6 Bases during the Cold War

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which were in Fairbanks (Alaska), Thule (Greenland) and Fylingdales Moor(Yorkshire, U.K.).In the mid- to late-1950s, the U.S. underwent its famed “missile-gap scare,”following the Soviet Union’s initial testing of IRBMs and ICBMs, and thelaunching of the first “Sputnik” satellite. Coming before the deployments ofAtlas, Titan and Minuteman ICBMs and Polaris SLBMs, this created a perceived“window of vulnerability” which, in turn, impelled the short-term solutionof U.S. installation of IRBMs in Europe adjacent to the Soviet Union.Specifically, this involved emplacements in 1958 of 60 2400-km range Thormissiles in the U.K. at 20 bases, with headquarters at Great Driffield, NorthLuffenham, Hemswell and Feltwell, 30 Jupiter missiles in Italy (at Gioia delColle) and 15 Jupiters in Turkey, installed in 1961 at Cigli Air Base (these wereremoved as part of the deal in which the USSR removed IRBMs and also IL-28aircraft from Cuba, after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 – though theorders for their removal had apparently been given earlier).Late in 1960 the U.S. deployed its first Polaris submarines and then its longrange,counter-value Atlas and Titan ICBMs, thus quickly defusing the missilegapscare – though the forward-based IRBMs were to remain in place for anadditional two to three years.Complementary to BMEWS, the U.S. developed early warning satellitesunder the MIDAS satellite program. This involved combined use of infraredsensors and telephoto lenses for immediate detection of missile-launching tracksand transmission of this information to U.S. decision-makers. Launched byAtlas/Agena D missiles, advanced MIDAS satellites deployed in 1969 could be“parked” in synchronous orbits, allowing for continuous coverage of the westernUSSR and the China-Siberia region as well as areas where Soviet submarineslurked in firing positions. This involved the critical data down-link in Australiaat Nurrungar, a related control facility in Guam and an underwater cable terminalnear Vancouver in Canada.One other key element of the strategic deterrence system came to dependupon overseas access: long-distance and protracted deployment of the Polarisnuclear-submarine force. The Polaris submarines were initially deployed early inthe Kennedy Administration. The proportion of that fleet which the U.S. wasable to deploy at any given time was enhanced by replenishment and repairfacilities at Holy Loch, Scotland; Rota, Spain and at Guam. Indeed, the asymmetrieswhich these facilities created vis-à-vis subsequent Soviet SSBN deploymentallowed the U.S. to negotiate that part of the SALT I Treaty which gavethe USSR a 62 to 44 advantage in strategic submarines, but which was claimed106 Bases during the Cold Warİ 2007 Robert E. Harkavyto be counterbalanced by the efficiencies accruing to the U.S. from its overseasreplenishment facilities.In the early 1960s, after the brief U.S. missile-gap scare, the Soviet Unionunderwent a scare period of its own, as several U.S. strategic programs werephased in. To compensate, Moscow gambled with the introduction in 1962 ofsome 40 MRBMs into Cuba at several installations, precipitating the CubanMissile Crisis. (One recent report claims that these missiles were not accompaniedby nuclear warheads.) The history of that crisis bears no repeating here, butit is worth noting that only by the early 1960s did the Cuban revolution avail theUSSR of its first valuable overseas assets applicable to the strategic nuclearequation. Henceforth, Cuba would become a very valuable Soviet base, its proximityto the U.S. providing irreplaceable assets related to intelligence, communications,naval replenishment and so on, along with contingent bomber recoverybases in the event of a major war.During the early postwar period, the U.S. made use of numerous nuclearrelatedintelligence and communications facilities around the Eurasian periphery– directed against the USSR, China and North Korea – mostly in the SIGINT(ELINT and COMINT) categories. Earlier, both U-2 and other aircraft such asthe RB-47 were flown from bases in Europe and Asia to “tickle” Soviet earlywarningradars and, in the case of the U-2s, to test radars well inside the USSRwhich might be of different types than the peripheral early-warning systems. Byso doing, U.S. planners might ascertain weaknesses and ranges, and scan patternsin the Soviet radar network which could be valuable for planning the penetrationroutes for a nuclear-bomber attack.These exercises in low-level brinkmanship – apparently involving somePage 14
