Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume VII, Arms Control and Disarmament

52. Memorandum From the President’s Military Representative (Taylor) to President Kennedy⁰

Washington, August 7, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Report of Ad Hoc Panel on Nuclear Testing

1. The subject report limits itself to the technical questions involved in a decision by the United States on the resumption of testing. However, the paper needs to be read with an eye to the military strategy which the United States intends to pursue in order to determine the attitude on testing which is most favorable to that strategy.

2. The USSR enjoys important military advantages which we need to offset. In the field of strategic weapons, they have the option of a first strike against a known target system and have a better defense against our retaliatory reaction which will eventually include an anti-missile missile probably deployed some years before we can have one of our own. To offset these advantages we need light, high yield warheads adapted to a mobile delivery missile system as well as to the requirements of small multiple warheads and decoys.

3. In the tactical field, the Sino-Soviet Bloc has a very considerable superiority in trained military manpower with which to oppose the United States and its Allies on the ground. The primary requirement for effective tactical weapons in our hands is to offset this manpower. Even though the USSR also had tactical nuclear weapons as good as our own, the net effect would be to reduce the amount of manpower that could be employed safely in the combat zone. Then, it becomes like a football game in which, regardless of a disparity of size of the squads, only eleven men can be played at a time by either side. Effective tactical weapons in our hands which are cheap, adaptable to delivery systems that can also use conventional weapons, and which are discriminatory in their destructive effect can provide the United States for the first time with an answer to Soviet manpower without our living in a condition of permanent mobilization.

4. In summary, the pros and cons of testing look differently if we consider the requirements for testing derived from U.S. military strategy.

a. If we are to absorb the first strike, we need a secure retaliatory force, which is mobile and uses lightweight warheads. Further testing is essential to develop such warheads without sacrifice of required yield.

b. If we must conclude that the USSR will beat us to an anti-missile missile, again it is important to test to develop lighter warheads. These will be necessary to permit decoys and multiple warheads to defeat the Soviet AICBM.

c. If we are to have the best of tactical weapons with the characteristics described in paragraph 3 above, we need to resume testing. Although we are not without tactical weapons now, they are generally too large and their aggregate effect too destructive for generalized use in friendly territory. For the safety of our own forces and for the protection of the friendly populations among which we expect to operate, it is more important to us than to the Soviets to perfect very small atomic weapons.

d. Thus, a failure to resume testing seriously retards progress in developing both light strategic warheads and very small atomic weapons. Because of our military strategy, progress in both these fields is worth more to us than to the USSR. This fact argues for a resumption of testing at once unless the most compelling of political arguments can be adduced against it.

Maxwell D. Taylor

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Nuclear Weapons, Panofsky Panel Report. Top Secret.