Cold War Under the Ice

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Cold War Under the Ice: The Army’s Bid for a Long-Range Nuclear Role, 1959–1963

✣ Erik D. Weiss

ilitary preparations for the Cold War extended to even the most frigidM environments on earth. The Arctic holds both fascination and fear in its stark expanses and unforgiving climate. In the superpower contest, the harsh, icy wastelands of the north presented an intriguing, barren region that technology could seek to conquer. Although the new ability to harness nuclear energy revolutionized arctic research, the North Greenland ice cap also held more challenging options for U.S. Cold War strategists. Ice could be molded and carved. Ice tunnels could facilitate transport and offer seclusion, isolation, and a hidden presence. No weapon would have required more mobility and concealment than a system of intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) armed with nuclear warheads. The U.S. Army’s proposal to deploy “Iceworm” mobile IRBMs came to light in a recently declassiªed set of documents obtained by the Danish Insti- tute of International Affairs in connection with a larger study in 1997 on Greenland during the Cold War.1 Because scholars have not yet studied the Iceworm concept per se, this article seeks to place it within the context of the Cold War. Iceworm ªlled the perceived need for IRBM forces after the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, an event that threatened the United States and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with destruction by intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and eroded European conªdence in NATO’s deterrent posture. It is interesting to note, however, that the U.S. Army proposed Iceworm at a time when the U.S. Navy’s Polaris submarine-

1. Dansk Udenrigspolitisk Institut, Grønland under den kolde krig: Dansk og amerikansk sikkerhedspolitik 1945–68 (Copenhagen: Dansk Udenrigspolitisk Institut, 1997). Documents relating to U.S.-Denmark relations and U.S. strategic planning in Denmark are compiled in this collection of primary sources used in the Danish Institute of International Affairs study of Greenland during the Cold War, (hereinafter referred to as Grønland under den kolde krig). For an English summary of that study, see Paul Villaume, Allied With Reservations: Denmark, NATO, and the Cold War (Copenhagen: Eirene, 1995). Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 3, No. 3, Fall 2001, pp. 31–58 © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and the U.S. Air Force’s Minuteman ICBMs were already on line. The Army’s proposal was motivated in large part by interservice rivalry, the competition for research and development funding, and the Army’s desire for a role in the U.S. long-range nuclear arsenal, which had come to occupy a dominant place in the U.S. military establishment under Dwight Eisenhower’s “New Look” policy.2

The Arctic as a Basing Area

The Arctic regions held an important geographical position in the Cold War. Weather conditions prohibited the Arctic’s emergence as a populated area, but proximity to both North America and Eurasia made it a vital route for attack in either direction. Greenland, in particular, could serve as a well-situated half-way point for an assault on North America from Europe.3 When German forces occupied Denmark on 9 April 1940, the U.S. government became concerned about the security of Greenland. Although the United States accepted the continued sovereignty of Denmark over the island, U.S. ofªcials agreed to protect it, as stipulated in the April 1941 Agreement Relating to the Defense of Greenland, which “recognized that as a result of the present European war there is danger that Greenland may be converted into a point of aggression against nations of the American continent.”4 The air route to North America was too important to risk losing. In a note from U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull to Danish minister Henrik de Kauffmann, which accompanied the 1941 Agreement for the Defense of Greenland, Hull made clear U.S. concerns: “Greenland,” he wrote, “is within the area embraced by the Monroe Doctrine,” an area essential to the preserva- tion of U.S. continental security.5 Following the end of the war with Germany, the United States sought to acquire bases as close to the Soviet Union as possible, but in areas in which

2. On the concept of NATO IRBM deployments, see Philip Nash, “Jumping Jupiters: The U.S. Search for IRBM Host Countries in NATO, 1957–9,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Novem- ber 1995), pp. 753–786; Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957–1963 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); and David N. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1983). For a thorough look at interservice rivalry in technological and weapons development, see Michael H. Armacost, The Politics of Weapons Innovation: The Thor-Jupiter Controversy (New York: Columbia Uni- versity, 1969). 3. William W. Jeffries, ed., Geography and National Power (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Insti- tute, 1962), pp. 173–174. 4. “Agreement Relating to the Defense of Greenland,” 9 April 1941, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 5. Ibid.

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political opposition to their use would be minimal. Along with Iceland, Greenland’s support of air and communication lines to Europe seemed to ªt this objective perfectly.6 Sovereignty over Greenland was a sensitive issue, however, and U.S. plans aroused Danish objections to a continued U.S. presence in Greenland. As soon as the war ended, the Danish government expressed interest in terminating the 1941 agreement. Of particular concern was the possibility that U.S. bases in Greenland and Iceland might give the Soviet Union an excuse to obtain base rights on the Danish island of Bornholm, which Soviet forces had occupied at the end of World War II.7 By April 1948 the Danish government was discouraging any proposals that would lead to a tighter military alliance with the United States. Eventually, though, the Danes agreed to continue dis- cussions without threat of terminating the treaty.8 Soon after the United States obtained basing rights, the question of stor- ing nuclear weapons in Greenland, particularly at the new Air Force base at Thule, was raised by both the Defense Department and the State Depart- ment. A Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) memorandum of December 1950 for the Secretary of Defense made mention of “the right for storage and stockpiling of supplies and material including ammunition and atomic explosives.”9 The Military Liaison Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission argued in January 1951 that diplomats should not seek the right to store nuclear weapons in Greenland since this would slow or even halt the process of securing other base requirements. The Secretary of Defense agreed, stressing to the JCS the need to avoid discussion of nuclear weapons with the Danes.10 The agreement signed on 27 April 1951, which renewed the 1941 Defense of Green- land treaty, made no mention of nuclear materials.11

6. Joint Strategic Plans Committee, “Military Requirements for Base Rights,” 23 March 1949, De- partment of the Air Force, Ofªce of the Secretary, Memorandum for the Acting Chief of Staff, 2 Oc- tober 1950, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 7. William C. Trimble, Department of State Memorandum of Conversation with Carl A. C. Brun and Povl Bang-Jensen, 15 October 1945, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 8. Josiah Marvel Jr., U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, Memorandum of Conversation, April 1948, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 9. Quoted in Memorandum of Robert LeBaron, Military Liaison Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission for General Burns, 5 January 1951, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 10. Memorandum of Robert LeBaron, Military Liaison Committee to the Atomic Energy Commis- sion for General Burns, 5 January 1951, in Grønland under den kolde krig; Note by the Secretaries to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on U.S. Requirements for Military Rights in NATO Countries, 15 January 1951, in Grønland under den kolde krig; and Secretary of Defense Memorandum for the Joint Chiefs of Staff with Regard to U.S. Requirements for Military Rights in NATO Countries and Selected Terri- tories, 11 January 1951, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 11. “Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark, pursuant to the North Atlantic Treaty, Concerning the Defense of Green- land,” 27 April 1951, in Grønland under den kolde krig.

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Once the 1951 agreement was in effect and the base at Thule was operational, the absence of any clause prohibiting the storage of nuclear weapons in Greenland created a sense of opportunity among military planners. By mid-1957 concern arose at the State Department about the appropriate way to broach this issue with a Danish government that was reluctant to accept nuclear weapons on its territory. Although State Department ofªcials assured their counterparts at the Department of Defense (DoD) that the 1951 agreement was broad enough to permit “the use of such facilities in Greenland for the introduction and storage of such weapons,” the U.S. ambassador in Co- penhagen, Val Peterson, proposed asking the Danes whether they wished to be informed at all. Peterson reported that there is considerable sentiment in Denmark against the receiving of atomic weapons if they should be offered, and the Prime Minister has on at least two oc- casions in recent months stated publicly that if Denmark...[had] been offered such weapons the reply would have been “no thanks.” Thus there was reason to believe that the Danish Foreign Ofªce did not wish to be informed. If the Danes later requested notiªcation, the State Depart- ment could explain that the 1951 Agreement did not mention and therefore did not prohibit the storage of nuclear weapons. This sort of response would avoid the need for explicit approval.12 Danish Prime Minister H. C. Hansen’s acquiescence in this action marked a victory for U.S. efforts to base nuclear weapons on Greenland. In a 16 November 1957 letter to the U.S. ambassador, Hansen referred to the “supplies of munition of a special kind” that were intended for Greenland. He called attention to provisions in the 1951 agreement that omitted any mention of nuclear weapons (as did the letter itself). Hansen concluded: “I do not think that your remarks give rise to any comments from my side.”13 But the prime minister did urge that U.S. policymakers do everything in their power to keep the information out of the public domain. This accorded well with U.S. security interests and would save Hansen’s government a great deal of embarrassment.14 Thus the U.S. State and Defense Departments set the stage for any future nuclear deployments they deemed necessary not only for the defense of Greenland, as required by the Danish agreement, but also for the security of the Western Hemisphere.

