American Arsenal

AMERICAN ARSENAL This page intentionally left blank PATRICK COFFEY AMERICAN ARSENAL A Century of Waging War 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Patrick Coff ey 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitt ed, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitt ed by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Coff ey, Patrick. American arsenal : a century of waging war / Patrick Coff ey. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-995974-7 1. Military weapons—Research—United States—History. 2. Military weapons—United States—History—20th century. 3. Weapons systems—United States—Technological innovations—History. 4. Inventors—United States—History—20th century. 5. Military research—United States—Case studies. 6. History, Military—United States—20th century. I. Title. U393.C545 2014 355.80973—dc23 2013015070 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Ellen This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Introduction 3 1 Edison at War 12 2 Gassing the Senator 26 3 Mitchell’s War in Th ree Dimensions 43 4 Th e Bombsight 61 5 Precision Bombing Tested 73 6 Napalm 90 7 Th e Switch 105 8 Th e Atomic Bomb 121 9 Th e Weapon Not Used 145 10 Th e Cold War and the Hydrogen Bomb 169 11 Missiles 189 12 War Games 209 13 Four Lessons from Vietnam 233 14 Star Wars 255 15 Smart Bombs and Drones 272 Epilogue 285 Sources and Acknowledgments 291 Notes 294 Index 316 This page intentionally left blank AMERICAN ARSENAL This page intentionally left blank Introduction I began to think about this book while writing a book on the history of science, a book that described the intersection of science and war in- cluding chemical warfare, submarine detection, and the atomic bomb. 1 C . P. Snow spoke of a divide between scientists and nonscientists, and that has certainly been evident in weapons development. But America’s defense eff orts are divided in other ways as well, and the rift s have become more evident in the limited wars America has fought since World War II. Both nonscientists and scientists put too much faith in technology, politicians did not understand the military’s commitment to victory, military offi cers saw politicians as hacks worried about reelection, and everyone blamed defense contractors for infl ated budgets. All participants were driven by both higher motives (patriotism, loyalty to their service branches, saving lives, and the advancement of human knowledge) and baser motives (career advancement, glory, and profi t). Military offi cers, scientists, politicians, and businessmen have oft en spoken past one another, and the results have been usually ineffi cient and sometimes fatal. Military technology has always been important, but the outcome of nineteenth-century wars did not depend on new weapons being developed 4 ■ AMERICAN ARSENAL while the war was under way. World War I was diff erent. Scientists and inventors were active participants, developing new poison gases, airplanes, tanks, and submarine detectors that infl uenced the course of the confl ict. Th at trend accentuated in World War II, where the Germans introduced rockets, jet propulsion, and nerve gas, and the Americans and British in- vented radar, napalm, and the atomic bomb. In that war, technology deter- mined the outcome—if Hitler had possessed an atomic bomb in 1942, the war would have ended on his terms. America’s military focus changed with the twentieth century. Before 1917, the United States had limited its foreign wars to the Western Hemi- sphere and the Pacifi c, and the United States had followed omasTh Jeff er- son’s advice to avoid “entangling alliances” in Europe. Th at changed when Wilson sided with England and France aft er World War I had been dead- locked for more than two years. America had a good navy and almost no army at all, but in less than eighteen months, its citizen-soldiers and in- dustrial might tipped the balance against Germany and Austria. Th en, for twenty years, the United States returned to isolation. America demobilized and ignored the rise of Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese militarism until shortly before Pearl Harbor, when President Roosevelt began to prepare for United States entry on the side of England and the Soviet Union. Aft er that war, America has remained entangled abroad in ways that might have appalled its founding fathers. Th e transformation—from isolationist state to superpower—has been unplanned, undesired by many, and enormously expensive. It was also in- evitable. Th e change is too large for a comprehensive history, and this book describes it selectively. It begins in 1917, when Progressivism was the polit- ical movement of the day. Progressivism was neither isolationist nor expan- sionist, neither Democratic nor Republican: Woodrow Wilson, Th eodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follett e, Josephus Daniels, and William Jennings Bryan—very diff erent in their ideologies and politics—all claimed the label “progressive.” Th ey favored regulations of railroads and banks, child labor laws, and workplace safety regulations, and they brought those same high-minded att itudes to war. When America entered World War I, many claimed that it did so with only good intentions, and that the nation’s Introduction ■ 5 Progressive ideals would save lives because the United States, fi ghting on the side of democracy, would shorten the war. America’s academic scientists were not up to European standards in 1917, but the nation was proud of its inventors, such as Th omas Edison and Henry Ford. Th ey made practical things that people wanted—telephones, electric lights, motion pictures, and automobiles. America’s inventiveness, combined with its Progressivism, meant that the nation’s weapons should be both innovative and lifesaving, and the century would see repeated claims along those lines. America’s use of poison gas was humane, because gassed soldiers died from its eff ects less oft en than did soldiers who suff ered wounds from high explosives or shrapnel; the Norden bombsight was so accurate that bombers could destroy factories and rail yards without hitt ing workers’ homes; atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made an invasion of Japan’s home islands unnecessary and saved a million American casualties; the Strategic Defense Initiative would shield America from nuclear att ack; “smart” bombs would fi nd the ventilator shaft of an enemy’s command center and leave a hospital across the street undamaged; and the operator of a drone aircraft could sit in a cubicle, hovering, watching terrorists, striking only when no civilians would be hurt. As will be seen, some claims proved more accurate than others. Each of this book’s chapters illustrates the unplanned nature and the un- intended consequences of America’s military transformation. All history is selective, this book more than most. I have emphasized weapons and strategy over foreign policy, and have chosen stories that have, in my view, been undertold—the plan for all-out nuclear att ack against the Soviet Union, for example, rather than the Cuban missile crisis. Subjects include submarines, chemical weapons, strategic bombing, atomic and hydrogen bombs, the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union, the missile race, the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, “smart” bombs, the M-16 rifl e, handheld anti- aircraft missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Some patt erns emerge, and I go into most detail about chemical weapons, strategic air power, and nuclear weapons. Th e book has its principal characters, fi gures who appear in more than one chapter and who marked the century. James Bryant Conant, a Harvard 6 ■ AMERICAN ARSENAL chemist who managed development of the poison gas Lewisite in World War I, was civilian head of the Manhatt an Project in World War II, and unsuccessfully opposed development of the hydrogen bomb in the Cold War. Curtis LeMay, the youngest American lieutenant general since Ulys- ses Grant, was World War II’s most infl uential air commander, and led the Strategic Air Command and then the Air Force in the Cold War. Edward Teller, a nuclear physicist in the Manhatt an Project, was known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb” and was a proponent of unrealistic projects in Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative. And Robert McNamara, secretary of defense during the Kennedy and Johnson admin- istrations, was an architect of the Vietnam War and of America’s nuclear strategy. Conant and Teller were scientists, LeMay was a soldier, and Mc- Namara was a business executive turned military strategist.

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