Miscommunication and Misunderstanding: Eisenhower, Irbms, and Nuclear Weapons in the NATO Alliance
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Miscommunication and Misunderstanding: Eisenhower, IRBMs, and Nuclear Weapons in the NATO Alliance By Gates Mosley Brown Submitted to the graduate degree program in History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Adrian Lewis ________________________________ Dr. Alice Butler-Smith ________________________________ Dr. Jeffrey Moran ________________________________ Dr. Brent Steele ________________________________ Dr. Theodore Wilson Date Defended: March 12, 2013 ii The Dissertation Committee for Gates Mosley Brown certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Miscommunication and Misunderstanding: Eisenhower, IRBMs, and the NATO Alliance ________________________________ Chairperson, Dr. Adrian Lewis Date approved: March 12, 2013 iii Abstract President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s New Look security policy put nuclear weapons at the forefront of U.S. defense efforts. Due to the lack of an effective Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in the mid-1950s, the U.S. required European cooperation to launch an attack on the Soviet Union. This dissertation reveals the difficulties of the New Look defense policy regarding missile development, allied cooperation, and an almost singular focus on Europe as the primary area of concern for U.S. and allied security. These difficulties arose from bureaucratic infighting between the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, tensions between the U.S., U.K., and France, and the overarching threat of an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower did not have an easy task in balancing these competing interests and this study reveals the importance for U.S. political leaders to understand the impact of defense issues not only on U.S. interests but also allied regional and strategic priorities. iv Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….iii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………4 Chapter 1: Creating the New Look……………………………………………………...20 Chapter 2: The Arguments against Massive Retaliation and the Deficiencies of Eisenhower’s National Security Policies…………………………………....63 Chapter 3: Development of Tactical and Strategic Guided Missiles……………………95 Chapter 4: Suez Crisis and Bermuda Conference Reconciliation……………………...129 Chapter 5: A European Solution an American Problem……………………………….164 Chapter 6: Anglo-American IRBM Agreement……………………………………….197 Chapter 7: Unintended Consequences…………………………………………………233 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..266 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………275 1 Introduction President Eisenhower faced many security threats during his administration. During his term in office, thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union was a constant threat. He and his Soviet counterpart, primarily Nikta Khrushchev, both had the ability to level weapons of previously unimaginable power. Understanding how Eisenhower dealt with this security threat is important to understanding his New Look defense policy and his views on how to wage war in the atomic age. A fundamental part of his approach to this security problem was putting more emphasis on technologically advanced atomic weapons. One of the primary weapons systems Eisenhower focused the nation’s research efforts on was the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). However, in the mid-1950s, no one believed that these weapons would be ready until the middle of the next decade. The President had to have a more immediate response to the ever growing Soviet military threat. This answer was the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). The problem with these weapons was that they did not have ability to destroy Soviet targets from the continental United States; they would have to be launched from Europe to reach the U.S.S.R. President Dwight Eisenhower’s decision to deploy IRBMs to Western Europe in the late 1950s had strategic, military, and political objectives. Most works that previously discussed these weapons investigated them from a military point of view. According to this interpretation 2 only, the IRBMs were of limited value. The missiles, which were operational from 1959 through 1963, were inaccurate, took a long time to launch, and once deployed were already obsolete because of the success of the Navy’s Polaris solid-fuelled IRBM program and unanticipated success in the ICBM research efforts. However, the military value of these weapons was not the most only component of the decision to deploy them to Western Europe. The IRBMs influence on the NATO alliance and American security concerns outweighed their relatively limited military value. As a result of the IRBM deployment, the Anglo-American relationship improved greatly. With this missile deployment, President Eisenhower began the process that he hoped would move America’s commitment to NATO away from ground forces and towards missile and strategic bomber forces. He also used their deployment to calm domestic fears after the Soviet launch of Sputnik. However, not all the effects of this decision were positive. The establishment of IRBMs in Western Europe solidified a two-tiered alliance in NATO between nations with nuclear weapons – the U.S. and the U.K— and those without nuclear weapons. Finally, the deployment of IRBMs contributed to the French exit, under Charles de Gaulle, from the military alliance. Deploying IRBMs was one part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s New Look defense policy. This program sought to weave fiscal and national security into one strategy. In order to do this, Eisenhower had to find different solutions to the serious defense challenges faced by the nation. Atomic weapons seemed to provide a way to deliver maximum deterrence and protection at the lowest possible cost. By the mid-1950s, decreases in the size of nuclear warheads, improvements in guidance systems, and more effective propulsion methods made it possible for missiles to strike the Soviet Union from Western Europe. IRBMs offered a new way for the 3 United States to protect its European allies that did not require sustaining numerous Army divisions far away from the U.S. The problem for Eisenhower was how to integrate these weapons into the American and NATO defense structure; a corollary to this issue was determining how much control each individual nation would have over the use of these missiles. IRBMs were part of the new focus on nuclear warfare under President Eisenhower. The controversy over atomic weapons and their use in defending Western Europe also stirred animosity in the U.S. defense community. The Army, which lost its long-range missile program to the Air Force, saw its budget and manpower levels erode after the Korean War. In contrast, the Air Force received almost half of the national defense budget under President Eisenhower. The deployment of IRBMs to Europe represented the dominance of airpower and the decline of ground forces in national security. The struggle over which service should control long-range missile research and development had political and budgetary implications that went beyond the control of specific programs. Again, looking at the IRBMs only from a military perspective clouds their real influence on the struggle between service branches to prosper under the New Look defense policy. This clash between the Army and the Air Force took place in the new paradigm of atomic warfare. President Eisenhower had the capability to destroy nations with a large arsenal of thermonuclear weapons. The United States tested its first fusion weapon, otherwise known as a hydrogen bomb, in 1952. The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949 and its first hydrogen bomb in 1953. Britain also developed fusion nuclear weapons during the early 1950s. President Eisenhower was the first President to preside in an era when both superpowers had the capability to launch thermonuclear war. Examining Eisenhower’s decision to deploy IRBMs 4 from a military and political perspective explains how he intended to combat the Soviet threat, maintain a viable nuclear deterrent, and balance military spending in the thermonuclear era. During the 1950s, Great Britain and the United States were the only two nations in the NATO alliance with independent nuclear arsenals. By the end of the decade, nuclear weapons provided a barometer for judging a nation’s standing in the alliance. France, which did not have an independent nuclear weapons arsenal at the time, was not in the same tier as Britain and the United States. This influenced the character of the IRBM deployment agreements offered to Britain and then to other NATO nations. Charles De Gaulle, France’s President from 1959 to 1969 thought France deserved recognition for its importance to the alliance with an IRBM deal similar to the one offered to Great Britain. He believed that the U.S. offer of IRBMs held under U.S. control was insufficient. He did not believe that Washington would sanction the use of IRBMs to defend French national interest if it did not align with American security needs. Because of this France, in de Gaulle’s opinion, required independent control of the missiles in order to use these weapons best for its own protection. He also wanted the United States to offer technological assistance in addition to national ownership of IRBMs for France, both of which Britain received. President Eisenhower did not want the number of nuclear nations to increase. He wanted the deployment of IRBMs to Europe to offer the protection of atomic