War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Camm, 1987

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES C06063-C06065 FRANK CAMM

Adapting the Army to the Nuclear Age

Interviewer:

YOU WENT TO LOS ALAMOS AND STARTED TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE

PRODUCTION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND YOU NOTICED THAT MOST OF THE

MATERIAL WAS GOING TO THE AIR FORCE, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO THAT?

Camm:

Well, when I got to the Army staff in 1957 and was put in charge of

Army planning for the use of nuclear weapons, it quickly became

apparent that virtually all the nuclear weapons in the United States

were at that time being con-, being used as bombs for SAC, and a few

for the Navy, and that the Army was getting practically no nuclear

material, and that, uh, in view of the fact that the the military

strategy at that time was to put main, but not sole, reliance on

nuclear weapons, but the Army was not getting what looked to us and the

Army as our fair share of nuclear weapons to pull our load in the

nuclear war when it came. At that time, and I think quite properly,

the, the National Administration had decided to use nuclear weapons

mainly, because we had superiority in nuclear weapons; the Soviets had

practically none, and we had a lot, or substantially a lot, and it made

sense at that time to minimize our expense defend-, to ex-, um, defense

expenditures, by using nuclear weapons if necessary and facing the

great hordes of Soviet forces. And, we in the Army began to study in

more detail what use is gonna be made of all these bombs that the Air

Force is getting, and all this nuclear material that's being used by

SAC, and we gradually got involved in a big study that looked at what

their plans were, and how many weapons they were gonna use against each

target and so forth, and we found that, uh, compared to the relatively

few weapons that we would have to use against those masses of Soviet

tanks and ground forces facing us, particularly in Europe, where we

could really use a number of nuclear weapons to really decimate them

and spread them out, that we weren't getting very many, compared to

what the Air Force was getting, to use many ti-, many weapons against

individual targets. And we began to argue, within the JCS structure,

that we think we should get more nuclear weapons. Uh, we did begin to

get some, but we did not think that they were commensurate with the,

uh, what the Air Force was getting, and it ended up with the deci-, uh,

decision made in the JCS in 1960 to set up the JSTP organization in

Omaha, in which they had representation from the Army, the Navy, and

the Air Force, to review and make recommendations concerning how those

strategic nuclear warheads should be used. I guess our concern was more

against the...relative balance of, uh, warheads between strategic

nuclear purposes which included the Navy later with the Polaris, and

also with their Navy bombers, and Air Force, versus what we on the

ground would have to use to cope with the tactical type confrontations

which, uh, meant that we were eyeball-to-eyeball with the Soviets.

Interviewer:

WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED BECOMING RESPONSIBLE FOR PLANNING IN THE ARMY,

WHAT WAS THE STATUS OF NUCLEAR DOCTRINE?

Camm:

I left, uh, the Command General Staff College in 1957, and was ordered

to the Army staff in Washington, to set up the first Army planner

position for the use of nuclear weapons. And when I came in and looked

around to see what is the state of, of US Army doctrine, and planning

for the use of nuclear weapons, I found that it was, as you'd expect,

rather primitive. We'd just gotten these nuclear weapons, and, uh, we

were not very far along on how to use this tremendous increase in

firepower; uh, you might say we were comparable, in terms of using...

weapons in those days, to what it might be like handing a hand grenade

to a, a caveman. Up until that time, a caveman, when he fought with

fellow cavemen, you know, they fought with clubs or sticks or spears,

but they couldn't kill more than one man at a blow, and... he had to be

in very close. Well, the same way with the nuclear weapon with us in

the Army; we could cope with the enemy within eyesight of each other --

that is, close eyesight, two or three hundred yards rather readily with

our rifles and machine guns -- but anyone beyond that we couldn't get;

and also, uh, we couldn't get them en masse, and now with a nuclear

weapon you'd throw 'em out there, a nuclear weapon against them, you

could take out a whole company, a hundred, 200, 300 men at a time...

