Washington, D.C., April 30, 2008 - The U.S. Air Force expected to use nuclear weapons against China during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958, but President Eisenhower required the Air Force to plan initially to use conventional bombs against Chinese forces if the crisis escalated, according to a previously secret Air Force history obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit and posted today by the National Security Archive. Eisenhower's instructions astounded the Air Force leadership, but according to Bernard Nalty, the author of one of the studies released today, U.S. policymakers recognized that atomic strikes had "inherent disadvantages" because of the fall-out danger in the region as well as the risk of escalation.
The ten formerly Secret and Top Secret histories obtained from the FOIA lawsuit shed new light on the Air Force's role in developing and deploying the massively destructive nuclear arsenal that thermonuclear weapons made possible. They cover key phases of the U.S. nuclear weapons program: nuclear tests, producing and deploying nuclear delivery systems, developing strategic concepts for nuclear weapons use, participating in command and control systems, executing nuclear threats during crises, and civilian control over the use of nuclear weapons, including repeated presidential caution.
These histories trace:
- The story of the deployment of the Minuteman ICBM which, over forty years later, remains an integral part of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. (See Document 1 and Documents 3-6)
- Debates between Air Force leaders and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara over how many Minuteman ICBMs were necessary for a deterrent force that could threaten the destruction of Soviet society. (See Document 3)
- The development and deployment of the multiple-independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), and their initial counterforce mission, that have been deployed on Minuteman III, whose MK 12 nose-cone assemblies were inadvertently sent to Taiwan in 2006. (See Documents 4-6).
- The high-level Air Force interest, beginning in the 1950s, in ideas of preemptive nuclear options in the event of war with the Soviet Union. (See Document 9)
- Air Force successful opposition to the Navy and Army's "finite deterrence" proposals which, in reaction to the Air Force's nuclear "overkill", proposed to reduce nuclear forces to the minimum needed to deter a Soviet attack. (See Document 9)
- The story of Air Force "atomic cloud sampling" missions to collect radioactive debris from atmospheric nuclear tests to help measure the effectiveness of nuclear weapons. (See Document 7)
- The role of the January 1963 highjacking of a Venezuelan ship Anzoategui in encouraging President Kennedy to seek a more effective Pentagon command center that could quickly update the White House on important developments. (See Document 8)
- Air Force operations during five crises: Lebanon (1958), Taiwan Strait (1958), Congo (1960), Cuba (1962), and Dominican Republic (1965). (See Document 10)
The National Security Archive requested these histories during the 1990s, and the Air Force's failure to respond reasonably to the Freedom of Information Act request led to a FOIA lawsuit. Successful legal action by the James & Hoffman law firm on the Archive's behalf led to a ruling in 2004 by federal judge Rosemary Collyer that the U.S. Air Force had "failed miserably to handle [National Security] Archive FOIA requests in a timely manner." Ever since that ruling, the agency has been trying to catch up with and process the backlog of neglected requests that the Archive had filed during the 1980s and 1990s. The Air Force FOIA system is still largely broken, but at least it is now tracking new requests and processing old ones more effectively than it has in the past. Nevertheless, work on a number of old cases has not been completed, so the Air Force's record of compliance with the FOIA remains shaky.
One of the problems that led to the lawsuit was the utter refusal of the former leadership of the Air Force History Office to process FOIA requests for its classified histories. During the 1990s, the Office completely ignored declassification requests, never even bothering to acknowledge them. Indeed, the Office's managers were unfriendly to the very idea of declassifying these histories and some were antagonistic to the National Security Archive. No doubt owing to the lawsuit but also normal retirement, the leadership and policies at the History Office shifted. The situation improved significantly when individuals like the late William T. Y'Blood assumed greater responsibility at the Historical Office, which began to handle declassification requests responsibly and cooperatively. This remains true even for requests not covered by the lawsuit.
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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb249/index.htm
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