20-11-2018, 11:31 PM
James Lateer Wrote:Thanks to Mr. Dagosto for his pointed yet very helpful questions about the Jupiter missiles. I don't agree that my analysis is (1) Nazi-obsessed, (2) silly or (3) that the Jupiter missile situation was just PR.
If one lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, one knows that there was nothing silly about it. Everyone on the planet was pretty much scared s***less.
I live through it too and I didn't say it was silly. I quoted a sentence you wrote and said you should re-read it until you understood how silly it was. Do you understand that the "it" I referred to was your sentence, which did not reference the missile crisis, not the missile crisis itself? Did you even read what I wrote or did you you just read the word "silly" and jump to an illogical conclusion that I wrote that the missile crisis was silly?
In order to clarify things, let me list the following points:
1. As quoted by Mr. Dagosto "but USAF personnel controlled arming the nuclear warheads". What did that mean?
2. The Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) was both commander of all US forces in Europe and also nominal commander of NATO in Europe. He wore "two hats". So if he was in control of the warheads, were they in control of the US or NATO? Good luck with figuring that out.
There's nothing to figure out. The warheads were under US control no matter how many freaking hats Norstad was wearing. Its not as if European heads of state or military commanders could arbitrarily decide to use those weapons without US approval.
3. During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis (according to the book Defcon 2 by Polmar), General Thomas Power went on the military radio and announced that he had taken over the authority to launch the nukes from the civilian authorities. (He apparently could do that).
The military did subvert the idea of civilian control of nuclear weapons and circumvented whatever command and control protocols had been put into place so that not only Power (who was acknowledge to be mentally unbalanced and a sadist by no less than LeMay) but individual submarine and aircraft commanders as well as Army field commanders in charge of tactical weapons had, in effect, the "authority" to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in circumstance where they felt going through proper channels was not feasible. However, that's a long way from saying that NATO, independently of US authorities could authorize the use of those weapons. Power worked for SAC not NATO.
4. Under the control of USAF personnel meant control by General Lauris Norstad, General Curtis LeMay, General Thomas Power and General Lyman Lemnitzer. Clearly, neither Eisenhower, and Kennedy (especially Kennedy) did not personally control the nukes in Europe. (All these Generals despised or ignored JFK which everyone on this site knows).
Again, did you read what I wrote? I didn't say "under Kennedy's control" although that's the way it was supposed to be. I said "USAF personnel" as you quoted above. Did you even read what you wrote a couple of bullet points ago?
5. As the North Koreans and Iranians are discovering, just getting nukes is less than half the challenge. Getting a secure delivery system is the tough part.
How is this even relevant to this discussion?
6. If the Cuban Missile Crisis had not occured, how would JFK have gotten those missiles back from NATO? NATO must have voted to install the missiles (after a long struggle). Would they have to vote to return the missiles back to the US?
Kennedy had requested their removal before the missile crisis because they were obsolete and vulnerable making them unduly provocative. The fact that they hadn't been withdrawn probably did have something to do with assuaging NATO allies Turkey and Italy but if NATO owned those missiles as you imply then its pretty far fetched to imagine how JFK and RFK could have traded them away in a back-room deal with the Soviets.
Here's another quote from the Wikipedia article on the Jupiters:
In April 1959, the secretary of the Air Force issued implementing instructions to USAF to deploy two Jupiter squadrons to Italy.
Note that these were USAF squadrons. There's no mention of any NATO vote (otherwise how could France, which remained in NATO until 1996, refused a deployment of these missiles?). If you have actual evidence of a NATO vote please present it.
7. It is not silly to suggest that NATO could have kept the missiles (without warheads). They could have installed conventional warheads and kept them. This would have preserved the right of NATO to have such missiles.
Yeah, it is. Its based on your unfounded and undocumented assertion that NATO somehow owned the missiles as well as the unfounded assumption that they could have been re-fitted with conventional warheads. This is a desperation move by you to try to wiggle your way out of the illogical sentence that you wrote.
8. There were at least five ways NATO could have gotten nuclear warheads for them: (a) got "loaner" warheads from the UK on a basis identical to the US (i.e. under shared control) (b) done the same with France who had nukes © gotten a few nukes from Israel who had nukes (d) have Germany develop their own nuke warheads and (e) have NATO develop their own warheads. All of these possibilities would have been a can of worms for the US.
Where is the documentation for all of this bullshit? Do you really think that countries are in the habit of loaning out their nuclear weapons? And where do you get the idea that Germany would have been permitted or allowed to develop nuclear weapons or that NATO as an organization could have done so?