and in fact the damage was so great that you might knock yourself out

too; so we had to start thinking about not only the effects on the

enemy, but as a man throwing a hand grenade, he has to be sure he gets

down before those fragments go off and hit him as well. So, we were

coping with, uh, um, tremendous increase in, in, in, in firepower

capability, and we were just groping towards it. At first, during the,

uh, late '50s, when it was the administration doctrine to rely

primarily on nuclear weapons, and... we had a superiority in nuclear

weapons, we were able to rather quickly decide in the Army to organize

for nuclear war, which in effect means that whenever you have any

massing of enemy forces against you on the ground, you just throw a

nuclear weapon against them, and once it goes off then you charge in

there with your conventional weapons, and mop them up. But we had to be

careful because of that power, to be sure that we'd duck down when we

set the weapon off, so we trained our soldiers how to do that, to stay

down, and we could only use small weapons, not large ones, because the

large ones would hurt us as well. We developed an entirely new division

structure, the pentonic division, where we had smaller numbers of

troops in any one place, and they were able to spread out quickly, or

if we lost one group we still had others available to deploy, and we

really, we organized the Army to adapt to the nuclear age. But towards

the end of the '50s, we began to see that the Soviets were beginning to

develop nuclear weapons -- they'd actually set off the H-bomb and they

were gonna be able to wipe out us, in company and battalion-sized

units. And we began to worry about how would that fighting go then,

where they had nuclear weapons and we were no longer so superior to

them? And, uh, a word that many people said we shouldn't use at first

began to crop up: the word "nuclear parity." We began to think out 10,

15 years from now, we only need so many weapons to be able to have

nuclear capability against the Soviets; after that, any more weapons we

have don't give us that much additional advantage, but if they get that

many against us, then we are at parity and they can do as much damage

to us as we to them, and what happens to the decision-makers then?

Whereas in the '50s, it would not be too difficult for a decision-maker

to say, "If the Russians attack across Europe, we'll respond with

nuclear weapons and we'll wipe out their greater numbers of forces with

weapons. But in the forthcoming '60s and '70s, if the nuclear, if the

Soviets were to attack with nuclear weapons...with, uh, conventional

weapons, and we responded with nukes and they responded to us, they

might wipe us out as well as they, and it would just be a, a disaster.

And we began to realize that then the decision makers would have a

harder time deciding to meet the Russians with nuclear weapons, and how

should we in the Army structure ourselves to cope with that? And over

time we began to evolve what is now called the flexible-response

doctrine. Actually in the late '50s, the Chief of Staff of the Army,

General Maxwell Taylor, actually set up a, set up a special study

group, up in his office, to study the problem: I was one of the

consultants to it from the Army staff. And, by the time that he ended

up being chief of staff, he wrote a book on this called The Uncertain

Trumpet, which in effect said, in the foreseeable future, the major

response and role of the US Army in warfare is gonna be primarily in

conventional forces again, because of the problem of deciding whether

or not to use nuclear weapons. And we'd better be sure that we

strengthen our capability to fight with conventional means, rather than

just putting all of our eggs in one basket, which is the nuclear

basket.

Interviewer:

YOU USED A PHRASE THAT SUMMED UP THE CHANGE IN DOCTRINE THAT MAXWELL

TAYLOR STARTED.

Camm:

If I were to try to, to express in, uh, one sentence what the true

change that was proposed in The Uncertain Trumpet, from the previous

policy, it was as follows: under the previous policy, where we were

gonna put the primary emphasis on nuclear weapons, you could say the

emphasis was main, but not sole reliance, on the use of nuclear

weapons. The Uncertain Trumpet said it should be the other way around:

it should be main, but not sole, reliance on conventional forces.

U.S. Deploys Nuclear Weapons in Europe

Interviewer:

BY 1957, TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE IN PLACE IN EUROPE. BUT THEN IT

WAS DECIDED TO DEPLOY THEM IN COLLABORATION WITH OTHER EUROPEAN

COUNTRIES. WHAT WAS THE THINKING BEHIND THAT MOVE?

