Date

Sep 5, 1969

Description

This three-day conference brought together a large number of nuclear weapons specialists for a detailed look at the problem of tactical nuclear weapons, with a range of issues covered such as wartime use, command and control needs, service requirements, concepts of tactical nuclear warfare, what the Chinese and Soviet opposition had in the way of tactical weapons, and the use of Atomic Demolition Munitions (ADM), including the abandoned proposal for deployment in Turkey, and West German concerns about them. General David Burchinal, the deputy commander in chief of the U.S. European Command, mentioned the first iteration of the B61, the Mk 61, in a speech where he said it was the only “ improved tactical weapon [that] has entered the stockpile.” In another speech, Air Force Maj. General Otto J. Glasser said that “The recent decision to build additional Mk 61 bombs I feel is a good one.”

Burchinal did not mention whether the MK 61 concept included a “dial-a-yield” capability, enabling target planners to make a choice of explosive yield, but he cited it when discussing an earth penetrator weapon that would be “very effective against land or underground point targets requiring severe earth shock or cratering, such as bridges, missile silos, and runways.” A later-day variant of the B61 has an earth penetrating role, but whether officials in 1969 had that in mind is unclear. According to Burchinal, a weapon with flexible yields would be “effectively employed against targets near populous areas where collateral effects must be minimized.” With respect to bridges as targets, one participant, R.F. Rowntree, an official at the Navy’s China Lake Naval Weapons Center, observed he “might wish to look at the comparative cost of destroying the targeted bridges in East Germany using Mk 61 bombs, nuclear Walleye [an air-to-ground glide weapon] or conventional Walleyes.”

Source

Digital National Security Archive

Document published in following posting(s):

NATO’s European Nuclear Deterrent: The B61 Bomb

Mar 28, 2022

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission-U.S. Department of Defense, Proceedings of the Tactical Nuclear Weapons Symposium, Held at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of the University of California, Los Alamos, New Mexico, September 3-5, 1969, n.d., Secret, Excised copy