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The Committee members raised doubts about decisions to "beef up" the force of QRA aircraft but endorsed Kennedy's decision to excuse two-stage weapons from the non-U.S. fighter bomber force. Believing that nuclear weapons on the front-line were vulnerable in the event of a "sudden onslaught or probing action," they recommend pulling them back further to ensure that front-line commanders did not make unilateral decisions to fire the weapons "if they were overrun by a superior conventional force.
The JCAE also raised questions about the possibility of nuclear proliferation in the Soviet bloc, the "questionable" principle of uniform treatment of NATO members, the need for public disclosure of some of the NATO arrangements, such as QRA aircraft, and their concern whether the United States had legally "lost possession" of nuclear weapons deployed on non-U.S. NATO fighter-bombers.
Document 27
1962-06-04
Source: John F. Kennedy Library, National Security Files, box 336, NSAM 160 - Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO 5/62-10/63
In this National Security Action Memorandum, President Kennedy directed the agency chiefs to make a "commitment to procure appropriate devices for all nuclear weapons, now dispersed and to be dispersed to NATO commands, for both non-U. S. and U.S. forces." This was Option V in the attached paper by science adviser Jerome Wiesner, which also included weapons "based in the U.K. and assigned to the naval attack aircraft on carriers based in European waters." Thus, the PALs would prevent unauthorized use by non-U.S. forces and U.S. forces, including actions by an "individual psychotic," but also against premature use in periods of "high tension or actual military combat."
In his paper, Wiesner called for the undertaking of a "vigorous program " to develop an improved electronic lock which would be incorporated directly in the electronic package associated with all future weapons so that the option of a permissive link would always exist." He believed that AEC equipment that was then under development could be "used as the basis  £or a crash program' with "initial production and installation" beginning in the immediate future. The proposed equipment would involve an "electro-mechanical lock which would have to receive a preset numerical code in order to make the weapon operable."
He listed five alternative programs for the application of permissive links, including option I limited to the warheads on Jupiter missiles deployed in Italy and Turkey and the weapons assigned to non-U.S. quick-reaction alert aircraft in NATO Europe. That option was ruled out perhaps because it was considered to be inequitable.
Document 28
1962-06-16
Source: DNSA
One of the battlefield nuclear weapons that the U.S. had deployed in West Germany was the Davy Crockett: a short-range recoilless gun, for use by infantry, that carried a weapon with an explosive yield of ten to twenty tons TNT equivalent. While Defense Department officials had thought that PALs could be applied to the Davy Crocketts, it turned out that the locks were too heavy to be used on these relatively small weapons.
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