Camm:

Beginning about 1957, we began to get some nuclear weapons for ground

forces, and of course we deployed our first ones for ground forces to

Europe in support of the US Army forces in Europe. But the US Army

forces were only a part of the alliance of forces facing the Russians

in Europe, and our German friends on our left and right, and the

British friends to the north, and our other allies to the north, were

not protected on the ground to the extent we were with the option to

rely on nuclear weapons.; Therefore initially we set up a couple of

special units of US, uh, nuclear-weapon supply people and maintenance

people, in support of our Allied friends, so that we could provide some

nuclear support to them, that they could call on for nuclear fires in

case, uh, ground warfare began. As time went on, it became apparent

that we had more and more nuclear weapons becoming available; we were

beginning to get some of our share versus... SAC. And the US began

negotiating bilateral agreements with each of our allies in Europe to

set up nuclear stores behind each of those forces, put a US team with

those nuclear weapons, so the weapons were always in US hands, but

responsive to the use of those respective countries, once the new...

release for, of use of nuclear weapons was made.

Interviewer:

THERE WAS A MAJOR BUILDUP THAT OCCURRED...WHAT WAS THE REASON FOR THAT

AND WHO WAS THE PERSON WHO DECIDED?

Camm:

You know, the question is often asked, why did we deploy so many of

these nuclear weapons to Europe? And I think it's useful to, uh,

consider what was the basis of such decisions; how many nuclear weapons

were there? We in the Army that, uh, in a typical Soviet division you

have so many companies of men and you want to, in the end, be able to

knock out at least half of those companies of men, each with a nuclear

weapon. And for each nuclear weapon that you aim at them you may miss

them a little bit, so you probably need two against each one but then

you've lost some nuclear weapons, so you put several multiple factors

in. And, we came up with some recommended numbers of nuclear weapons,

which were up in the field of, of several thousand nuclear weapons that

would be needed in Europe, to cope with the threat that we saw there,

the number of individual company-sized enemy units that would be coming

across, against us on the ground. Now to give you some perspective, as

to what the real lethal effect of the nuclear weapons in Europe would

be, it's interesting to, uh, consider the, what we call the "lethal

area effect." How far out from, uh, the burst of a weapon, whether it's

a conventional artillery weapon or a nuclear weapon. Will people be

killed if they're exposed to that weapon, a given weapon? And, they say

an artillery shell, for example, may kill people out to five yards

away, and that has an area, and that would be the lethal area of that

artillery shell. A nuclear weapon may be killing people out to several

hundred yards away, and that's a much larger lethal area. If you were

to look at the sum of nuclear -- uh, of, uh, lethal area of

conventional bombs and munitions used in World War II, in Europe,

conventional weapons, you find that the lethal area of the nuclear

weapons that were be-, de-, being deployed to Europe, the sum of it was

less, of the nuclear weapons, than was the total number of lethal areas

of weapons used in World War II. Likewise, it was less than the amount

of conventional weapons that we used in Korea, in the Korean War, and

the same can be said, less than the amount of, uh, lethal area of

weapons that were deployed against... North Vietnam. It's a tremendous

amount of damage., if you look at the damage that was done in World War

II you can see that it was tremendous, but some people seem to think

that the amount of that lethal area of nuclear weapons is enormously

higher. That's not so. So to give you some perspective as to how they

compare... that was the way the numbers were arrived at, and in the

late '50s... the US and the various NATO allies negotiated numbers of

weapons to put be-, behind these. Now, this was the time that we were

gonna respond with nuclear weapon from the outset. By the time that the

Kennedy Administration came in, most of those bilateral agreements had

been completed or within, were within their final stages. And then the

Kennedy Administration, who were very much influenced by reasoning of

the sort that was in General Taylor's Uncertain Trumpet, began to say,

"Why do we need all these nuclear weapons? We want, we want to rely

more on conventional weapons rather than nuclear weapons." And, the

question arose as to whether or not we should deploy all the, uh,

weapons that had not yet gotten over there, but which had been agreed

to, to, in accord with the agreements between the, the countries.