mock raids mounted by U.S. units in Turkey and elsewhere – resulted in someserious incidents in which U.S. ferret aircraft were shot down and their crewskilled or captured. Some flights originating at Brize Norton in the U.K. apparentlytraversed the entire Soviet Arctic coastline, emerging at the Barents Sea.The area between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azov was also apparently afocal point of U.S. surveillance missions utilizing Turkish and Iranian airspace,some staged originally from West Germany and Cyprus.U.S. use of ground-based SIGINT stations, obviously crucial to variousaspects of nuclear deterrence, dates well back into the postwar period. Onesource reported that this had earlier involved some 40 stations in at least 14countries, ranging from small, mobile field units to sprawling complexes such asthe Air Force Security Headquarters in West Germany. These were said to haveinvolved some 30,000 personnel, with a minimum of 4000 radio-interceptionconsoles operated in such varied locales as northern Japan, the Khyber Pass inPakistan and an island in the Yellow Sea off the coast of Korea.Further, these COMINT land stations had to be supplemented by numerousairborne and seaborne radio-interception facilities, particularly after Soviet andaligned nations’ military forces switched to VHF radios during the 1950s, afterwhich adequate coverage demanded getting closer to transmitters and overcomingterrain features such as mountains. At any time, several dozen airborneBases during the Cold War 107İ 2007 Robert E. Harkavylistening posts were said to have been in intermittent operation, flying out ofsuch bases as Kimpo Airfield in Korea, Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines,and many others. Added to these were some 12 to 15 spy ships, such as the illfatedPueblo and Liberty, which also presumably required access to foreignports for replenishment.Strategic nuclear forces: missile launchers and platforms15Generally speaking, the late Cold War period saw the U.S. and the USSR leftwith only minimal dependence on foreign facilities – Soviet dependence wasrelatively less for their strategic nuclear launchers, involving the familiar triad ofICBMs, SLBMs and long-range bombers. Of course, this is not to ignore thefact, particularly as it pertained to U.S. forces, that some launchers designated astheater weapons could serve strategic purposes in that their warheads could havebeen delivered into the Soviet Union.All of the U.S. ICBMs (450 Minuteman IIs, 550 Minuteman IIIs and a fewremnant Titan IIs which were phased out as the new MX-Peacekeeper wasphased in) were housed in silos within the continental U.S. – they representedover 2100 accurate warheads. Similarly, the Soviet ICBM forces (448 SS-11s,60 SS-13s, 150 SS-17s, 308 SS-18s, 360 SS-19s, 72 SS-25s), of some 1398ICBMs with some 6354 warheads, were sited entirely within the USSR.The Soviet SSBN forces (983 SLBMs in 77 submarines, of which 944SLBMs and 62 submarines were under the SALT Treaty; and 39 SLBMs on 15submarines were outside it) were based entirely at Soviet homeland bases, in theKola Peninsula area at Polyarny and Severomorsk, and at Petropavlovsk andVladivostok in the Far East. No foreign bases were used for refueling, maintenanceor crew changes. By contrast to the U.S. only some 15–20 Soviet submarineswere normally away from their bases; perhaps 10–12 on station at anygiven time.The U.S. SSBN force, which earlier made extensive use of facilities at HolyLoch (Scotland), Rota (Spain) and at U.S.-owned Guam, utilized only the firstnamedof these, with its other three main bases in the continental U.S. at KingsBay (Georgia), Bangor (Washington) and Charleston (South Carolina). Thedevelopment of the longer-range Poseidon and Trident missiles (with ranges of4000 miles) allowed for utilization of firing stations nearer U.S. bases andfurther from the USSR, hence reducing requirements for firing stations in thewestern Pacific (Guam) and in the Mediterranean (Rota).Little was publicly known about where these submarines patrolled, but theyare thought to have transited to firing stations in the Arctic, North Atlantic andNorth Pacific oceans and in the Mediterranean Sea, with about 30 percent of theforce on station on day-to-day alert, and a roughly equal proportion in transit oron training missions. The use of Holy Loch as a forward base (for submarineshomeported at Groton, Connecticut) allowed more to be on station than otherwisewould have been feasible, and it is also to be noted that 400 Poseidon warheadsdeployed on submarines operating out of Holy Loch were designated forPage 15
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6 Bases during the Cold War

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