Date

Apr 5, 1962

Description

State Department officials Farley and Tyler briefed U. Alexis Johnson on the ongoing plans by the Defense Department and the Atomic Energy Commission to survey nuclear weapons storage sites in NATO countries and check on the adequacy of custody arrangements for weapons that would be made available to non-nuclear NATO countries in a military emergency. The Netherlands was one of the NATO countries that would be surveyed, along with Italy, Germany, and Greece.

One of the purposes of the survey was to address the concerns raised by a subcommittee of the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) in its major report on nuclear weapons arrangements in NATO Europe. Toward that end, the survey group would include a JCAE staffer, John Conway, who could determine how much progress had been made in following up recommendations made in its report.

It is not clear whether the survey group actually visited the Netherlands because its report focused on the Jupiter missiles in Italy and nuclear weapons arrangements in West Germany. Nevertheless, on page 24 of the report there is a reference to Dutch personnel, probably one of the battalions in West Germany that had trained for the use of Honest John missiles deployed there.

Source

RG 59, Central Decimal Files, 1960-1962, 740.5611.4-562

Document published in following posting(s):

US Nuclear Weapons in the Netherlands: A First Appraisal

Jan 15, 2021