12. Letter from Deputy Undersecretary of State Robert Murphy to Assistant Secretary of Defense Mansªeld D. Sprague, 23 August 1957, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 13. Letter from H. C. Hansen to the American Ambassador, 16 November 1957, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 14. Memorandum from Deputy Undersecretary Robert Murphy, State Department, to Assistant Sec- retary of Defense, Mansªeld D. Sprague, 26 November 1957, in Grønland under den kolde krig.

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Details about the resulting secret deployments of nuclear weapons have only recently come to light. In response to a Freedom of Information Act re- quest, the Defense Department released a document entitled “History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 to September 1977.” This extensive narrative, as well as a previously classiªed history of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), refers to the deployment of nuclear weapons in such locations as Japan, Iceland, Taiwan, and Greenland. Although Green- land was deleted from the declassiªed version of the document, a 1995 letter from U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry to the Danish government and a subsequent note from the Defense Department acknowledged that four nuclear bombs had been stored at the Thule Air Base.15

Allied Defense and Nuclear Weapons

At the time NATO was formed in 1949, some U.S. planners expected that it would develop into a strong, diversiªed alliance with extensive conventional capabilities. However, concerns about the magnitude of the Soviet nonnuclear threat—which, according to some estimates, amounted to 175 divisions—induced the West European countries, which were struggling with postwar economic reconstruction, to rely on U.S. nuclear weapons to offset the disparity in conventional forces. This nuclear deterrent, it was thought, would be a less costly solution to the problems imposed by the Warsaw Pact.16 U.S. ofªcials, for their part, were also increasingly concerned about the growth of Soviet nuclear capabilities. In May 1953 the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) concluded that the Soviet nuclear arsenal consisted of 120 bombs, which would rise to 300 by 1955. Soviet testing of a multistage hy- drogen bomb in August 1953 increased these concerns, since each device would be capable of a vastly greater nuclear yield. By 1954 U.S. intelligence reported that the aggregate yield of the Soviet nuclear arsenal had reached twenty-ªve megatons, and a 1955 National Intelligence Estimate predicted an increase in the number of Soviet nuclear bombs from 490 to 1,250 by 1958. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conªrmed these predic-

15. Ofªce of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), “History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 to September 1977,” Department of Defense, February 1978, in Grønland under den kolde krig; United States Strategic Air Command, “History of the Strate- gic Air Command, 1 January 1958–30 June 1958,” Historical Study No. 73, Vol. 1 (1958), pp. 88–90; and U.S. Department of Defense [presumably], “Regarding Nuclear Activities at Thule Air Base,” ca. July 1995 as quoted in Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, and William Burr, “Where They Were,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 55, No. 6 (November–December 1999), p. 32. 16. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas, pp. 2–4, 17–18; and George H. Quester, Nuclear Diplo- macy: The First Twenty-Five Years (New York: Dunellen, 1970), pp. 26–29.

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tions with a 1956 estimate of expanded Soviet plutonium production. Fore- casts of increased Soviet delivery capabilities paralleled the expected escalation of the nuclear stockpile.17 Although the Defense Department subsequently realized that estimates of Soviet ICBM capabilities were exaggerated, the atmosphere of urgency for U.S. strategic planning was slow to dissipate.18 From the mid-1950s NATO came to rely on the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal to deter Warsaw Pact aggression. Dependence on the U.S. nuclear guarantee placed central importance on its credibility—from the standpoint of both the allies and the Soviet Union. U.S. ofªcials wanted to prevent any doubts about the validity of “extended deterrence” in order to preserve the alliance and avoid the proliferation of independent nuclear weapons capabilities among the various NATO states.19 Such independent forces would have posed risks of intra-alliance conºicts and public unrest. To avert these developments, the United States had to deploy nuclear forces that would credibly deter a Soviet attack. To this end, the Eisenhower administration placed greater emphasis on the development of nuclear weapons and proposed cuts in expensive conventional capabilities. These policies, known collectively as the New Look, were embodied in the document known as NSC 162/2, a secret policy paper on “Basic National Security Policy” approved by Eisenhower on 30 October 1953. The New Look emphasized strategic nuclear forces at the expense of conventional land and sea forces. Subsequent NSC papers—5440, 5501, 5602/1, and 5707/8—reinforced the emphasis on the U.S. nuclear deterrent.20 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles presented the New Look policies to the Council on Foreign Relations on 12 January 1954. He asserted that the

17. Peter J. Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile Gap (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 22–23. 18. Statement, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: February 3, 1964, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], available online from the World Government Documents Archive Declassiªed Documents Reference System-United States at http://www.ddrs.psmedia.com (hereinafter referred to as DDRS-US), CD-ROM ID: 1975070100045, Fiche No. 1975-151B, p. 5. The DDRS-US Online archive includes digitized images of post-World War II declassiªed government documents. 19. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas, pp. 2–4, 17–18; and Richard A. Melanson, “The Founda- tions of Eisenhower’s Foreign Policy: Continuity, Community, and Consensus,” in Richard A. Melanson and David Mayers, eds., Reevaluating Eisenhower: American Foreign Policy in the 1950s (Chi- cago: University of Illinois Press, 1987), pp. 31–33. 20. Quoted in John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American Na- tional Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 125; Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile Gap, pp. 20–21; National Security Council, “Basic National Security Policy,” NSC 162/2, 29 October 1953, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Vol. 2, pp. 578–597 (hereinafter referred to as FRUS); Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, Vol. 2 (New York: Si- mon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 171–172; Melanson, “Foundations of Eisenhower’s Foreign Policy,” p. 58; and Robert A. Strong, “Eisenhower and Arms Control,” in Melanson and Mayers, eds., Reevalu- ating Eisenhower, pp. 241–263.

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“way to deter aggression is for the free community to be willing and able to respond vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing.”21 His speech touched off a public debate, as critics raised doubts about the credibility of the New Look, the implications of the policy for peripheral areas, and the danger that small conºicts would escalate to general war.22 In the fall of 1954 Eisenhower ordered a study of the relative capabilities of U.S. and Soviet thermonuclear weapons. The Technological Capabilities Panel under Dr. James R. Killian, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Eisenhower’s Special Assistant for Science and Technology, submitted a report to the NSC in early 1955. The Killian Report provided a pessimistic forecast of the nuclear dimension of the Cold War. Intelligence sources indicated that Soviet thermonuclear warhead and missile technologies were advancing at a pace that would leave the United States behind by the early 1960s. The Killian report urged the vigorous continuation of the ICBM program and the starting of work on IRBMs for earlier deployment in Eu- rope.23 The main technical factor favoring IRBM development was the self-contained inertial guidance system. Missiles that were guided inertially were less vulnerable than radio-guided missiles, which required ground installation support. But inertial guidance was limited by its weight—no existing system for an ICBM weighed less than 100 kilograms. With a shorter range requirement of 1,500 nautical miles (nm) for an IRBM, as opposed to 3,000 or more nm for an ICBM, the weight of the guidance system was of less concern.24 This key difference was bound to make IRBMs ready for deployment earlier than the projected 1962 target date for an ICBM of comparable capabilities.25 Thus, basing possibilities were becoming just as important for IRBMs as they were for the bombers ºown by the SAC. The limited range of IRBMs necessitated the acquisition of overseas deployment areas. Despite John Foster Dulles’s continued advocacy of acceler- ated ICBM development, President Eisenhower and Air Force Chief of Staff General Nathan Twining proposed in August 1955 to seek access to overseas facilities for IRBMs. Early deployment plans in 1956–1957 involved a Thor IRBM in Great Britain, a country that actively supported U.S. nuclear policy. Deployment of four ªfteen-missile Thor squadrons in Britain by the end of

21. Quoted in Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile Gap, p. 21. 22. Ibid., p. 21. 23. Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, pp. 50–51; and Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 62–63. 24. Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cam- bridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990), pp. 16, 119–121. 25. Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, pp. 50–51; and Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 62–63.

