Where they were

Abstract

to nuclear weapons, it may come as a surprise to most people that until now we have had only fragmentary information about where, when, and under what circumstances the United States deployed nuclear bombs overseas. But now, an important historical document has been provided to the authors in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The document, titled History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through September 1977, is a lengthy narrative complete with charts and appendices that documents the growth of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 1 It also includes what wereuntil now-some of the U.S. government's most closely guarded secrets: the deployment of nuclear weapons in such sensitive places as Japan, Greenland, Iceland, and Taiwan. The entire document will be a valuable source of information for historians of the Cold War. Due to space constraints, however, we have limited the focus of this article to only one section, Appendix B, titled "Chronology Deployment by Country 1951-1977." Appendix B includes an alphabetical list of the localities where U.S. nuclear weapons were deployed, including the types of weapons systems deployed and their entry and withdrawal dates. [See "NRDC Nuclear Notebook," page 66.] After an extensive declassification review, the Pentagon provided the names of nine places where bombs were located

Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand‐Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence

“…Placing nuclear weapons abroad may increase this danger, particularly when foreign governments are granted some degree of control over the weapons . During the 1950s, for example, West German fighter pilots virtually commanded U.S. nuclear bombs when on alert, raising the possibility—however unlikely—that the weapons might be used without U.S. approval (Norris, Arkin, and Burr , 30) . Forward‐deployed nuclear weapons might also be vulnerable to theft or sabotage in the event of political instability.…”

Nuclear Weapons in the Taiwan Strait Part I

“…1952-1954 1953a, 459). The United States deployed new nuclear weapons, including warheads, to US-occupied Okinawa not long after signing the pact with the ROC in December (Norris, Arkin, and Burr 1999). Eisenhower considered deploying US nuclear weapons in Taiwan the following spring.…”

“…The US immediately denied those reports, although the nuclear-armed U.S.S. Midway, which carried nuclear bombs that could be delivered by fighter aircraft, was on patrol off the southern Chinese coast (Norris, Arkin, and Burr 1999). In a radio address the following evening, at Eisenhower's direction, Dulles stated that United States "has sea and air forces now equipped with new and powerful weapons of precision which can utterly destroy military targets without endangering unrelated civilian centers."…”

“…Japanese Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama made statements to the Japanese press indicating he had been approached about stockpiling US nuclear munitions at US military bases in Japan (South China Morning Post 1955b). The Eisenhower administration authorized the delivery of the nonnuclear components of US nuclear bombs to US bases in Japan at the same time it deployed nuclear weapons in what was then USoccupied Okinawa (Norris, Arkin, and Burr 1999). Chief of Staff of the Army General Matthew Ridgeway informed Radford that up to six Honest John nuclear artillery batteries deployed in Europe and another scheduled for delivery to Japan could be diverted to Taiwan (FRUS 1955(FRUS -1957.…”

Declassified: US nuclear weapons at sea during the Cold War

“…We last wrote about US nuclear weapons afloat during that period in a 1999 Nuclear Notebook column (Norris, Arkin, and Burr, 1999). It used information from an important Pentagon study released under the Freedom of Information Act.…”