· ' ' · · · ' · DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICY PLAN NING CoUNCIL SECRET S P FILE COI • THROUGH FROM 16887 S P FILE COPY October 12 • 1962 I TO 1W 7L G- Mr Jobf DEPARTMENT OF 3TATE s st1' u62 - ·· 'I OrT S P - Henry Owen't O SUBJEcr aul Nitze' Report on Europe DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE You may be interested in some of the highlights of the report which Paul Nitze and Harry Rowen gave of Secretary McNamara's and their recent trip to inspect tactica l nuc l ear delivery sys t ems in Europe I General 1 The state of training and morale of the US and allied teams manning these n uclear delivery sys t ems is first-rate Secretary McNamara was most impr essed on this point 2 The equipment in question is often not the latest and most efficient tha t could be made available Nuclear l and-mines in Europe a r e out of date and hence too heavy and cumber some to be of optimum use to cite but one example II Army 3 A road mobile German Honest John unit was visited a battlefield nuclear delivery sys t em The warhead was with the unit - accompanied by two US cus todians who Harry Rowen said l ooked rather lonely They kept the secrets of their trade i n what seemed to be a wooden safe 4 A US Corporal unit was visited - road mobile with somewhat longer range than the Honest John but still for battlefield use The system is so complex that it seemed unlikely it woul d ever be fired in time to be of use It is intended that it should be replaced by the more modern Sergeant a weapon of compar able range in due course s SECRET _ ____ • EPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIV • DECLASSIFIED ey J t I _ - ·- ·1 f ·1· Authori MJ2 NAM Da 1' 1 ' • ·• ' _J ' J- ti SECRF 1' - 2 - 5 A Davy Crockett unit was visited it was deployed with US screening forces near the demarcation line Secretary McNamara was told that it would take so long to get the order to fire that the screening force would be over-run before the Davy Crockett could be used The view i s therefore that Davy Crockett's shoul d not be deployed with the screening force but further back The warh ead was with t he Davy Crockett normally it would be in a depot about half an hour away This and other statements in the course of the briefing made clear that there were substantial depots in forward areas III Air Force 6 A Mace unit was visited These fixed soft air breathing US-manned 600-1200 mile ground-to-ground missiles are regularly maintained in a condition which permits them to be fired by the crews at 6 minutes ' notice They are aimed at Eastern European airfields The warheads are kept on the missiles Harry Rowen felt that these were the most dangerous delivery systems now in Europe both because they could be fired so read1ly and because their vulnerability would create great pressure to fire them in a period of tension or limited hostilities DOD is urging us to turn some of these Mace's over to the Germans Stat e has so far resisted 7 A German strike air squadr on was visited Warheads were of course stored aboard those aircraft on a l ert s t atus The assumption that the German pilots do not know how to arm these warheads turns out to be fictional on request one of the pil ots showed the US visitors h ow this was done IV Non-Nuclear 8 There was little sympathy among the US milit ary for building peacetime fortifications Paul Nitze wondered whether such fortifications might not strengthen our non-nuclear defenses 9 SECRF I' i · 15 r • S em c ' REPRODUCED AT• THE NArIONAL ARCHIVEl 1 • • - '•' I'' • OECI ASSIAEO Auihon1 11 va f if P-fG 'r 1 By t f NAAA O a SECRET - 3 - 9 A discussion with several US divisional commanders revealed an interesting difference of view on use of tactical nukes The majority held that these weapons should be used early in any combat since otherwise the Soviets might break through our lines and this would create a oonfused situation in which these weapons could not be used without endangering our own people General Polk an armored commander took a differing view His estimate of Soviet capabilities was more modest than that of his coll eagues and thus more in line with Pentagon intelligence estimates he felt that the 7th Army could hold its own for a very considerable period without nuclear weapons cc EUR - Mr Tyler L - Mr Chayes EUR - Mr Schaetzel G - Mr Kitchen EUR - Mr Popper G PM - Mr Orwick S P HOwen vc 10 10 62 SECREr NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu Read related article The U S Nuclear Presence in Western Europe 1954-1962 Part II 2020-09-17