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1960 ideally would convince the British not to continue with their own IRBM program. A formal agreement on the Thors, however, was delayed by bureaucratic, ªnancial, and other obstacles.26 Although the New Look emphasized “extended” deterrence via the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal, the late 1950s saw a crisis of conªdence among the NATO partners. West European governments began to wonder whether the U.S. nuclear shield would prevent Warsaw Pact incursions into Europe and elsewhere. Several allied governments believed that the NATO European members should develop their own nuclear capabilities. The debate over the credibility of the Eisenhower administration’s “massive retaliation” strategy, coupled with writings of well-known strategic thinkers such as Bernard Brodie and Henry Kissinger, could not have failed to make some impression. The very fact that the United States pondered the deployment of IRBMs as a temporary solution to a presumed disparity in intercontinental capabilities must have inspired some trepidation among European defense planners. The U.S. opposition to the British, French, and Israeli operations in Suez in October–November 1956 and the muted U.S. response to the Soviet nuclear threat during the Suez crisis seemed to indicate a basic difference of interests separating Western Europe and the United States. The subsequent response by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, who expected to receive U.S. support during the Suez venture, as well as the Sandys 1957 White Paper on Defense, which was completed shortly after the Suez crisis and called for an independent British nuclear arsenal, explicitly revealed that Britain was changing its position vis-à-vis the U.S. nuclear guarantee. The French response echoed that of the British, focusing on the divergent interests of France and the United States in the Mediterranean and Africa and asserting the need for a French nuclear arsenal to protect French vital interests as well as to deter general Soviet aggression. The apparent effort to restore close An- glo-U.S. relations through the Thor deployments further alienated the French.27 The launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 dramatically heightened long-standing fears of Soviet missile advances. Sputnik led to a greater push for the British Thor deployment and an extension of the IRBM offer to all of NATO. In an assessment of the Jupiter IRBM deployments, Philip Nash ar- gues that without the Sputnik launch, “the United States might not have offered IRBMs to NATO at all.”28 The advent of Soviet ICBMs capable of strik-

26. Nash, The Other Missiles of October, pp. 8–12. 27. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas, pp. 59–61. 28. Nash, The Other Missiles of October, p. 26.

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ing targets in the continental United States prompted the West European allies to question whether a Soviet offensive into Europe would really provoke a U.S. counter-strike.29 A Defense Department status report in 1958 acknowledged that “recent Soviet technological advances and...reductions in U.S. forces have combined to diminish...U.S. military superiority. If these trends continue, . . . this superiority will be lost in the foreseeable future.”30 The New Look strategy had provided for the deployment of short-range nuclear weapons under NATO’s auspices through a dual-key sharing arrange- ment. This system required a network of bases in Western Europe for allied tactical nuclear weapons. The launch of Sputnik lent an even greater sense of urgency to the quest for overseas deployment sites, in this case for IRBMs. The concerns of the NATO allies, who supported nuclear deterrence but felt excluded from nuclear weapons control, combined with the Soviet threat to the continental United States, led to the idea of a NATO nuclear stockpile and the possible distribution of IRBMs to the European allies. NATO’s Su- preme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Lauris Norstad, pushed the IRBM concept in France, while Secretary Dulles renewed talks for a British agreement. The NATO allies, however, were not especially supportive of the concept. Although they accepted the need for NATO IRBM deployment in principle, many were opposed to basing IRBMs on their own territory, which could then become a target for a preemptive Soviet attack. Al- though France, the Netherlands, and Turkey were strongly in favor of IRBM deployments on their soil, efforts to deploy the missiles ran into domestic opposition. Critics of the idea expressed varying concerns: Some wanted to develop national nuclear weapons systems, whereas others wanted to extract ªnancial concessions. Some opponents were leery of an adverse Soviet reaction. In addition, the U.S. Atomic Energy Act stipulated that the host countries could own the missiles but the United States must own the warheads—a sticky situation compounded by the Act’s restrictions on transfer of nuclear information.31 In 1955 the Killian panel had raised the question of whether U.S. nuclear forces would receive adequate warning of a Soviet preemptive strike. The

29. Memorandum for the Record: Meeting in the Ofªce of the Secretary of Defense, 7 April 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, p. 62; Memorandum of Discussion at the 412th Meeting of the National Security Council, 9 July 1959, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, p. 252; and Nash, The Other Missiles of Oc- tober, pp. 12–13. 30. Quoted in Memorandum of Discussion at the 384th Meeting of the National Security Council, 30 October 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, p. 140. 31. Nash, The Other Missiles of October, pp. 12–15, 18–19, 27, 49–53; Memorandum of Discussion at the 384th Meeting of the National Security Council, 30 October 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, p. 143; and Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile Gap, p. 28.

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panel had concluded that both active and passive defenses would be essential. In 1956 the NSC Net Evaluation Subcommittee (NESC) predicted that “if the United States should fail to maintain adequate alert nuclear forces that cannot be destroyed by surprise attack, the USSR by a nuclear strike on the continental United States will emerge as the dominant world power in 24 hours.”32 The increased vulnerability of U.S. bases and weapons to a Soviet nuclear strike was highlighted by Albert Wohlstetter of the RAND corporation in a study that warned of a “delicate balance of terror.” Forces capable of striking Soviet targets accurately, he argued, would not be sufªcient in a future war. A substantial number of U.S. bombers and missiles would have to survive a Soviet strike so that they could retaliate in kind. Initially, bombers were of greatest concern, but it was clear from the start that ICBMs were vulnerable as well.33 Above-ground deployment of missiles was especially risky, but the cofªn and gantry silo deployments of Atlas (D, E, and F series) and Titan II ICBMs were also highly vulnerable. In addition, the relatively small numbers deployed—thirty-six at the end of ªscal year (FY) 1961 and seventy-ªve at the end of FY 1962—made destruction of the entire force a distinct possibility.34 Missile and bomber vulnerability spurred interest in innovative deployment concepts that would enable much of the U.S. strategic deterrent force to survive an all-out attack. When the Air Force began development of a second-generation, solid-fueled ICBM, the Minuteman, in the late 1950s, SAC Commander General Thomas S. Power suggested that the new force be deployed in a mobile conªguration. In June 1960 SAC planned for ªve mobile squadrons of ten railroad trains each, with ªve missiles on each train. That summer the Air Force undertook Operation Big Star to test the feasibility of

32. Quoted in ibid., p. 25. 33. David H. Dunn, The Politics of Threat: Minuteman Vulnerability in American National Security Pol- icy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), pp. 9–11; and Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile Gap, p. 25. 34. Memorandum, Department of Defense, Top Secret, Issue date: 6 October 1961, Date declassiªed: 29 June 1973, DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1976010100180, Fiche No. 1976-29F, p. 5; Agenda, De- partment of Defense, Secret, Issue date: 1 December 1964, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1978100100105, Fiche No. 1978-350B, p. 1; Report, Department of Defense, Top Secret, Issue date: 12 January 1965, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1979040100140, Fiche No. 1979-143D, p. 22; Report, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: [No issue date], Date declassiªed: 1 August 1996, DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1997050101261, Fiche No. 1997-96, p. 16; Report, National Security Council, Top Secret, Issue date: 6 September 1960, Date declassiªed: 16 April 1996, DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1997050101663, Fiche No. 1997-125, p. 65; Report, Department of Defense, Top Secret, Issue date: 4 May 1965, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1979040100156, Fiche No. 1979-145F, p. 25; Memorandum, President’s Science Advisory Commit- tee, Secret, Issue date: 8 May 1959, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID. 1977070100236, Fiche No. 1977-205A, p. 3; and Summary, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: 3 December 1958, Date declassiªed: 8 February 1977, DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1978010100180, Fiche No. 1978-47C, p. 3.

