PENTAGON WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Report reveals U.S. nuclear deployment
By John
Catalinotto
Which of the following statements are true?
From 1951 to 1977 the U.S. government:
a. only used nuclear weapons defensively;
b. kept almost all the weapons on U.S. territory;
c. kept nukes out of countries like Japan where the people
were strongly opposed to them;
d. kept the public informed of any dangers from nuclear
weapons or nuclear accidents;
e. kept foreign governments informed of any use of nuclear
weapons on their soil.
The correct answer is (f)--none of the above.
A report in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for
November/December 1999 by Robert Norris, William Arkin and
William Burr analyzes a recently declassified historical
document titled "History of the Custody and Deployment of
Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through September 1977."
The authors focus on one section--Appendix B--titled
"Chronology Deployment by Country 1951-1977." Some information,
including the names of some countries, was obscured for alleged
security reasons.
But the authors write that, since the list was in alphabetic
order by geographical area, they could be fairly sure which
countries were involved.
They report that the U.S. stationed nuclear weapons in NATO
European countries beginning in 1954; the number grew to almost
1,000 by 1957, almost 5,000 by 1962--the year of the Cuban
missile crisis--and peaked at about 7,300 by 1971.
They were stationed first in Britain in 1954, West Germany
in 1955, Italy in 1957, France in 1958, Turkey--on the border
of the USSR--in 1959, Netherlands and Greece in 1960, and
Belgium in 1963. About half the weapons were in West
Germany.
In Asia and the Pacific, U.S. nuclear weapons were based in
south Korea--as many as 800 in 1967. In Taiwan, U.S.
nuclear-armed Matador cruise missiles were within 200 miles of
the Chinese mainland.
The U.S. deployed over 500 nukes in Canada, 250 in
Spain--before it was in NATO--150 in Puerto Rico and 50 in
Greenland--an island nominally under Danish control that has a
largely Native population. Publicly, Denmark's official policy
was no nuclear weapons within its borders. So the militaries
cooperated secretly until 1995.
The U.S. also stored nukes at its base in Guantanamo, Cuba,
and in Iceland.
The Pentagon also stationed nuclear weapons in the
Philippines, Guam, Alaska, Hawaii and on the Japanese island of
Okinawa--where there were over 1,000 by 1962.
"Japan would be used for nuclear operations against China or
the Soviet Union in case of war," the report says. Yet
Washington has never admitted a nuclear presence in Japan.
Clearly the U.S. rulers recklessly threatened the socialist
countries by surrounding them with massive numbers of weapons
of mass destruction and deploying these weapons up to their
borders.
Some 12,000 nuclear weapons were stored on land outside the
U.S. At the same time the Pentagon deployed nuclear weapons on
its aircraft carriers. In some cases the U.S. did not inform
the host government of the nuclear weapons.
`A spectacular accident'
The authors also report "a spectacular accident" on Aug. 5,
1950. A B-29 carrying "non-nuclear assemblies"--components of
nuclear weapons--crashed soon after takeoff in California.
The crash killed 12 of the 20 crew and passengers on board
and seven people on the ground. It also destroyed or damaged 48
house trailers on the ground and killed another seven
people.
Five thousand pounds of high explosives exploded. The shock
was felt 30 miles away. Washington invented a cover story for
this terrifying accident, as it did for a similar one in Canada
a few years later.
In addition, a plane carrying four nuclear weapons crashed
in Greenland.
Washington and Pentagon officials hid the dangers from the
U.S. population and from the people of many of the countries
where the weapons were deployed.
What secrets are the Pentagon brass still hiding about the
period between 1977 and today? Will it take another few decades
for the truth to come out?
The report by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists can be
downloaded at www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/nd99/
nd99norris.html.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME :: U.S. NEWS :: WORLD NEWS :: EDITORIALS :: SUBSCRIBE :: DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page