U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy: A Video History, 1945-2004

The National Security Archive

Interviewees Include Robert McNamara, Brent Scowcroft, James Schlesinger and Last Strategic Air Commander-in-Chief Lee Butler

Includes Revelations on "Out of Control" Nuclear Targeting During the 1980s

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 361

Washington, D.C., October 11, 2011  

Twenty five years ago, when President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met at Reykjavik, Iceland on 11-12-October 1986, their far-reaching discussions involved proposals to abolish nuclear weapons by first moving toward a zero ballistic missiles option. Weighed down by mistrust and competing objectives, the discussions on ending the nuclear arms race collapsed. That Ronald Reagan supported nuclear abolition at Reykjavik is a lacuna in an otherwise informative and highly professional video documentary on the history of U.S. nuclear policy produced by Sandia National Laboratories obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and published today for the first time by the National Security Archive.

One of the most distinctive productions of the Department of Energy, "U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy," is a four-part nearly four-hour long oral history/video documentary. Completed in 2005 by Sandia under the direction of staffer Dan Curry (scriptwriter and interviewer), this is an engrossing piece of work that that will be a significant resource for historians, social scientists, students, and the interested public. Starting with World War II and the atomic bombing of Japan, this policy-oriented documentary takes the story of U.S. nuclear policy, with a focus on the history of nuclear deterrence through the course of the Cold War, and then from the early post-Cold War period to the aftermath of 9/11.

Among the topics covered are:

• The atomic bombings of Hiroshima-Nagasaki
• The impact of World War II bombing operations on nuclear strategy
• The Cold War and the origins of deterrence
• The creation of the Strategic Air Command
• The invention and impact of thermonuclear weapons
• Debates over massive retaliation and flexible response
• The origins and development of the Single integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)
• The Cuban Missile Crisis
• Détente and arms control
• The search for limited nuclear options
• The end of the Cold War and the reform of nuclear targeting
• Concern during the 1980s that nuclear targeting was "out of control"
• "Rogue states," nuclear proliferation, and missile defense
• The impact of 9/11 and debates over deterrence during G.W. Bush administration

Curry interviewed a number of key decision-makers and mid-level officials from the Cold War years, some more recent (as of 2004) defense officials and advisers, and academic specialists, including a few skeptical and dissident voices (See annex C for the list). Providing multiple perspectives on a variety of issues, the interviewees include a variety of senior and mid-level officials such as former Secretaries of Defense Robert McNamara and James Schlesinger, Eisenhower administration officials Robert Bowie and Andrew Goodpaster, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, and the last commander-in-chief of the Strategic Air Command, General Lee Butler. Also interviewed were university researchers including Stanford University professors Lynn Eden, Scott Sagan, and David Holloway, University of Pittsburgh professor Janne Nolan, University of Wisconsin professor Paul Boyer, and the late Randall Forsberg, a peace activist/scholar affiliated with the City College of New York.

Many of the issues covered by the interview subjects and the narrative will be familiar to students of nuclear history. Nevertheless, the use of interview material and film footage makes for some fascinating viewing. The coverage of nuclear war planning and targeting, from war plans during the early Cold War to the creation of the first SIOP are particularly arresting. Besides using film footage of nuclear tests, summit meetings, and the like, the producers use, to good effect, images of government documents produced during all the phases of U.S. nuclear history, from the Cold War into the 1990s. Viewers even see the cover pages of documents that remain classified, such as the SIOP of the 1980s, although sometimes blurring the text to preserve secrecy.

Sandia director Thomas Hunter explains at the beginning of the film that one of the purposes of the documentary was to promote discussion of two questions: 1) what will be the role of nuclear weapons, and 2) what will be future requirements for nuclear weapons? The language on the film box, referring to the "timeless" relevance of nuclear deterrence, suggests that the producers of the film assumed that the answers would take for granted the necessity of nuclear weapons. This affirmative approach plainly fits Sandia's objective of assuring the reliability, safety and security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. That the likely audience for the documentary was government and military officials might have reinforced the "don't rock the boat" approach, although such audiences probably have diverse views about the worth of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, even after taking into account institutional bias, the limits of oral history, and inevitable errors and omissions in the coverage, the four disks achieve credible results in using interviews and other source material to recount a complex and consequential story.

Sandia also produced a classified version of "U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy," for which the National Security Archive has submitted a declassification request. It probably includes information on targeting policy, nuclear weapons, warning systems, and strategic intelligence collection that the producers considered too sensitive to discuss in a public release. Certainly, viewers of the non-classified version will notice a few gaps, such as the non-discussion of satellite intelligence, although the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office have declassified some of the basics years ago.

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