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the concept. By mid-1961, however, the cost difference between the mobile system and a ªxed deployment prompted Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to cancel the mobile program. Starting in 1962, Minuteman was instead deployed in dispersed silos with a hardness of 300 pounds per square inch (psi), which Air Force planners deemed sufªcient to withstand attack. The ªxed missile permitted more accurate targeting than the mobile Minute- man did, and this advantage made McNamara’s decision all the easier. But the defense secretary went still further by deciding to not even pursue the general concept of mobile missile deployments.35 Nor was McNamara alone in this view; several ofªcials in the Eisenhower administration, including the president himself, had been committed to ªxed deployments.36 The Army’s subsequent mobile deployment concepts were thus sure to encounter great skepti- cism.

The Iceworm Proposal

Iceworm was the Army’s plan for deploying IRBMs within the North Green- land ice cap. Engineers would build tunnels beneath the surface, which would conceal a series of railroad tracks. Trains, nestled secretly beneath the ice cap, would carry “Iceman” IRBMs through the ice-encased tunnels. DoD ofªcials expected that the Iceworm system could deploy 600 two-stage missiles. Their range would allow them to cover an estimated eighty percent of Soviet and East European targets. Iceworm would include thousands of miles of cut-and-cover tunnels twenty-eight feet beneath the ice cap’s surface, and the missiles would be in constant motion. At launch, the warhead would be three feet below the surface, which would have a hardness that could withstand at least 30 psi. Missiles would be stationed on trains located approximately four miles from each other. Sixty launch control centers (LCCs) would each control nine or ten missiles and have a hardness of 100 psi.37 Size meant dispersion and thus greater invulnerability. Iceworm would deploy its 600 missiles over an area of 52,000 square miles beginning at a site 300 miles east of Thule, which was to serve as the system’s logistical base. Ski-equipped aircraft would bring personnel from Thule to the missile

35. Dunn, The Politics of Threat, pp. 11–12. 36. Memorandum, White House, Secret, Issue date: 7 May 1960, Date declassiªed: 5 August 1977, DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1977100100440, Fiche No. 1977-353B, p. 2. 37. “Project Iceworm, Deployment of NATO MRBM’s in the Greenland Icecap,” “Deployment of NATO MRBM’s in the Greenland Icecap (The Army’s Iceworm Concept)” (hereinafter referred to as “Iceworm”), RG 59, PPS Records, Lot 60D 121, Box 121, Folder Europe, January–May 1962, 1 Feb- ruary 1962, pp. 2–3, cited from the reproduction in Grønland under den kolde krig.

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site and vice versa. This area, approximately the size of the state of Alabama, could be increased for greater dispersion, if necessary. New tunnels could shift the conªguration of the system year by year, and missile locations would change minute by minute. Army ofªcials expected that, within ªve years, they could double the size of the system and move the LCCs at least once, maintaining a total of 2,100 launch points and keeping the missiles in constant motion. As the Army’s secret study put it: “Iceworm thus couples mobility with dispersion, concealment and hardness.”38 Other NSC plans for missile deployment also stressed the importance of dispersal, hardening, and improved warning capabilities to ensure that IRBMs would survive.39 Missiles, LCCs, camps, and nuclear power stations that operated the system would avoid the harsh arctic elements by being located beneath a 200-foot overlay of frozen ice cap called “neve.” The neve would have its own innate hardness to pressures from an overhead blast. The Army claimed that its Polar Research and Development Corps (PR&DC) had proven that the deployment of such a force and its supporting personnel would be “feasible.”40 Most likely, this judgment was based on the experimental operation under way at Camp Century, a subsurface installation built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1959–1960. Camp Century was a network of tunnels beneath the North Greenland ice cap approximately 140 miles northeast of Thule. Powered year-round by nuclear energy, the facility was intended to ex- plore the problems involved in maintaining a military base in isolated, harsh weather conditions. One of the experiments at Camp Century was the driv- ing of a truck with train wheels on a track built inside a U-shaped ice tunnel. Because of structural deformations in the ice tunnels, the engineers shut down and removed the nuclear reactor and abandoned the camp in the summer of 1963.41 Despite the Army’s conªdence that the Iceworm system would be feasible, ofªcials in other parts of the Defense Department anticipated problems. The two most difªcult challenges were:

38. “Iceworm,” pp. 4–5. 39. Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower, 4 March 1959, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, pp. 184–187. 40. “Iceworm,” p. 5. 41. U.S. Army Polar Research and Development Center, The Construction of Camp Century Final Re- port (Camp Tuto, Greenland: U.S. Army Polar Research and Development Center, 1961), pp. 1, 3, 5, 7–8, 20, 70, 88; James W. Barnet, “Construction of Army Nuclear Power Plant PM-2A at Camp Cen- tury, Greenland Final Report,” Department of the Army, Ofªce of the Chief of Engineers, Nuclear Power Division, 1 August 1961; photograph, private collection of John Flint, enclosed in letter to author, 31 October 1998; and Lawrence H. Suid, The Army’s Nuclear Power Program: The Evolution of a Support Agency (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), pp. 70–72.

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1. the development of a new or modiªed missile that could operate at –11°F, the ambient tunnel temperature; and 2. the development of shelter and protective clothing for humans who would have to function under such conditions.

Of further concern were the hardness of neve tunnels, the effectiveness of enemy reconnaissance in detecting individual weapons beneath the neve, coun- termeasures against enemy reconnaissance, and the ability to communicate to and through the ice cap.42 Command of such a dispersed system would have been complex. A force of 600 missiles would have required the support of 11,000 troops, including a defense unit of 400 Arctic Rangers, a 200-strong Nike-Hercules air-defense battalion, communications personnel, landing-ªeld operators, and other as- sorted support staff. The LCCs would have operated the scattered and mov- ing missiles from a remote location. Despite the great distances involved, the LCCs were supposed to launch the entire IRBM force within twenty minutes. Under attack, with some communication facilities and LCCs destroyed, the launch of the surviving missiles would take longer, roughly forty to sixty minutes. The Army study concluded that communications between the continental United States and the Iceworm system would be “redundant and reliable.” Although communications would pass through the Thule Air Base, command of the IRBMs would, according to the study, be as secure as systems without an intermediate base. The commander’s ability to conªrm an enemy attack before launching a retaliatory strike would enhance the safety of the system. Moreover, the commander could decide to launch only a portion of the force, keeping other missiles in reserve without the concern that attack on this reserve would expose the continental United States to blast and fallout.43 The location of the North Greenland ice cap itself held attractive poten- tial for the system. It offered missile bases far away from populated areas while remaining within range of enemy targets. Army planners deemed the proximity of the Thule Air Base advantageous, and they also praised the “unique adaptability of the Icecap to nuclear deployment.”44 Many ofªcials favored Iceworm because they believed it would be invulnerable to total destruction and would be powerful enough to deliver a devastating retaliatory strike. Secretary of State Dean Rusk mentioned this combi-

42. Memorandum from Henry S. Rowan, Assistant Secretary of Defense, to Walter Rostow, Coun- selor and Chairman, Policy Planning Council, Department of State, 9 January 1962, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 43. “Iceworm,” pp. 5–6, 9–10. 44. “Iceworm,” pp. 2–3.

