Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

III. 1963–1967. EMERGING DOUBTS
CONCERNING TNWS—PROMULGATION
OF FLEXIBLE RESPONSE
During the late 1950s, doubts about reliance on
TNWs began to accumulate. Soldiers, officials, <strong>and</strong>
civilian strategists increasingly questioned the credibility
of using TNWs <strong>and</strong> the feasibility of theories
which relied on them for graduated or limited war. 65
By 1957, after exercises like Sagebrush, the U.S. Army
had concluded that TNWs did not favor the defense. In
addition, <strong>NATO</strong> exercises Carte Blanche in 1955 <strong>and</strong>
Lion Noire in 1957 confirmed that Germany would be
devastated through the effects of blast <strong>and</strong> fallout following
even implausibly limited employment of nuclear
weapons. Partly because the conclusions reached
in these exercises were publicly leaked in the West,
<strong>NATO</strong> TNWs became objects of anxiety to significant
sectors of Western public opinion.
During the 1960 U.S. presidential election campaign,
Kennedy criticized Eisenhower for the inflexibility
<strong>and</strong> riskiness of massive retaliation. Kennedy
evinced a willingness to push for higher conventional
Alliance spending in the interests of strategic stability.
McNamara made repeated visits to <strong>NATO</strong> to
persuade allies of the desirability of increasing conventional
forces to more credible levels so that early
recourse to TNWs could be avoided <strong>and</strong> overall deterrent
strengthened. He stressed the need to give the
President nuclear options, firebreaks, <strong>and</strong> bargaining
time. 66 His message was not warmly received because
it both called for increased expenditures, <strong>and</strong> could
be interpreted as a prelude to U.S. decoupling from
the allies. <strong>NATO</strong> debates in this period were particularly
vexing, because the State Department persisted
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