Throughout the Cold War, Berlin had proven time and time again to be the epicenter of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. In August of 1961 East Germany, under the direction of the Soviet Union, began construction of the Berlin Wall in order to close what President Kennedy had referred to as the "escape hatch for refugees" to the west. Between 1958 and 1961 as the Soviet Union's arsenal of ICBMs increased, Nikita Khrushchev became more brazen in his attempts to intimidate the Allies into vacating West Berlin. President Kennedy made it plainly clear that the U.S. and it's allies had no intentions of leaving the city, even if it meant a potential war. As a result of the heightened tensions, it became evident to some policy makers, especially those in the intelligence sector and the military, that it was necessary reconsider the American strategy for the deployment of nuclear weapons. This was expressed in a top secret message to the President's military advisor General Maxwell Taylor entitled "Strategic Air Planning and Berlin" (excerpted below). The escalation of Soviet aggressions towards the allies in Berlin raised several key questions that needed to be addressed. SIOP-62 predated the Berlin Crisis and was designed as a secondstrike plan. It also called for a sledgehammer response to smaller conflicts raising the fears that the nuclear option was the only option with an extremely high human cost. It was clear that the the use of nuclear weapons was still a plausible and real consideration for the U.S. military, but the current SIOP should be reevaluated to address the current crisis and consider the limited use of nuclear weapons in a first strike capacity.
Strategic Air Planning and Berlin September 5, 1961
The plan which now determines the use of our strategic striking power in the event of war is SIOP-62. This plan, prepared well before the present Berlin crisis, is built around two concepts that may well be inappropriate to the current situation. First, the plan is essentially a secondstrike plan, which envisages a response to an attack on us, the size of which depends essentially on the amount of warning of enemy attack we receive. The minimum warning assumed is one hour: this suffices to generate the alert force of nearly 900 vehicles carrying almost 1500 weapons. In 28 hours the full force of some 2300 vehicles carrying about 3400 weapons can be launched. Second, the plan calls for strikes against a single set of targets, the "optimum mix" of Sino-Soviet air and missile bases, and cities, and the various force generation options determine how far down the list the targets are struck, and the degree of their coverage by more than one weapon to assure achievement of planned damage levels. The single target list embodies the notion of "massive retaliation," the threat of which is expected to deter attack. At least two sets of circumstances that seem likely to arise in the context of the struggle over Berlin suggest the need for supplementary and alternate plans. The first is the problem raised by a false alarm, whether arising from a deliberate feint or a misinterpretation of events, that results first in the launching of SAC and then a decision to recall it at the positive control line. The second is the broader question of whether we might wish to strike first, and thus how appropriate both the target list and the operational concept of the SIOP are in that case.
If the present state of tension over Berlin persists over a period of months, it is likely that, at some point, a Soviet action will appear to threaten an attack on the United States with sufficient likelihood and imminence to cause us to launch [Strategic Air Command], and initiate the SIOP. After some lapse of time, we may conclude that we had been wrong, and, under the positive control arrangements, recall the force. There is, roughly, a six-hour interval between bases and the positive control line for aircraft in the first wave. After recall and return to base, that part of the force which had been launched would require a stand-down of about eight hours before it was again ready for launch. Thus, there would be a significant degradation of our capability for a short period of time after such a false alarm ....
Further, in the nature of the SIOP, that part of the force which was still in reserve might not be ready to attack an appropriate set of targets, since their initially assigned targets would have been chosen under the assumption that the vehicles in question were part of the follow-on force, coming after the targets assigned to the first wave had already been attacked. These consequences of a false alarm suggest two dangers: First, the value to the Soviets of a feint; second, the danger that we will have a tendency to refuse to interpret any alarm as a false alarm, once the force has been launched, since the temporary degradation of our striking capacity consequent on a recall may be unacceptable in the situation which provoked the alarm.
The second and broader question is whether a second-strike plan of massive retaliation is appropriate to our current position. Our military contingency plans for Berlin call for a number of ground force actions of increasing scope and magnitude. Their basic aim is to force the Soviets to withdraw the impediments to our access to West Berlin which have called them forth. Implicitly, they rest on the expectation that the Soviets will not respond, at least to the earlier steps, by initiating general war. If each increase in the scale of our action is met by a corresponding and always dominating increase in the Soviet response, we will clearly be forced at some point to move from local to general action. Is the SIOP the appropriate form of this action? If the SIOP were executed as planned, the alert force would be expected (in the statistical sense) to kill 37% of the population of the Soviet Union (including 55% of the urban population) and the full force 54% (including 71% of the urban population), and the two forces, respectively, to destroy 75% and 82% of the buildings, as measured by floor space. (Further, there is reason to believe that these figures are underestimated; the casualties, for example, include only those of the first 72 hours). Is this really an appropriate next step after the repulse of a three-division attack across the zonal border between East and West Germany? Will the President be ready to take it? The force of these questions is underlined by the consideration that the scale and nature of the SIOP are such as inevitably to alert the Soviets to its initiation .... Thus Soviet retaliation is inevitable; and most probably, it will be directed against our cities and those of our European Allies ....
What is required in these circumstances is something quite different. We should be prepared to initiate general war by our own first strike, but one planned for this occasion, rather than planned to implement a strategy of massive retaliation. We should seek the smallest possible list of targets, focusing on the long-range striking capacity of the Soviets, and avoiding, as much as possible, casualties and damage in Soviet civil society. We should maintain in reserve a considerable fraction of our own strategic striking power; this will deter the Soviets from using their surviving forces against our cities; our efforts to minimize Soviet civilian damage will also make such abstention more attractive to them, as well as minimizing the force of the irrational urge for revenge. The SIOP now provides for no reserve forces, except insofar as aircraft return and can be recycled into operation.
1. Explain several of the concerns about SIOP-62 in relation to the current conditions surrounding the Berlin Crisis.
2. Why should the United States consider the development of a new policy with limited nuclear strike capabilities?
3. What potential problems are raised as a result of a "false alarm"?
References
Engel, J. A., Lawrence, M. A., & Preston, A. (Eds.). (2014). America in the world: A history in documents from the war with Spain to the war on terror. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.