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nation of effectiveness and invulnerability to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in a February 1961 letter: effectiveness [of the U.S. retaliatory force] must be evident so that both the U.S.S.R. and our allies will feel no uncertainty on this point. Its invulnerability must be such that...theCommunists and our allies will realize that it could not be destroyed.45 According to the Army’s report, if an enemy force struck with eight-megaton warheads, Iceworm would lose only one weapon per hit on target. An estimated 3,500 eight-megaton weapons would be needed to destroy 600 Iceman missiles located four miles from each other, assuming the system’s ability to withstand 30 psi overpressures. Although the system was not completely im- mune to sudden destruction, it would be relatively invulnerable unless a massive thermonuclear attack was directed at North Greenland. This was a “requirement believed to be clearly unacceptable to the Soviet stockpile.” Hence, the Army concluded that the Soviet Union would be unable to prevent the launching of at least part of the IRBM force.46 In addition to a massive nuclear attack, the effort to counter Iceworm could conceivably take the form of a conventional sea, land, or air assault. The central military case against Iceworm, according to the Army plan, was the support apparatus. Although the missiles themselves were mobile and concealed, the support facilities would render Iceworm a partially stationary and exposed installation. Although the environment on the ice cap was appropriate for air patrols, air defenses would be vulnerable. Defense against an enemy air-transported ground force would require security patrols and counterintelligence measures. A NATO capability to move airborne troops to the ice cap in case of a Soviet attack would be crucial.47 The Army assessed Soviet arctic operations to be very capable and deter- mined that although the “difªculties for the attacker would be great, ...the Iceworm prize would also be great.” If the Soviet Union took such an action unaccompanied by any other act of aggression, would the IRBM command- ers ªre their missiles or would the isolated conventional attack paralyze the force without retaliation? Would a large-scale Soviet attack on Iceworm precipitate a full-scale nuclear war? Senior Army ofªcials conceded that it could.48

45. Letter from Secretary of State Rusk to Secretary of Defense McNamara, 4 February 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. 8, p. 25. 46. “Iceworm,” pp. 4, 7–8. 47. Ibid., pp. 5, 8, 10, 15. 48. Ibid., pp. 15–16.

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This issue echoed one of the objections to the New Look policies in general: Did the framework of massive retaliation give isolated conºicts the pro- pensity to escalate into general nuclear war? NSC 162/2 pointedly addressed this concern: Increasing Soviet atomic capability may tend to diminish the deterrent effect of U.S. atomic power against peripheral Soviet aggression. It may also sharpen the reaction of the USSR to what it considers provocative acts of the United States. If either side should miscalculate the strength of the other’s reaction, such local conºicts could grow into general war, even though neither side seeks nor desires it.49 In the case of Iceworm this dilemma could be resolved only through a large-scale conventional military buildup on the island, which for various rea- sons was impractical. Cost effectiveness was important in the light of defense budget restrictions. The Army estimated an initial investment cost of $2.37 billion and an annual operating cost of $409 million, ªgures that the Defense Department did not consider prohibitive.50 But in presenting Iceworm, the Army needed to explain why a new missile was needed when both ICBMs and the Polaris submarines were already on line. In a June 1962 statement of national security policy, the State Department Policy Planning Staff had recommended that the United States “maintain a sophisticated mix of delivery vehicles” for its nuclear arsenal.51 Army ofªcials concurred with this assessment, stating that “it is best to view the two systems [Iceworm and Polaris] as supplemental rather than competitive.” Both Iceworm and Polaris would be located far away from populated areas, allow conªrmation of an enemy strike before launching a counter-strike, and be relatively invulnerable to a Soviet ªrst strike. Deployment on Polaris submarines provided greater mobility and dispersion, and the submarines were more invulnerable to a ªrst strike; but the Army drew a favorable contrast between the concentration of sixteen SLBMs on one Polaris submarine and the distribution of sixteen Iceman missiles over hundreds of square miles of ice cap.52 Opposition to Iceworm arose from both the Air Force and the Navy, which viewed the Army’s proposal as redundant. Nonetheless, DoD ofªcials

49. Notes, National Security Council, Top Secret, Issue date: 30 October 1953, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1978070100125. Fiche No. 1978-249C, p. 6. 50. “Iceworm,” pp. 1–3, 11. 51. Draft Paper Prepared by the Policy Planning Council on Basic National Security Policy, 22 June 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. 8, p. 313. 52. “Iceworm,” pp. 12–13.

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provisionally concluded that the Iceworm would be “militarily and technically feasible,” and in 1962 the department initiated a more thorough assessment of the idea. A State-Defense interagency study group reviewed the concept as a possible Army system, but there was further criticism voiced by Air Force and Navy ofªcials, who correctly sensed that the army was trying to encroach on their domain.53 Despite the negative reactions, the Defense Department believed that Iceworm presented “very attractive possibilities as a NATO system,” and that “it is potentially possible to obtain Danish acquiescence and association in the system” if the U.S. Army could successfully demonstrate the military beneªts.54 The Iceworm report claimed, without supporting data, that the advan- tages of Iceman over Polaris included a more accurate targeting system, a greater yield, and more secure communications.55 The report did not indicate which missile was intended for adaptation to the Iceman launcher, but an estimate of relative capabilities can be made from the existing weapons (table 1). The accuracy ªgure for Polaris A1 (but not for the later Polaris A3, ªrst deployed in 1964 with a circular error probable, or CEP,of 1,000 yards)56 sup- ports the Army’s claim about the relative accuracy of the Iceman missiles. Still, it leaves open the question of whether the comparison was really valid. After all, Polaris itself had been considered for a land-based mobile deployment. A 1958 White House memorandum proposed a land-based version of Polaris, to be operational in 1961 with a range of 1,500 nm.57 A subsequent DoD assessment of the idea concluded that the physical characteristics of Polaris limited its utility on land and that its accuracy was inadequate for the Army’s mobile designs. Defense ofªcials informed the White House that Polaris “cannot satisfy the requirement for an early capability which the Army can satisfy by the end of 1959 by modiªcation of the REDSTONE.”58 Redstone was intended to be the Army’s 500-mile range missile. Not only was Redstone more accurate than Polaris; the tests conducted during Operation Redwing in 1956 demon- strated that IRBMs could carry high-yield warheads. The W39 warhead used

53. “Project Iceworm, Deployment of NATO MRBM’s in the Greenland Icecap,” Memorandum from Henry C. Ramsey through Mr. Rostow to Mr. Kohler with regard to Deployment of NATO MRBM’s in the Greenland Icecap, RG 59, PPS Records, Lot 60D 121, Box 121, Folder Europe, Janu- ary–May 1962, 5 February 1962, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 54. “Project Iceworm, Deployment of NATO MRBM’s in the Greenland Icecap,” Memorandum for Mr. Nitze from Walter Rostow, RG 59, PPS Records, Lot 60D 121, Box 121, Folder Europe, Janu- ary–May 1962, 5 February 1962, in Grønland under den kolde krig. 55. Ibid. 56. MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy, pp. 257–258. 57. Memorandum, White House, Secret, Issue date: 4 March 1958, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1977070100487, Fiche No. 1977-252C, p. 9. 58. MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy, pp. 64n., 130–132, 148–149.

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Table 1. Ballistic missile characteristics Polaris A1 Jupiter Redstone Pershing Accuracy (CEP) 4,000 yards 1,000 yards 300 yards59 400 yards60

Warhead type W47 W49 W39 W50, W85, W86

Yield 600 KT 1.44 MT 1 MT61 60 KT, 200 KT, or 440 KT62

on Redstone had a higher fusion-to-ªssion ratio and a greater yield than the Polaris A1 W47.63 But a DoD report to the president in 1957 asserted that the seventy-ªve-foot-long Redstone was “an obsolescent type in the present state of the art when its characteristics are considered in light of the Army’s need for an Army support missile which would stress mobility, dispersion, and concealment.”64 The Pershing missile replaced Redstone in 1963 and was considered to be a great improvement in terms of a possible mobile deployment.65 It is therefore difªcult to ascertain whether Iceworm planners were comparing Polaris with Redstone, with another IRBM such as Jupiter— which was supe- rior to Polaris in accuracy and yield—or with a theoretical land-deployed Po- laris. Regardless of the comparison intended, the weakness of the Army’s argument in favor of the Iceworm system over Polaris stems from a lack of comparison between navigation difªculties at sea and those under the ice cap.

