20-11-2018, 03:59 AM
James Lateer Wrote:The US maintained control over the NATO IRBM warheads. But what did that mean?
Clearly, General Norstad felt that he had succeeded in getting NATO a nuclear shield. He called it "NATO as a fourth nuclear power".
Once the US decided to eliminate the missiles, NATO had no way to maintenance them on its own. No spare parts. Etc. Since Norstad was so proud of this accomplishment, one can only infer that he would have been equally dismayed with the withdrawal of the missiles.
And at this same time, JFK and McNamara cancelled the UK Skybolt missile deal. That would have eliminated the deterrent for the UK to a Soviet nuclear strike.
Once the Soviets could hit the US with their ICBM's (even once) Europe felt that the US would sit and watch the Soviets nuke Europe, but the US would be deathly afraid to strike back and be destroyed ourselves.
We wouldn't accept IRBM's aimed at the US from Cuba, but IRBM's aimed at Europe without any deterrent for the Europeans was just peachy. Nicht so gut! as the Germans would put it.
You can see how the UK, NATO and West Germany didn't like this at all. And DeGaulle had his own nukes, but he had begun to pull out of NATO so that this didn't help the UK and Germany.
Co-incidently there were 3 or more assassination attempts against DeGaulle in addition to the JFK hit. Probably part of the same controversy. Every man (and country) for yourself when it came to the existential nuclear threat.
And we can guess what General Curtis LeMay felt about this. For him, taking away the nukes from Germany and the UK would have been heresy. LeMay never saw a nuke that he didn't fall in love with. Or any kind of bomb for that matter.
We may never know exactly how all of the above came down. But, to me, the weight of the evidence is on the side of the above theory and explanation.
James Lateer
Quoting from Wikipedia (yes, I know they have issues):
In April 1959, the secretary of the Air Force issued implementing instructions to USAF to deploy two Jupiter squadrons to Italy. The two squadrons, totaling 30 missiles, were d eployed at 10 sites in Italy from 1961 to 1963. They were operated by Italian Air Force crews, but USAF personnel controlled arming the nuclear warheads. The deployed missiles were under command of 36ª Aerobrigata Interdizione Strategica (36th Strategic Interdiction Air Squadron, Italian Air Force) at Gioia del Colle Air Base, Italy.
In October 1959, the location of the third and final Jupiter MRBM squadron was settled when a government-to-government agreement was signed with Turkey. The U.S. and Turkey concluded an agreement to deploy one Jupiter squadron on NATO's southern flank. One squadron totaling 15 missiles was deployed at five sites near İzmir, Turkey from 1961 to 1963, operated by USAF personnel, with the first flight of three Jupiter missiles turned over to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish Air Force) in late October 1962, but USAF personnel retaining control of nuclear warhead arming.
So what that means is that NATO forces could not launch a nuclear strike without US approval. If you think that Italian or Turkish forces could have launched a nuclear strike on their own you're delusional irrespective of what Norstad said (which was most likely PR not strategic doctrine). The fact that operations outside of arming the warheads were outsourced to Italian and Turkish forces was probably more PR and a fig leaf that their leaders could use to claim some level of control which they really didn't have. Why do you think DeGaulle pulled out of NATO and built his own independent nuclear forces? Could it be that he understood that the NATO nuclear shield was mostly a bluff?
I suggest you re-read the following sentence you wrote until you realize how silly it is:
Once the US decided to eliminate the missiles, NATO had no way to maintenance them on its own. No spare parts.
Do you understand that 1) if the missiles were really under NATO control the US couldn't unilaterally decide to pull them out as part of a deal to end the missile crisis and 2) once they were pulled out there was nothing to freaking maintain!!!!
If you could only see things outside of your irrational German/Nazi obsession you might understand things a little better.