National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 20
Companion Page to the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
November/December 1999 Issue
October 20, 1999

CONTACT: Robert S. Norris, NRDC, 202-289-2369
                     William M. Arkin, 802-457-3426
                     William Burr, National Security Archive, 202-994-7032
 

United States Secretly Deployed Nuclear Bombs In 27 Countries and Territories During Cold War

Newly declassified history reveals that the United States stationed nukes in "non-nuclear" Japan, Greenland and Iceland. Other countries unknowingly hosted U.S. nukes.


WASHINGTON (October 20, 1999) ¾ The United States stored nuclear weapons in 27 countries and territories around the globe during the Cold War, according to "Where They Were," the cover story in the November/December issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The article, by three noted nuclear weapons analysts, is based upon a newly declassified Pentagon history released under a Freedom of Information Act request originally filed in 1985.

During the Cold War, 18 sovereign nations and nine former or current American territories or possessions hosted U.S. nuclear weapons. Today, the United States is the only nuclear power that deploys nuclear weapons overseas. U.S. bombs remain stationed in Belgium, Britain, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

"We can now fill in many gaps in the history of the arms race and the Cold War," says Robert S. Norris, a Natural Resources Defense Council senior analyst and a co-author of the article. "Until now, there has never been official information on where, when, and what kinds of nuclear weapons were deployed overseas, and finally we have authoritative information about their presence in such surprising places as Japan, Greenland, Iceland and Taiwan."

The authors also found that during the peak years in the early 1970s, the United States had more than 7,000 nuclear weapons in NATO countries in Europe, and more than 2,000 on land in the Pacific. A variety of naval vessels, including aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates and attack submarines, routinely carried another 3,000 nuclear weapons.

Altogether, the United States deployed 38 types of nuclear weapon systems abroad. Germany was home for 21 U.S. weapon systems, which were first installed in 1955. Guam hosted 20 types and the Japanese island of Okinawa, while under U.S. occupation, hosted 19.

William M. Arkin, a co-author of the article, points out that while historians knew that nuclear weapons were stored in some countries, they were unaware about others and knew nothing of the details. The Pentagon document, he says, fundamentally revises post-war nuclear history.

"There isn’t a nuclear analyst alive who didn’t believe that the first U.S. nuclear weapons deployed overseas were sent to Britain," he says. "Now we know they actually went to Morocco first." Arkin also is the co-author of "Nuclear Battlefields" (1985), the first book to document the worldwide nuclear infrastructure.

"Where they Were" is based upon the formerly top secret study, "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through September 1977," which was prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 1978. The Pentagon declassified and released only portions of the document, however. The authors had to apply much detective work to piece together the picture they provide in their article. For instance, the Pentagon blacked out the names of many of the countries, but given that an appendix listed them in alphabetical order, it was not difficult for the authors to figure them out. Only one nation, blacked out between Canada and Cuba on the list, remains a mystery.

The Pentagon document also includes tables depicting the number of nuclear weapons deployed in Europe, in the Pacific, and at sea. The Pentagon blacked out figures on the vertical axis, but there was enough supplementary information for the authors to calculate reasonable estimates of the numbers of deployed weapons.

"This document settles important questions about U.S. nuclear policy during much of the Cold War," says article co-author William Burr, an analyst at the National Security Archive, "but it also raises many others." Some of the deployments, such as in Canada, Great Britain and West Germany, are well-documented, but the story of how the United States introduced and later withdrew nuclear weapons from such countries as the Philippines, Iceland or Spain needs fuller elaboration, says Burr. "The many excisions in the document also raises troubling questions about the failings of the U.S. government’s declassification policy. Even though the U.S. withdrew nuclear weapons from many of these countries years or decades ago, the Pentagon still refuses to acknowledge some basic facts about the deployments."

The article can be found on the Bulletin’s Web site at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2968/055006011

A complete list of the locations, with the dates of when specific weapon systems were deployed and withdrawn, is located at https://thebulletin.org/

Text of the Pentagon history can be found below.

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 400,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco. More information is available through NRDC’s Web site at http://www.nrdc.org/nrdcpro/nuclear .

Documents

Text of the "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through September 1977"

"Appendix B: Chronology--Deployments by Country, 1951-1977"

For additional information on U.S. nuclear deployments in East Greenland and related negotiations with Denmark during the Cold War, see the declassified documents recently posted by The Nautilus Institute at:

https://nautilus.org/projects/nuclear-policy/u-s-nuclear-weapons-deployments-disclosed/

Other material on the Nautilus site documents U.S. nuclear weapons deployments and withdrawals, mainly from East Asian countries, during the 1970s.  For recently declassified documents from the National Archives on the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Taiwan during 1974, see the following items:

Defense Department memorandum of conversation, "Call by Ambassador Unger," 12 April 1974, in which Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger expressed concern that U.S. nuclear weapons be withdrawn from Taiwan before more visible steps to reduce the U.S. military presence there are taken.
Location of original (including the documents that follow): National Archives, Record Group 84, Top Secret Foreign Service Post Files, Embassy Taipei, 1959-1977, box 1, file "Def 15-9-Reductions-ROC, 1973

U.S. Embassy Taipei cable 2278 to Department of State, 1 May 1974, "Conversation with CCK [Ching Chiang Ching-Kuo]," describing disclosure by embassy charge William H. Gleysteen to premier Ching of the U.S. decision to withdraw nuclear weapons from the air base at Tainan.  References to "Enhance Plus" describe U.S. effort to build up the South Vietnamese military during 1972 by soliciting aid from Iran, Taiwan, South Korea, and other U.S. allies.

Joint Chiefs of Staff cable 251506Z to military commands in Asia and the Pacific, 25 May 1974, conveying presidential order ("higher authority") to remove U.S. nuclear weapons from Taiwan, as well as to withdraw U.S. F-4s and to deliver F-5As and F-5Es fighter jets, in part to compensate for Taiwan's Enhance Plus assistance in 1972.  Despite the blank space on the top of the second page, this document is reproduced in its entirety.


Return to the National Security Archive homepage