Proposed Command Arrangements

Compounded with the Army’s concerns for the development and operation of Iceworm was the need to have the IRBM force under NATO, not just U.S.,

59. Report, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: 18 May 1965, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1979040100158, Fiche No.1979–146A, p. 11. 60. Chuck Hansen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History (Arlington, TX: Aerofax, Inc., 1988), pp. 84, 106–107, 205. 61. Report, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: 18 May 1965, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1979040100158, Fiche No. 1979-146A, p. 11. 62. Report, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: 8 August 1957, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1980070100093, Fiche No. 1980-244E, pp. 1–3. 63. MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy, pp. 62–64; and Hansen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons, pp. 69–75. 64. Memorandum, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: 10 August 1957, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1980070100094, Fiche No. 1980-245A, pp. 1–3. 65. Report, Department of Defense, Secret, Issue date: 18 May 1965, Date declassiªed: [No declassiªcation date], DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1979040100158, Fiche No. 1979-146A, p. 11.

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auspices. U.S. policy, according to the Iceworm report, discouraged national nuclear programs in favor of “a genuinely cohesive and multilateral” NATO capability.66 The Army claimed that the possibilities for a multilateral command of Iceworm seemed more promising than a similar NATO operation of the Polaris system, because Iceworm would be simpler in design, have fewer navigational concerns, and require easily manageable security devices. Because sixty different LCCs would operate the Iceman missiles, a multilateral operation would be more feasible than NATO SLBM deployment on Polaris submarines or an IRBM deployment on the territory of NATO-European countries. With respect to this last point, the status of Greenland as a possession of Denmark was crucial. The Army plan suggested the conversion of the icecap into a giant NATO base to avoid national concerns about nuclear weapons deployment or foreign command.67 Ofªcials elsewhere in the government were skeptical. Secretary of State Rusk cautioned that nuclear forces must not be so dependent on bases and forces on foreign territory as to cause the Sovi- ets to believe that they could blunt its effectiveness by pressing our allies to limit the use of their territory or forces for this purpose.68 The Army proposed a NATO command that supposedly would avoid problems with deployment on Denmark’s large island, but the problems of securing Danish cooperation remained unresolved. NATO had four options for command-and-control of Iceworm: 1. U.S. forces could operate Iceworm while answering to a joint NATO command; 2. U.S. forces could oversee the missile system, while European and Ca- nadian NATO forces performed support tasks such as active defense, communications, logistics, and counterintelligence; 3. U.S. forces could share control with NATO allies through a dual-key system; and 4. the forces of individual countries or mixed NATO units could operate the LCCs. It was still unclear whether hypothetical Soviet reactions would affect NATO cohesion, but the Army stressed that Iceworm would be more suitable than Polaris for a NATO multilateral command.69

66. Ibid., p. 1. 67. Ibid., pp. 10, 16. 68. Letter from Secretary of State Rusk to Secretary of Defense McNamara, 4 February 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. 8, p. 25. 69. “Iceworm,” pp. 1, 10–11.

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Although the Army planned to make Iceworm a NATO system, it also emphasized that the missiles would offer a protective shield against a Soviet attack on the continental United States. The process of initiating development of Iceworm would cement U.S. contributions to the alliance while creating greater unity among the member states. With control divided among the NATO allies and supplemented by the U.S. strategic arsenal, this joint force would convince the Soviet Union that a surprise nuclear attack on the continental United States could not possibly destroy the West’s retaliatory ca- pacity. The system would also ensure that an isolated Soviet assault on West- ern Europe without an attack on the United States would still provoke devastating retaliation. In addition, the proponents of the plan believed that the West Europeans would ªnd Iceworm attractive as a deployment outside the United States, under multilateral command, but distant from population centers. This would enhance NATO-Europe’s contribution to its own defense. With respect to world opinion, the Army suggested that a simultaneous push for arms control and disarmament measures would stave off criticism of the deployment of a new force.70

Problems and Opposition

No one in the Army doubted that Iceworm would produce heightened ten- sions in Denmark and perhaps in the rest of Scandinavia. The United States would have to obtain Danish and NATO consent to the plan before publiciz- ing the system, lest the Soviet Union use the issue to pressure Denmark and foment divisions within NATO. The Army emphasized, however, that Iceworm would eliminate one of the key drawbacks to a NATO IRBM deployment on continental Europe. Such a deployment might result in the transfer of nuclear capabilities to the West Germans, an issue that was certain to be divisive for many NATO countries. Iceworm would get around that problem. Thus, according to the Army, “in the end Iceworm might be more of a cohesive than divisive force and might deny the Soviets opportunities of exploiting the present lack of consensus among our NATO allies on nuclear policy.” Iceworm could satisfy West European concerns for retaliation in the case of a Soviet attack on continental Europe without raising an alarm regarding national nuclear programs, especially in West Germany.71 Although U.S. and NATO security needs seemed to justify the deployment of Iceworm, the Army could not pursue the IRBM scheme in an inter-

70. Ibid., pp. 17–19, 24. 71. Ibid., pp. 17, 23–25.

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national political vacuum. Danish reluctance to participate fully in NATO because of concerns about national sovereignty and what historian Carsten Holbraad has identiªed as “neutralist tendencies” had been clear to U.S. planners since the alliance’s inception.72 Tension between East and West had not centered on the Nordic region, permitting the emergence of a “Nordic balance.” Finland maintained friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union, Sweden pursued armed neutrality, and Norway and Denmark were committed, in a subdued way, to NATO. U.S. ofªcials realized that the Danish government would worry about the long-term effect of Iceworm on the Nordic countries, especially Finland, which bordered the Soviet Union. Although Danish foreign policy was supportive of NATO, the Danish authorities were always careful to avoid provoking Moscow and creating regional tension. The Army report acknowledged that Danish concurrence was “the key to the en- terprise.” In the past, the Danes had supported defensive systems such as the Ballis- tic Missile Early Warning System and the Defense Early Warning line, but were less likely to approve potentially offensive measures. U.S. ofªcials hoped to obtain Danish cooperation (or at least acquiescence) by depicting Iceworm as a NATO system that enhanced European security without prejudice to Scandinavia. They also depicted it as a deterrent rather than an offensive weapons system. They even argued that a nuclear attack on Iceworm would yield greater fallout in the Soviet Union than in Scandinavia.73 Besides ad- dressing issues of basic security, the U.S. negotiators planned to stress Den- mark’s position within the European Common Market and NATO in order to pressure the Danes into agreement. In addition, the negotiators were supposed to stress that Iceworm could minimize the likelihood that Germany would obtain a nuclear capability.74 Although security concerns and international politics might convince the Danish government to cooperate with the development of Iceworm, problems were likely to arise in Danish domestic politics. Strong neutralist and paciªst attitudes in Denmark were bound to affect the plan, and the Danish government would have to face major political repercussions for violating a promise not to allow nuclear weapons onto Danish territory in peacetime. The Danish government would have to satisfy this opposition in parliament before approving NATO’s use of the ice cap, but debate would take time and potentially bring the issue into the open. During this period, the Soviet

72. Carsten Holbraad, Danish Neutrality: A Study in the Foreign Policy of a Small State (Oxford: Clar- endon Press, 1991), pp. 108–109. 73. Ibid., pp. 119–121, 126; and “Iceworm,” pp. ii, 28. 74. “Iceworm,” pp. 26–27.

