of tune with recent events and serves no apparent purpose In 1993 and1994 declassified air force records made it possible for the first time to document that U S nuclear-anned bombers routinelv flew over Greenland during the 1960s Following tl is disclosure the Danish government received additional information from the United States about the deplo 1nent of nuclear weapons on the ground This information revealed that from 1958 to 1965 the United States kept nuclear weapons at Thule Air Base in Greenland It was a major political scandal in Denmark when the government released this information to the public The scandal eventually resulted in the establishment of a semi-independent investigation Despite its limitations the investigation produced a wealth of information about the deplo lnent of nuclear weapons at Thule Air Base The whole affair which the Danes nicknamed Thulegate lasted about four years In July only one month after the History was released the air force released large pmtions of the Strategic Air Command's SAC 19 58 histmy including a pendix B Denmark has had one of the more searching and fuller investigations of its nuclear history but much remains incomplete In general there is a lot what should or should not be released I believe the air force made the correct decision After more than 30 years every reasonable national security interest serve d by withh lding references to Greenland's nuclear history had evaporated The OSD also should have given priority to increasing the public's knowledge of the history of nuclear weapons deployments Instead it gave in to obsolescent and impulsive secrecy At a deeper level the deletions raise questions about the justifications government agencies use to withhold information under the Freedom of Information Act The Clinton administration has on numerous occasions issued new guidelines intended to encourage the release of information But the excessive deletions in the History indicate that we still have far to go -Hans M Kristensen Hans M Kristensen an associate u ith the Nautilus Institute in Berkeley California has researched nuclear policy for nwre than 15 years He u as a member of the 1997 Danish Defense Commission more nuclear history to be discovered especially in cases where a nation's non-nuclear policies were abrogated or where a blind eve was turned to accommodate its s perpower partner Iceland Iceland is another nonnuclear countrv whose nuclear history remains incm plete In Appendix B Iceland is clearly the first blacked out country listed after Hawaii and before November December 1999 33 U S scientists show off a relatively small weapon an atomic demolition munition or ADM Johnston Island on-nudear components were stored at the American base at Kef1avik for a decade from Febmary 19 56 to June 1966 and complete nndear bombs were deployed there from September 19 56 to September-December 19 59 This is a significant new revelation Iceland like Denmark has a strong non-nudear tradition and at least publidy opposed many of the nudear aspects and policies of the ' HO alliance There is further supporting evidence for nuclear weapons deployments to Iceland in an official volume describing U S Air Force bases overseas It states that major changes in operational capability at Kef1avik included sAC transient aircraft accommodated 19 5 5-19 56 ami elimination of SAC tenant activities occurred in 19 59-1960 This is a perfect fit for the presence of the bombs as described in Appendix B Taiwan Vhen told that there were once two types of U S nudear weapons deployed on Taiwan most Americans are surprised Matador cruise missiles were first deployed on Taiwan in January 19 58 they were remm·ed in mid-1962 The second t pe were mlclear bombs which were stockpiled at Tainan air base The U S Air Force had been rotating nuclear-capable F100 fighter-bombers through Taiwan 34 The Bulldin of thl' Atomic Seil'ntists since 1958 so the bombs were undoubtedly deployed to facilitate access in a c1isis During the 1960s the air f rce deployed F -4 fighter-bombers on Taiwan later putting two to four of them on 24-hour quick-reaction alert 21 The fighter-bombers and their weapons wert' also assigned strike missions under the U S nuclear war plan knmm as the Single Integrated Operational Plan It is clear that Washington withdrew its nuclear weapons from Taiwan in the 1970s to improve relations with Beijing During or not long after his isit to China President Richard Nixon made a commitment to remove nuclear weapons from Taiwan As a symbol of the new relationship immediatelv after Nixon's visit the secretary of defense ordered a reduction in th number of bombs on Taiwan and instituted physical secmity measures such as permissive action links Because Taiwan was an allv hom eark in the Cold Var davs and a catalyst for important dom stic politi al support Nixon's pledge might have caused problems if it were widely knmm The