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Michiey o Kaku/D aniel Axelrod 7 e << es 2 f Ww To Win A Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans by Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod South End Press Boston Copyright © 1987 by Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod First edition Cover by Mary Nash Typesetting, design and layout by the South End Press collective Copyrights are required for book production in the United States. However, in our case, it is a disliked necessity. Thus, any properly footnoted quotation of up to 500 sequential words may be used without permission, so long as the total number of words quoted does not exceed 2,000. For longer quotations or for a greater number of total words, authors should write to South End Press for permission. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kaku, Michio. To win a nuclear war Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. United States— Military policy. 2. Nuclear warfare. J. Axelrod, Daniel, 1948- . IL. Title. UA23.K294 1986 = 355’.0335’73. 86-2794 ISBN 0-89608-322-5 ISBN 0-89608-321-7 (pbk.) South End Press 116 St. Botolph St. Boston MA 02115 Table of Contents Acknowledgements Foreword by Ramsey Clark EE < Summary Chart of Pentagon War Plans Introduction: To Win a Nuclear War ee m The First Era (1945-1960): Massive Pre-emption Occupying the Soviet Union 29 e. BROILER: Atomic Bombs over Berlin 49 N a WQ. Atomic Bombs over Manchuria 71 . Preventive War: A-Day 95 W Escalation Dominance 113 The Second Era (1960-1974): MAD ON . Planning a First Strike 135 NI . Atomic Bombs over Vietnam and the Middle East 155 The Third Era (1974-present) : Counterforce Agonizing about Counterforce 175 SIOP-5: Decapitating the Soviet Union 193 10. First Strike: Myth or Reality? 211 11. Pre-War Situation? 227 12. Star Wars: Missing Link to a First Strike 239 13. SIOP-6: Protracted Nuclear War 261 14. What About the Russians? 273 15. Point of No Return? 305 Notes 317 Bibliography 341 Index 347 About the Authors 357 Acknowledgments This book, which is based heavily on recently declassified Top Secret documents from the Pentagon, would not have been possible without the Freedom of Information Act and the men and women who enforce it. We would like to thank the FOIA officers of the CIA, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council. In addition, we would like to thank the men and women who staff the archives of the Modern Military Division of the National Archives in Washington, which handles the Archives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, the Matthew Ridgway papers at the U.S. Army Military Historical Institute, the personal files of John Foster Dulles, David Lilienthal, and James Forrestal at Princeton University, and the Library of Congress. We would also like to thank those individuals who agreed to be interviewed by us: Kenneth Adelman, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) under Reagan; Robert Aldridge, former Lockheed engineer, designer of the Trident missile; Dr. Frank Barnaby, Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Stock- holm, Sweden; Gen. Gert Bastian, former West German NATO general; Lt. Col. Robert Bowman (ret.) former director of the Advanced Space Programs Development of the U.S. Air Force under Pres. Carter; Admiral Eugene Carrol, U.S. Navy (ret.) ; Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General under Pres. Johnson; Dr. Thomas Cochran, physicist, National Resource Defence Council; Robert Dean, Deputy Secretary of State under Pres. Reagan; Rep. Thomas Downey, (Dem.-NY); Freeman Dyson, physicist, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton; Daniel Elilsberg, former Rand analyst under McNamara; Prof. Richard Falk, Professor of International Law, Princeton; Gregory Fossedal, editorial writer, Wall Street Journal, Frank Gaffney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defenise for Strategic and Theatre Nuclear Forces under Pres. Reagan; Leslie Gelb, New York Times correspondent on national security affairs; Dr. Jack Geiger, President of the Physicians for Social Responsibility; Prof. Kurt Gottfried, Union of Concerned Scientists, Cornell University, Gen. Michael Har- bottle, NATO (tret.); the late Herman Kahn, founder of the Hudson Institute and Rand analyst; Petra Kelly, a founder of the Green Party in West Germany; Admiral Gene LaRocque (ret.), Director, Center for iv TO WIN A NUCLEAR WAR Defense Information; Roger Molander, former NSC consultant, founder of Ground Zero; John Pike, Federation of American Scientists; Eugene Rostow, former Director of the ACDA under Pres. Reagan; the late Herbert Scoville, a former CIA director for technology; Leon Sloss, former Deputy Director of the ACDA under Pres. Ford; Vladimir Shustov, Deputy Permanent Representative of the U.S.S.R. to the United Nations; Prof. Seymour Melman, Director of National SANE; Paul Warnke, former SALT II negotiator under Pres. Carter; Prof. Victor Weisskopf, MIT physicist; Prof. Frank Von Hippel, Princeton University; Tom Wicker, New York Times columnist. We would also like to thank Lynn Torke, Jorge Emmanuel, and University of Michigan physics professor Marc Ross for their extensive and useful comments on drafts of this book. Special thanks go to Justin Schwartz for his careful reading, thoughtful criticisms, and numerous contributions, to