You should read this:
Here's the money quote:
As part of the accession negotiations of West Germany to the Western European Union at the London and Paris Conferences, the country was forbidden (by Protocol No III to the revised Treaty of Brussels of 23 October 1954) to possess nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. This was reiterated in domestic law by the War Weapons Control Act (Kriegswaffenkontrollgesetz)
I'm surprised that a German-obsessed guy like you didn't know that.
9. General Lauris Norstad, the main proponent of NATO as a Fourth Nuclear Power was fired by JFK and McNamara in 1962.
Irrelevant to the discussion but undercuts your argurment that the idea of NATO becoming an independent nuclear powere was viable.
10. The successor to Norstad would have been (by seniority) General Earl Wheeler. But Konrad Adenauer and the British Government intervened to get General Lyman Lemnnitzer instead.
And your point would be ...
11. "Lem" served the entirety of WWII under British General Harold Alexander (who was also Governor-General of Canada later). "Lem" also partnered with Allen Dulles to cut a "separate peace" with Nazi General Karl Wolff who he worked with personally. This was an act of treason done behind the back of FDR.
See my comment for item 10.
12. McNamara and JFK cancelled the Skybolt Missile in November, 1962. This outraged the UK and deprived them of a secure nuclear delivery system just as the Jupiter decision had done with NATO.
13. This whole picture adds up to JFK regaining control over the launching of a nuclear war. This is not a silly issue--it is not a PR issue.
Where did I write that JFK trying to maintain control of nuclear weapons was a "silly issue" or a PR issue? Please point it out to me. I wrote that what Norstad said about the "NATO nuclear shield" was more PR than strategic doctrine.
14. If the Germans (possibly through NATO which they controlled in 1962-1963)
had decided to push for keeping a missile system, they would not have lacked for technical skills to do it.
See my comment to item 8.
The Jupiter missile was designed by SS Nazi General Wernher von Braun. The US Saturn missile was managed by Nazi veteran Arthur Rudolph (who was deported back to Germany later in life). The supervisor of Michael Paine, Nazi General Walter Dornberger, was head of research for Bell Aerospace. Upon retirement, Dornberger returned to Germany where he was buried.
Yes, this is well known. So what?
With whom would these ex-Nazis side if it came to a tug-of-war between the US and Germany over missiles? Would JFK even want to make that phone call to von Braun in order to find out?
More delusional assumptions. Where do you get the idea that there was going to be some "tug of war" between Germany and the US over missiles? The missiles I referred to in my original post were built in the US and based in Turkey and Italy. You're the one dragging Germany into this (but you're not obsessed - right?)
15. I dont' think I'm "Nazi obsessed".
You are. You're as bad as drunks who can't admit they have a drinking problem. I also think that you lack reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. You try to come off as some kind of expert but you're really nothing more than a crackpot and a troll.
Hitler's right hand man from the Russian front, General Adolf Heusinger was the permanent chairman of the NATO Military Committee in 1962-1963. It would have been him who got the news regarding the Jupiter Missiles. (Also read The Skorzeny Papers---also "Nazi-Obsessed" but true). His position made him the top ranking military official in NATO, (even higher than the SACEUR Lemnitzer).
16. After thinking though the answers to the very incisive questions posed by Mr. Dagosto, it becomes obvious to me that the only way JFK could have solved this horrendous problem of Nukes in Europe was to collude with Khrushchev in setting up the Cuban Missile Crisis. This way, his decision on the Jupiters became a "fait accompli" and no one in their right mind could have questioned it. Any other negotiations or strategy would have been doomed to failure.
Well, you're entitled to your delusional thoughts but as Carl Sagan once observed: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You've provide no evidence outside of your pre-conceived notions let alone evidence of an extraordinary nature, like, you know, actual documents detailing JFK and Khrushchev cooking up the missile crisis. Doesn't the fact that there is no credible historical documentation of this and that the actual documented record shows how the Soviet deployment of missiles in Cuba came as a total surprise to the Kennedys?
17. All of this is a tribute to the brilliance of both JFK and McNamara (and maybe LBJ) in keeping the Germans from getting access to nukes. This accomplishment has endured for 50 plus years and maybe has even contributed to saving the planet.
I don't even know what to say to this. Germany had already renounced nuclear weapons and was legally bound not to develop or possess them. I agree that JFK and McNamara were brilliant men but keeping a nation that had renounced nuclear weapons and was not legally entitled to develop or possess them from acquiring those weapons doesn't take much brilliance.
James Lateer
My replies in blue