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After the denial of John Millar's proposed inspection of stockpile sites, a visit to Washington by General Norstad provided an opportunity to raise State Department interest in custody matters. Phillip Farley advised Under Secretary for Political Affairs Merchant to use a meeting with Norstad to persuade him that the Department needed to be knowledgeable about nuclear weapons and custody arrangement so that its officials could best defend them against congressional critics. Consistent with this, Farley wanted Norstad's consent for State Department officials to visit stockpile sites with DOD officers on the staff of AEC Military Liaison General Herbert Loper.
According to Farley, the State Department's statutory responsibility for nuclear negotiations and its policy interest in preventing nuclear proliferation and ensuring security for U.S. military assets led it to pay close "attention to the effective implementation of the provisions for the retention of U..S. custody and control" of weapons deployed overseas for the NATO stockpile program. So far, State had been confident that the Defense Department could prevent unauthorized access or use mainly because the weapons were stored in igloos "under exclusive U.S. custody" and there they would remain unless hostilities broke out. That, however, had changed with the development of new tactical nuclear weapons that might not be separately stored because it would be inconsistent with their "operational efficiency."
Such changes were especially evident "in cases such as Genie air-to-air weapon, the Lulu anti-submarine weapons, the Davy Crockett, some of the shorter-range surface-to-air missiles and air-to-surface Missiles, and probably mobile IRBM's." Thus, to achieve wide dispersal, quick reaction times, and optimum maintenance procedures, it was "necessary " to affix weapons on foreign aircraft kept on alert status or to incorporate (i.e., to "mate") the weapons into missile delivery systems at the launch sites." With foreign personnel near the weapons this makes custody more difficult, especially in the case of the Genie and Lulu weapons that must leave the ground (and U.S. custody) when hostilities are near.
Farley reviewed the State-Defense discussions of the Genie missile and the problems raised by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy's objections to the custody arrangements. With such disputes likely to reoccur, "it is essential that we have a better understanding of this complicated field." Therefore, "we hope you will be able to reassure General Norstad that the Department's interest in this field in no way reflects our doubt about his competence and sincerity in affording proper protection for U.S. nuclear weapons."
Farley asked Merchant to convey to Norstad that the State Department agreed that security arrangements for nuclear weapons was a matter for the responsible commanders in the field. Nevertheless, if the Department was "to defend our position that we still maintain adequate custody and control despite the newer deployment techniques we must be able to speak with knowledge." The extent to which Merchant succeeded in persuading Norstad remains to be learned.
Document 4
1961-02-28
Source: DNSA
State Department interests in the deployments continued into the new Kennedy administration. One of the Department's lawyers, J.H. Pender. reviewed the recent attempts to secure information on custody arrangements for the deployments in Europe. The Defense Department had begun to provide some details, but key Pentagon officials believed that the State Department had no responsibility for "actual procedures" at nuclear sites. Nevertheless, Pender believed that the Department needed to know more because members of the JCAE, who had "first-hand knowledge of actual practices at the deployment sites," were likely to question State Department representatives on "what they think of the domestic legality and general effectiveness of custodial control arrangements; whether the Department had endorsed them from either standpoint; and whether, in effect, the Department regards itself as having any 'civilian control' responsibility in this area."
Believing that the Department had a civilian control responsibility, Pender suggested that it "exercise general supervision of the program to the point of periodically visiting SHAPE installations to satisfy ourselves that the custody and control procedure are legitimate and effective."
Pender also recommended that the matter be raised with the President. State Department legal adviser Abram Chayes sent the memorandum to the secretary of state but Rusk did not make a decision on it [see document 21]. It is not clear what exactly was decided, but by April 1962 Pender was one of the State Department observers to an AEC-Defense stockpile program survey (see document 29), for which he wrote a full report.
II. 1961-62: The Holifield Report and Its ImpactDocument 5
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