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Union would be likely to threaten the Danes. The Army hoped that general European opinion, along with U.S. persuasion, would overcome the opposition and offset the Soviet pressure.75 The Iceworm report described Greenland as the Soviet Union’s “Arctic backyard” and acknowledged that Moscow would be “psychologically in- clined to be especially angered and aroused over NATO missile deployments” in Greenland. The Iceworm system, according to the report, would be con- strued by Soviet leaders “as a dagger [aimed] at their heart.” The most likely initial response, until Iceworm was in place, would be a Soviet propaganda and political campaign denying that NATO could legally use the icecap in this way. Once the system became functional, however, the Army predicted that opposition would fade, just as it did after similar responses to SAC maneuvers in the Arctic and to the Polaris system.76 The Soviet Union would un- doubtedly try other ways of fueling disagreements within NATO, especially between the Scandinavian countries and the United States. Soviet ofªcials would be sure to launch a propaganda campaign in the United Nations that would depict Iceworm as blatantly provocative, a stimulus of the nuclear arms race, an obstacle to disarmament, and a threat to peace.77 U.S. ofªcials expected that the Soviet Union would also respond with greater intransigence vis-à-vis Berlin and Germany. The United States could reply by linking Iceworm and a general agreement prohibiting German possession of nuclear components, or even a NATO agreement banning the deployment of long-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe. The Soviet Union might seek to exploit the situation by proposing to establish a Euro- pean nuclear-free zone and the denuclearization or even demilitarization of the Arctic, ideas that had surfaced repeatedly after being broached by the So- viet government in 1958. U.S. ofªcials also expected that if Iceworm went forward, the Soviet Union would put pressure on Finland and Norway over Spitsbergen and would resume its campaign to convert the Baltic Sea into a “Sea of Peace.” The Army doubted that these maneuvers would be successful in light of recent Soviet failures to pressure Finland and Denmark into adopt- ing new Baltic command arrangements. What seemed more likely, however, were Soviet military responses. With a large and threatening portion of the Soviet submarine ºeet based at Murmansk and the use of Novaya Zemlya for nuclear testing, the Soviet Union was well situated to counter Iceworm. In addition, with eight large air force bases in the Soviet Arctic regions, Iceworm was vulnerable to Soviet

75. Holbraad, Danish Neutrality, p. 120; and “Iceworm,” pp. 26, 28. 76. “Iceworm,” pp. 19–20. 77. Ibid., p. 19.

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bombers as well as ICBMs.78 Although U.S. ofªcials did not expect that Iceworm would prompt any rash use of military force in Scandinavia such as a military takeover of Finland or occupation of Spitsbergen, they were concerned that the Soviet Union would develop antiballistic missile (ABM) systems.79 The Army report downplayed this threat, arguing that the Soviet Union would pursue ABMs even in the absence of Iceworm. The report predicted that, in terms of an actual military response, the Soviet Union would most likely deploy high-yield systems capable of destroying large swathes of Iceworm.80 Despite uncertainty about the Soviet response, the Army report concluded that the “threat and range of Soviet reactions should not deter us from proceed- ing to implement Iceworm if, on the basis of thorough consultation with our NATO allies, it represents an acceptable system.” Compared to an IRBM system on the continent, Iceworm was deemed to be less threatening to the Soviet Union. If the missiles were based in mainland Europe, reaction times would be shorter, a war by miscalculation would be a greater threat, and national nuclear capabilities, including German capabilities, would eventually spread. In the short run, Iceworm might contribute to the arms race, but it could conceivably persuade Moscow that agreeing to controlled disarmament measures was wise: “In sum, NATO and Danish reactions, rather than Soviet reactions, should be the determinants of whether to move forward with the system.”81 The section of the report that dealt with Danish and NATO concerns sought to explain how the alliance could justify a large, new missile system. The task, the Army reasoned, would be similar to explaining the case for a re- sumption of atmospheric testing in 1961. The justiªcation for the system would be “elementary prudence” and the protection of NATO territory. Iceworm added credibility to NATO’s deterrent posture. More fundamen- tally, Iceworm was “seeking to abate Soviet nuclear blackmail and rocket- rattling by stabilizing the nuclear arms race at such a plateau of Western strength as to make further Soviet escalations unattractive.” In other words, Iceworm would supposedly establish long-term Western dominance.82

78. Oleg Bykov, “A Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in the North of Europe—A Soviet View,” in Kari Möttölä, ed., Nuclear Weapons and Nothern Europe—Problems and Prospects of Arms Control (Helsinki: The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 1983), pp. 29–31; Ingemar Lindahl, The Soviet Union and the Nordic Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone Proposal (London: MacMillan Press, 1988), p. 47; “Iceworm,” pp. 21–22; and Memorandum of Discussion at the 415th Meeting of the National Secu- rity Council, 30 July 1959, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, p. 291. 79. “Iceworm,” p. 21. 80. Ibid., pp. 22–23. 81. Ibid., pp. 23–24. 82. Ibid., p. 19.

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Motives for Deployment

With Polaris operational and ICBMs as the emerging cornerstone of U.S. deterrence, why did the Army propose Iceworm? The main impetus for this bold and unorthodox concept was not external Cold War fears, but the inter- nal dynamics of the U.S. defense apparatus. As Michael H. Armacost notes in his study of the Thor-Jupiter controversy, “the process by which strategy, defense budgets, and weapons policies are conceived and implemented cannot be more accurately described than political in the most fundamental sense of the term.”83 The advent of new scientiªc discoveries and technologies, and the adaptation of these technologies for military purposes, led to a conºict between the armed services. Disputes over political trends and technology guar- anteed that “an irreducible element of conjecture is intrinsic in most weapons decisions.”84 Although the military services sought similar goals, each com- peted for a larger share of responsibility and funding. What resulted from the new nuclear technology in the 1950s and early 1960s was a duplication of efforts.85 The preference for a diversiªed nuclear arsenal rather than relying on a single weapon such as bombers spurred on the competition for research and development dollars. From 1953 through the early 1960s strategic uncertainty and new technological developments sparked interservice competition for a leading role in the long-range nuclear arsenal. Central to this conºict was the ballistic missile.86 The Thor-Jupiter controversy of the mid-1950s increased the perceived stakes of IRBM control. In 1955 the Army and Air Force had proposed rival missile systems: Jupiter by the Army, Thor by the Air Force. By November 1956 the competition for research and development funding and a share of control over the U.S. nuclear stockpile ended with the Air Force entitled to sole responsibility for IRBM deployment.87 Eisenhower’s New Look posture, emphasizing strategic nuclear deterrence, helped fuel the interservice conºicts over Thor and Jupiter and other issues. But the Army, which was trying to come up with limited war strategies, was consistently opposed to the New Look. In The Uncertain Trumpet, Gen- eral Maxwell Taylor presented a “strategy of ºexible response” that would re- duce the emphasis on nuclear deterrence, an emphasis that in his view was “a

83. Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, p. 2. 84. Ibid., p. 6. 85. Ibid, pp. 3, 5–7, 16–17; and Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 312. 86. Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, p. 7. 87. Ibid., pp. 7–9.

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great fallacy.”88 Taylor, along with General Matthew Ridgeway and General James M. Gavin, the assistant chief of staff for Army research and development, argued that limited wars such as those in Greece and Korea demon- strated the need for a ºexible defense posture suitable for limited and general- ized wars. Such a posture, they argued, would “recognize that it is just as necessary to deter or win quickly a limited war as to deter general war.”89 Ac- cording to Taylor, the New Look pointed the way toward general nuclear war or conversely toward fearful compromise and retreat. He wanted forces capable of winning limited wars rather than having to face an all-or-nothing choice. Taylor sought to beef up the Army’s conventional forces and to scale back the emphasis on strategic bombing.90 Despite Taylor’s misgivings, nuclear technology and budgetary concerns drove the New Look forward. The military increasingly relied on strategic air power and nuclear deterrence, and the Army felt the impact in its funding. In FY1954 the Army sustained 76 percent of the Defense Department’s cuts in spending, with a budgetary decline from $21.4 billion in 1952 to $7.1 billion in 1955. Senior Army ofªcials reluctantly concluded that the service’s future lay in tactical and air defense missiles. The Army joined the battle for funds with proposals based on new missile technology, especially guided missile systems.91 In proposing the concept of Iceworm, the Army put forth a unique program for IRBM deployment that it hoped would spur greater funding. Each service scrambled for a share of the IRBM development and deployment pie. By October 1955 a majority of the JCS favored exclusive Air Force and Navy control over IRBMs. Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson post- poned a ªnal decision on the matter after General Taylor, then the Army chief of staff, voiced his protests, but the Army clearly was in a subordinate position. To gain a share of funding for ballistic missiles and the long-range nuclear stockpile, army planners such as General Gavin played up the Army’s unique traditions and capabilities. Gavin and his colleagues favored mobile IRBM conªgurations, which would harness the Army’s expertise in the man- agement of artillery forces. The Army’s competence in dispersion, camouºage, ªeld defense, logistical support for divided units, the use of reconnaissance for target acquisition, survey and geodesy, and transportation would make it the only service truly capable of a mobile deployment. Senior army ofªcials believed that such concepts, of which Iceworm was perhaps the

88. Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), p. 4. 89. Ibid., pp. 6–7. 90. Ibid., pp. 4–7, 14–18. 91. Armacost, Politics of Weapons Innovation, pp. 31–33.

