G. Edward Griffin - The Fearful Master - PDF Archive

Commenting on President Kennedy’s proposals, an article in the Chicago Sun-Times on
March 30, 1961, reported:
It is known that large sections of the President's defense message were
written explicitly for the consumption of top Russian officials. Moreover,
on the recommendation of Charles E. Bohlen, the State Department's
leading expert on Russia, certain Communist phraseology was inserted
in the message. . . . That much of the defense message was directed to
the Soviet leaders is evident in the fact that Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr.,
ambassador to Russia, was given a special briefing on it. . . . The
message will now be forwarded to him in Moscow so he can reassure
Soviet officials that the U.S. is taking care not to produce a "first strike
capability." . . . Most of the sessions [at the White House leading up to
the formulation of this policy] were directed by Mr. Kennedy's chief aid,
Theodore Sorensen, who repeatedly made it clear that the President
wanted to avoid provocative offensive weapons. 15
Theodore Sorensen was a conscientious objector during the Korean War. 16
As for the Polaris missiles that are now apparently the mainstay of our ability to deter a
surprise nuclear attack: how good are they? Mr. Arthur I. Waskow is the man whom the
U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency has appointed as the expert to draft further
disarmament proposals for the United States. He revealed that in his opinion the Polaris is
not a provocative weapon because it is incapable of attacking an enemy's atomic force.
This is because the megatonnage of the Polaris missile is too limited to damage hardened
missile bases or to knock out a hidden base with a near miss. Waskow also pointed out
that the Polaris, launched at sea with all the difficulties of precise and accurate aiming that
any ship encounters, is incapable of direct hits on mobile missiles. He said that in order to
avoid turning the Polaris into a provocative weapon, the Navy should restrict the number
of its Polaris submarines to no more than 45. Secretary of Defense McNamara has
scheduled construction of a total of 41! 17
As a result of the last series of Soviet underwater tests of the one hundred megaton
bomb, it was revealed that underwater shock waves were so great that they could easily
damage or destroy a submarine anywhere within hundreds of miles. A few such blasts in
waters within striking distance of the relatively short-range Polaris missile could likely wipe
out our entire fleet of submarines deployed there.
Mr. Paul H. Nitze as assistant secretary of defense delivered a speech in 1960 to a group
of business and professional men at Asilomar on California s Monterey Peninsula. In his
speech, which was sponsored by the 6th U.S. Army, the Western Sea Frontier U.S. Navy
and the 4th Air Force, Mr. Nitze advocated that we unilaterally reduce our armaments; that
we scrap all our fixed-base bomber and missile bases; that we place our Strategic Air
Command under NATO direction; and that we inform the United Nations "that NATO will
turn over ultimate power of decision on the use of these systems to the General Assembly
of the UN." 18
When the press reported the substance of these proposals, alarmed citizens began to
write their objections to Washington. Government officials responded by tripping all over
themselves contradicting each other's assurances and denials. For instance, Dr.
Lawrence G. Osborne of Santa Barbara, California, received one reply from the Defense
Department stating flatly that a proposal to turn SAC over to NATO was definitely not