strategic and policy implications of remming weapons from Taiwan generated a cabinet-level review The History reproduces the text of a memorandum that Secretary of State 'illiam Rogers and Defense Secretary Melvin Laird presented to Nixon in November 1972 The Rogers-Laird memo is heavily excised but the essence of it was that the loss of Taiwan as a storage facility did not represent a major foreign policy problem The loss was inconvenient however because it represented a contraction of forward storage options But the strikes against the mainland that had been assigned to flghter-bombers could be delivered by B- 52s or submarine-launched ballistic missiles SLBMs Indeed a vear earlier National Security Advi er Henry Kissinger had said that special studies demonstrated that with bombers and Poseidon SLBMs alone the U S will be able to pre-empt China for perhaps the next lO to 15 years 23 Rogers and Laird however were concerned that Taiwanese Nationalists might try to seize the weapons out of desperation Thus when the Nixon administration followed up on its pledge to Beijing and removed the last bomhs in July 1974 Defense Secretary James Schlesinger ordered the removal of the bombs before the F -4s Concerned that the Nationalists might do something rash if the aircraft were removed before the bombs Schlesinger observed that we should not offer the Nationalists a temptation or opportunity ' Secrets to the end Why the Pentagon provided the names of some deployment locations but vithheld others is somewhat of a mystery Why for example did it ackno l­ edge that nuclear weapons were deployed in Germany and refuse to acknowledge that they were in Ital or Korea' The probable answer is that these countries-including those where weapons were ithdra 11 years agostill control the declassification and dissemination of information regarding nuclear deployments on their soil The process of declassif 'ing the History was time consuming and complex It clearly went through many departments and agencies and may have within the State Department gone to the bureau and desk level and perhaps even to embassies abroad to decide which details could be released without embarrassing foreign govemments 25 The political history of the deployment of nuclear weapons is even less well known than their militarv historv and it remains an important but virtu ally unwritten chapter of the Cold War The presence of nuclear weapons often interfered with and or created problems for the conduct of U S foreign policy This was especially the case when weapons were deployed under special circumstances-the most special being those in which the host country did not know if they were there where they were or how many there were The deployment story is not over In Aprill999 NATO declared in its newest Strategic Concept that its nuclear forces consisted of dual-capable aircraft and a small number of United Kingdom Trident warheads The nuclear parts of the dual-capable aircraft are B61 bombs which remain at 10 air bases in seven European countries They are officially unacknowledged and remain shrouded in secrecv These warheads are the last nuclear eapons of the five major powers to be deployed outside their borders despite NATO's statement that it has tenninated standing peacetime nuclear contingency plans and that its nuclear forces no longer target any country 2 Nuclear weapons and deployments now play a relatively marginal part in U S military strategy but the great secrecy associated with deployments even when they have long been overtaken by events shows that nuclear weapons remain highly sensitive in international politics This document pierces only part of the heavy veil of nuclear secrecy It may take decades before the full story of U S nuclear deplovments is told In other words there is a lot more histmy to be discovered • l The History was prepared by the Office of the Assistant to the Secreta · of Defense Atomic Energy and is dated Febmary 1978 One of the authors first requested it in 1985 and received a 182page version hea ly redacted ln 1994 an appeal was submitted to the Pentagon for a mon' careful line by line word by word re iew This length · process has resulted in the current 332-page version 150 pages longer In response to tlw first request the Pentagon chose not to suppl · a 36-page bibliography and nine appendices totaling 114 pages an action dearh- against the regulations of the FOIA Portions of the document are on the 1 ationa Securitv Archive Weh site and the full document is avaih ble in the Office of the Secretarv of Defense's FOIA Reading Room Room 2C757 'the Pentagon 2 Doris M Condit The Test of 'or 1950-1953 val II Histon of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Washington D C Office of the Secretary of Defense 1981 pp 463-467 L Wainstein eta The Erohlficm of L' S Strategic Comnuuul and Control am Vaming 19-15-1912 Arlington Va Institute for Defense Analysis