Janis Michael for technical help, to Mary Nash for graphic design, and to Maureen Martin for indexing. We would especially like to thank Carl Conetta for his editorial assistance in making this a more coherent and readable book, and for his conscientious fact-checking, and to Todd Jailer, our editor at South End Press, for guiding the book from manuscript through production. Foreword by Ramsey Clark For forty calamitous years the risk of nuclear war has expanded inexorably. Escalating from the use of two small atom bombs by a one nation monopoly, the world is now confronted withet prehsen ce of more than 50,000 nuclear warheads. Perhaps two dozen nations presently possess the capacity to produce such weapons, and swifter proliferation is certain. Today’s means of delivery from land, sea, air and outer space were unimaginable when the bomb bay of Enola Gay opened over Hiroshima. The nuclear arms race has rendered insignificant the human suffering caused by two World Wars and innumerable lesser conflicts in this century, and now threatens to make earth a dead planet, lifeless as the moon. To meet the challenge, governments out of control, with the people largely ignorant of their acts, accelerate their pursuit of the power to annihilate. ‘This book records as fully as we are likely to find what has gone on in. the minds of American leaders and nuclear strategists on this awesome subject during these fateful forty years. It is an appalling story. The raw ingredients of the book are declassified and leaked reports, Freedom of Information Act disclosures, interviews with key administra- tion officials, and other available materials meticulously gathered, organ- ized, and analyzed. They reveal what U.S. presidents, cabinet members, generals, scientists, and nuclear arms policy makers planned, wanted to do, and did with their war capacity. This essential information, not available until years after the events, and accessible now only because of the initiative and diligence of the authors, not only exposes what had happened; it demonstrates the unavoidable catastrophe ahead unless there is a radical change and a careful, expeditious elimination of all nuclear arms. The unthinkable power these few men (there are no women players ) wielded and the mindless manner in which they met their responsibilities V vi TO WIN A NUCLEAWRAR are matched only by public ignorance and apathy as sources for concern about the survival of the species. This book compels us to rethink and rewrite the history of the Cold War and the arms race. The authors divide the past forty years into three historic epochs. The first, from 1945 to 1960, covers the period beginning with sole possession of the bomb by the United States and ending as the Soviet Union produced sufficient numbers of bombs and capacity to deliver them to threaten the U.S. with extensive destruction. The authors call it the era of Massive Pre-emption. It was a time of exhilarating power. Within one year of Franklin Roosevelt’s death, Truman threatened the Soviet Union with an atomic attack if it did not withdraw from Iran in 48 hours. Later, John Foster Dulles offered the French two atomic bombs to relieve the siege of Dien Bien Phu. Detailed plans were made to use nuclear weapons against the Korean forces concentrated around Kaesong, but were deferred when more sober military minds observed the much higher vulnerability of U.S. forces at Pusan and elsewhere. War planners busily devised strategies for crippling the Soviet Union with revealing names like BROILER, FROLIC, SIZZLE, SHAKEDOWN, DROPSHOT, and VULTURE. The number of Soviet targets to be destroyed grew from 20 cities in December 1945 to 200 cities in 1949 and to 3261 total targets by 1957. The second epoch, from 1960 to 1974, was the somber period of Mutual Assured Destruction, called MAD, the most apt acronym and accurate description of the policy. The two superpowers stood facing each other like brutish giants; each believed it could smash the other but would perish in the struggle. The hope and justification for a vast expansion of nuclear arms and delivery systems was that the sheer horror of the threat would paralyze the opponent, that no rational mind would dare risk attack, and that fear would prevent all military aggression. Even during these years of general acceptance of the idea that victory through nuclear war was impossible, gamesmanship was intense. Crises in Berlin in 1959 and 1961 bristled with nuclear threats. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 uniquely involved an aware public in the imminence of nuclear ware. Carefully planned use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam in 1969 was deferred, although Richard Nixon has written proudly of the effectiveness of his nuclear threat. As was the case in Iran, Korea, and Vietnam, military and geopolitical strategists sought to enhance the myth that threats to use nuclear weapons coerced desired conduct in enemies. The myth then justified additional expenditures for nuclear superiority. In 1975, the United States finally broke into the present dangerous epoch. Called Counterforce, this era involves a new quest for superiority through a first strike sword backed up by a Star Wars shield. The unbearable weight of assured destruction and the seemingly instinctive human need for superior force inspired enormous efforts to find ways to