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most imaginative, would win funding for an IRBM deployment mission.92 Iceworm also seems to have been a response to rival mobile concepts such as SAC’s plan for a mobile Minuteman, and its unorthodox nature appears to have been intentional to overcome the high-level political commitment to ªxed deployments.93 The Iceworm concept clearly addressed the perceived Soviet ICBM threat after Sputnik and the effort to restore the credibility of NATO’s “extended deterrence” posture. It was projected as a large, relatively invulnerable system under joint NATO control, but would also be far away from the major NATO countries. NATO-Europe’s desire for a share in nuclear weapons control would be satisªed while avoiding the political and security concerns involved in national IRBM programs. Such an assessment would have been a sound one if Greenland had not been a possession of Denmark, a country opposed to IRBM deployments on its own territory.94 The advocates of Iceworm all but disregarded Denmark’s role in the control of its northern island when they proposed that the North Greenland ice cap itself be converted into a NATO base.95 Mobile IRBM deployment under the North Greenland ice cap also ran up against very basic engineering concerns. The difªculties involved in build- ing and maintaining ice tunnels as well as powering an isolated facility using nuclear energy were addressed by the PR&DC of the Army Corps of Engi- neers. The experience with Camp Century had revealed that although the tunnels seemed stationary, ice was extremely plastic. The tunnels at Century could be preserved only by the laborious shaving and removal of over thirty tons of ice and snow each week. The PR&DC researchers examined the rela- tionship between tunnel design, the effects of snow additives such as sawdust and ªberglass, and the rate of closure, and they concluded that “the problem is not how to stop these movements, but how to live with them.”96 John Flint, an engineer at Century, reported that “the labor involved in maintaining the clearance [of the tunnels] was so time-consuming that the decision was made to close Century.”97

92. Ibid., pp. 69, 70–71, 95–96. 93. Memorandum, White House, Secret, Issue date: 7 May 1960, Date declassiªed: 5 August 1977, DDRS-US, CD-ROM ID: 1977100100440, Fiche No. 1977–353B, p. 2. 94. Nash, The Other Missiles of October, p. 19. 95. “Iceworm,” p. 10. 96. U.S. Army Polar Research and Development Center, Construction of Camp Century, p. 88. 97. John Flint, letter to author, 31 October 1998; Charles M. Daugherty, City Under the Ice: The Story of Camp Century (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963), p. 140; and Lee D. Hamilton, Cen- tury: Secret City of the Snows (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963), pp. 73–77, 80–81.

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Quite apart from the technical and political problems that marred the Iceworm concept, the turn of opinion against IRBMs in general proved crucial. In the 1957 Reith Lectures for the British Broadcasting Corporation, George Kennan, at that time a private citizen, argued that NATO IRBMs would not lead to Soviet disarmament agreements, contrary to what the Iceworm report claimed. In March 1958 Gerard Smith, the director of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, described IRBMs as both vulnerable and useless weapons that would merely encourage the European countries to seek their own nuclear arsenals and would sow disunity within the alliance. Most DoD ofªcials agreed with Smith that IRBMs were vulnerable, and they conceded that dual-control systems would complicate the operation of the missiles. A system of vulnerable IRBMs would be of only limited value compared to other, more accurate systems such as ICBMs. Leading strategic thinkers argued that the reaction time of IRBMs made them poor retaliatory weapons that would invite rather than deter a Soviet attack. They warned that IRBMs might even have the unintended effect of increasing the need to launch a ªrst strike. Henry Kissinger, as director of the Rockefeller Panel at Harvard University, initially supported European IRBMs after Sput- nik, but by 1960 he deemed them too vulnerable to be of use as an interim weapon until ICBMs became operational.98

Conclusion

Advances in nuclear and missile technology inspired the New Look and the Army’s proposal for Iceworm, but the changing strategic milieu soon halted the rapid shift to nuclear deterrence. As decision makers increasingly worried that nuclear weapons were forcing them to face all-or-nothing choices, they reconsidered the merits of more ºexible postures. Although Secretary of State Dulles in 1954 had announced the doctrine of massive retaliation, by 1958 he believed that new conditions required the adoption of other measures. In- deed, from the outset he may have been reluctant to support massive retaliation, for fear that it would lead to reductions in conventional capabilities. In an analysis of Dulles’s attitude toward the New Look, Frederick Marks asserts that “he was speaking for Eisenhower rather than himself.”99 In any case, Dulles gradually surmised that general war and its associated scenarios were

98. Nash, The Other Missiles of October, pp. 53–54, 81–84. 99. Frederick W. Marks, Power and Peace: The Diplomacy of John Foster Dulles (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), p. 27.

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becoming obsolete. His solution was to rely on a minimum number of invulnerable weapons that could inºict a devastating second strike. Along with proponents of a ºexible response for area defense against limited aggression (a position espoused by General Taylor, among others), Dulles questioned whether advances in nuclear technology by the late 1950s were making tactical nuclear weapons unusable. The massive power of nuclear weapons had made any use of them seem too hazardous, and senior ofªcials such as Taylor and Dulles pressed for more restrained, graduated responses. Secretary of De- fense Neil H. McElroy agreed that, at a time when both superpowers could destroy each other, a greater focus on limited war capabilities, as demon- strated in the Lebanese and Formosan operations in 1958, would better ad- dress the isolated conºicts along the periphery of the Sino-Soviet bloc. The massive destruction envisioned by the Iceworm system’s release of 600 nuclear warheads could be left instead to the ultimate deterrent, the ICBM force.100 It is interesting to note that the Army’s Iceworm concept did represent a striking—though temporary—shift by the Army away from its traditional support of conventional weapons toward the New Look’s nuclear deterrence posture.101 The Army thus reluctantly followed the Air Force, but did so by proposing a mobile concept that would be distinct from the Air Force’s ICBMs. This shift, however, came at the very moment when several key ofªcials were looking anew at the concept of a graduated defense. Iceworm was a system out of place within its own service and within the changing strategic climate. Because Atlas, the ªrst U.S. ICBM, was operational in 1958–1959 and three Polaris submarines were on line by late 1960, the perceived need for IRBM development rapidly faded. Advances in ICBM technology and the Navy’s Polaris SLBMs, combined with the engineering difªculties encoun- tered in arctic research, contributed to the cessation of experiments under the North Greenland icecap. U.S. strategists considered IRBMs, along with heavy bombers, to be at best an interim deterrent until the ICBMs were fully operational.102 Technological developments and the preference for ªxed, intercontinental-range capabilities over mobile intermediate-range missiles prompted the abandonment of Iceworm as even an interim measure.

100. Memorandum for the Record: Meeting in the Ofªce of the Secretary of Defense, 7 April 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, pp. 62–65, 67; and Memorandum of Meeting, Department of State, 8 November 1958, ibid., p. 146. 101. Memorandum of Discussion at the 364th Meeting of the National Security Council, 1 May 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. 3, p. 85. 102. John L. Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 244; and Nash, The Other Missiles of October, pp. 27, 36.

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Note

I would like to thank John Lewis Gaddis and William Lee Blackwood for their support and generous guidance. I also wish to thank the ofªcers of the U.S. Army Polar Research and Development Center, Camp Century, Green- land.

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