Command and Control

As would be expected, Curtis LeMay hated the idea of low-yield tactical weapons. In his view, they were a waste of fissile material, unlikely to prove decisive in battle, and difficult to keep under centralized control. The only way to win a nuclear war, according to SAC, was to strike first and strike hard. “Successful offense brings victory; successful defense can now only lessen defeat,” LeMay told his commanders. Moreover, an atomic blitz aimed at Soviet cities was no longer SAC’s top priority. LeMay now thought it would be far more important to destroy the Soviet Union’s capability to use its nuclear weapons. Soviet airfields, bombers, command centers, and nuclear facilities became SAC’s primary targets. LeMay did not advocate preventive war — an American surprise attack on the Soviet Union, out of the blue. But the “counterforce” strategy that he endorsed was a form of preemptive war: SAC planned to attack the moment the Soviets seemed to be readying their own nuclear forces. Civilian casualties, though unavoidable, were no longer the goal. “Offensive air power must now be aimed at preventing the launching of weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its Allies,” LeMay argued. “This transcends all other considerations because the price of failure might be paid with national survival.”

The newly elected president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had to reconcile the competing demands of his armed services — and develop a nuclear strategy that made sense. Eisenhower was well prepared for the job. He’d served as the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War, as Army chief of staff after the war, and most recently as the supreme commander of NATO forces. He understood the military challenges of defending Western Europe and the revolutionary impact of nuclear weapons. The Manhattan Project had reported to him, until the AEC assumed its role. He had worked closely with LeMay for years and had been briefed by Oppenheimer on the findings of Project Vista. Eisenhower didn’t like the Soviet Union but had no desire to fight a third world war. After being briefed on the details of how Mike had made an island disappear, he privately questioned the need “for us to build enough destructive power to destroy everything.”

After replacing Truman’s appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Eisenhower asked his national security team to take a “new look” at America’s defense policies. He’d campaigned for the presidency vowing to lower taxes and reduce the size of the federal government. Despite his military background, he was eager to cut the defense budget, which had tripled in size during the Truman administration. In June 1953, while a wide range of proposals was being considered, the Soviets crushed a popular uprising in East Germany. Two months later they detonated RDS-6, a thermonuclear device. Although the yield of RDS-6 was relatively low and its design rudimentary, the test had ominous implications. Eisenhower was fully committed to preserving the freedom of Western Europe and containing the power of the Soviet Union — without bankrupting the United States. In his view, the simplest, most inexpensive way to accomplish those aims was to deploy more nuclear weapons. And instead of choosing between a strategy based on large thermonuclear weapons or one based on smaller, tactical weapons, Eisenhower decided that the United States should have both.

In the fall of 1953, the administration’s national security policy was outlined in a top secret document, NSC 162/2. It acknowledged that the United States didn’t have enough troops to protect Western Europe from a full-scale Soviet invasion. And it made clear that a Soviet attack would provoke an overwhelming response: “In the event of hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weapons as available for use as other munitions.”

During his State of the Union address in January 1954, President Eisenhower publicly announced the new policy, declaring that the United States and its allies would “maintain a massive capability to strike back.” Five days later his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, said that the security of the United States would depend on “a great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our own choosing.” The two speeches left the impression that America would respond to any Soviet attack with an all-out nuclear strike, a strategy soon known as “massive retaliation.”