June 1975 3 Wainstein et al Ewluticm p 31 4 The logic of declassifiers is sometimes a mvstery While the Histon deletes the f tct about the Coral Sea it was published in Vainstein et al Euolution p 31 and in Condit The Test ofWar p 463 5 Air Force Safety Agency Accident Report August 1950 6 A diligent Canadi m researcher got to the bottom of this story John Clearwater Cmwdiml Nuclear Veapm1s The Untold Stem Toronto University of Toronto Press 1991 7 The other two were Manzano Base at Kirtland Air Force Base New Mexico Site Able and Clarksdle Base at Fort CampbelL Kentuck-v Site Charlie 8 We would like to thank MichaelS Binder f lr this infonnation about the 43rd Bomb 'in g 9 Ed Offiev The Dav a Nuclear Bomb Fell on Canada Sedttlc Post-l Jtelligencer October 30 1990 10 Guam a U S territory about three timt·s the size of Washington D C is located 3 700 miles west-southwest of Honolulu From 19 50 to the 1980s it had about 20 pc s of nuclear weapons Andersen Air Force B L e located 13 mi ps northeast of Agana was an important S C base for almost 40 ypars The 3rd A iation Field Depot Squadron arrived at the end of Mav 19 51 to assumt' responsibility f Jr the bombs Prt'sumabh- the original deployment a year earlier was to indude ten assemblies After the crash on August 5 19 50 onlv ninP were delivered These capsules were possiblY f r the nine assemblies ll There Wrt' also British nudear weapons deployed in Germany from thP early 1970s until larch 199S Pn' ioush- the Royal Air Force used U S weapons 12 Hoger Dingman Atomic Diplomacv During the Korean 'ar in Se m M L lm-Jones eta Nuclear Diplomacy mul Clisis fmwgel lent Cambridge Mass MIT Press 1990 pp 127 139-40 William Stueck The Korean War An Interrwticmal Histont Princeton l' J Princeton Uuh·ersitv Press 199 5 p 67 For S C on Guam see Peter Haves et a A111elicmr Lake ' 'uclear Pail in the Pacific 1 e · York Penguin Books 19S6 l p S 5 13 For nudear thrpats ami planning during the first Tai ·an threats crisis set· essavs b · Gordon Chang and H ' Brands in L lm-fone l 'uclear Diplcmwcy 14 For Japan L' a nuclear base see llayt s et al A111elicrm Lake p 76 HavE'S and his colleagues correcth- inferred that components not complete weapons wert' stored in Japan 1 5 Tlw initial deplo lnent ''L' first declassified bv the Defense Department in 1992 See Institute for Defense Analvses The Erolutim1 of U S Strategic Colllllrm c and Control and V mling 194 5-72 p 3 reprmluct d in 'illiam Burr ed L' S Xrn-lear History Xuclcar 'capons am Politics 19 55-58 A Jl 'atimwl Scculity Arch ice Special Collccticm Alexandria Va National Secmitv Archive Chachwck-Heakv 1998 16 For detaiis on the 1960 treatv see Robert J 'atson History of the Office of the Sccretan of Defi'ii W' vol I ' Into the fissile Age 1956-60 Washin ion D C Histmical Oflice Officp of tlw SecretarvofDdense 1997 pp 637-631 17 B · n'searchers Hans KlistPnsen and Thorsten Olesen lS Greenland Duling the Cold 'ar Danish and Arnelican Security Policy 1945-68 CopPnhagen Danish Institute of International Affairs 1997 p IS 19 Harry H Flt tcher Air Force Bases ul II Air Bases Outside the United States of Anwlica 'ashington D C Cpnter for Air Foret' Historv 19931 p 11 5 20 Ibid p 69 21 Fighter-bombers wPnt on strip alert in 1969 to protPct U S reconnaissance aircraft operating in the South China area See State Dt partment cable 1 7660 to Embassy Taipei Mav 29 1969 Record Gronp 59 subject-numeiic flies DEF 1 5 Chinat 22 For the pledge without anv inf mnation on its timing see Kissinger memorandum for the' President Our FuhirP Relationship with thP People's Republic of China n cl circa AugustSeptember 1974 National Archives Record Group 59 Department of State Records Policy Planning Staff Director's Files 1969-1977 box 3Sl Prt sident's China Trip 23 Geiwral Haig to the President's Files August 10 1971 ixon Presidential 'laterials President's Office File box S5 beginning August S 1971 Accorcling to Kissinger Minuteman missiles ·ere not useful against China because they would han' to fh- over Sm iPt teniton· 24 M norandum of conn sation Call bv Ambassador Unger April 12 1974 Record roup S4 Top Secret Foreign Sen C ' Post Files EmbassyTaipl'i 1959-1977 box 1 filp DEF 1 5-9 HPductions-Roc-1974 25 An additional reason ma · have to do with worries about Defense Depart ment liabilitv and lawsuits from f Jreign nationals daimin health problems from exposure to racliation or other matters 26 '1 uc Par contingency plans no doubt still exist They may include plans to disperse nuclear warheads to additional bases to place warlwads in countries which do not now host nuclear weapons to fly in more planes to recover strategic bombers and submarines in foreign locations during alerts and operations to m· 'lfly f Jreign airspace with nudc·ar weapons and P ·en to put Tomahawk nuclear cruise missiles back on surface ships and submarines if circumstances warranted November DPCl'mber 1999 35