And... where I was, sitting in the staff then of, of the, Secretary

McNamara's staff, I recommended to our people that were trying to sell

the, the flexible-response idea of using conventional forces first...

that if we're gonna get our NATO allies to go along with the flexible

response... we're gonna hurt that case if we suddenly say, "Well, we

had agreed to give you so many nuclear weapons, but now we're only

gonna give you a half or a third of those." That would get their backs

up and they'd be far less likely to go along with the, the flexible

response, than if we let those weapons that have already been entrained

to go over there, go on over there, even though frankly, from a

military sense, many of us felt that we probably didn't need to deploy

more than, say, half of 'em -- we'd still have the other half, 'cause

they'd already been built, paid for, stored in the US, which could be

flown over quickly when needed, but the... the political aspect of

this, the diplomatic aspect of this, governed, as in my mind, does the

whole question of the use of nuclear weapons; it's governed by the

political aspects far more than... the... the narrower military

aspects.

[END OF TAPE C06063]

Interviewer:

WOULD YOU SAY THAT THE REASON FOR THE BUILDUP BEYOND MILITARY NEEDS OF

WARHEADS IN EUROPE, WAS ACTUALLY A POLITICAL DESIRE TO LIMIT THE IMPACT

OF THE FLEXIBLE-RESPONSE DOCTRINE?

Camm:

Uh, in recent years I've had a number of people approach me, and ask me

why was it that the big buildup in nuclear weapons underground in

Europe came after present came into office, President Kennedy came into

office, rather than before, because President Kennedy was against

having all those nuclear weapons. And I, uh, had to reflect on this,

and concluded that really it wasn't the Kennedy Administration that,

uh, arranged for those deployments, it was really the earlier

administration. And the Kennedy Administration, uh, accepted the view

that in order to... provide the political climate in which the flexible

response strategy could be accepted, it was necessary to permit the

prior agreements for deployments of nuclear weapons to continue, even

though, uh, it could be argued that they were not fully, that such

deployments were not fully in consonance with the flexible-response,

uh, doctrine. For purely political reasons, it was found expedient to

accept that, and per-, permit them to be deployed.

Interviewer:

TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU THINK THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IS GOVERNED BY

POLITICS, RATHER THAN MILITARY CONSIDERATIONS?

Camm:

Yes. Back during the time when the US had full nuclear superiority, and

it was the declared policy of the United States to respond to Soviet

aggression with nuclear weapons from the outset, it was very easy for

us, from the military point of view, to integrate these powerful new

nuclear weapons into our fighting capabilities, compared to what it is

now. Once it became uncertain as to whether or not the release for

nuclear weapons would be coming soon, we began to having, having to

posture our forces to fight conventionally, until the time that a

nuclear release was given, and, we military men... who respond to the

direction of our political leadership, knew that, uh, we would not be

able to use the nuclear weapons until the President of the United

States told us we could use them. And the President of the United

States, depending on his particular circumstances, may want to consult

with the leaders of the various NATO allies an extreme example of what

this did to us, I guess, can be, uh, exemplified by the atomic

demolition munition, a device that we engineers found, uh, particularly

useful to destroy enemy bridges, let's say, against the, across the

Vesa River, which the Soviets could use for high-speed attack...

against our forces; if we could blow out those bridges with an atomic

demolition, very quickly, we'd like to do that, and we had plans to, to

lay the ABMs, as we call them, along, or in the... in the foundations

of these bridges, and when the Soviets crossed to blow them up. But

when we d-, this worked fine as long as we knew we'd, we'd set 'em off

immediately when the enemy attacked, but when the uncertainty of the

decision began to sink in, we began to realize that, if we put a

nuclear weapon, or atomic demolition, in the foundation, and we didn't

get the release, the enemy would overrun it, and they would capture one

of our nuclear weapons, and the next thing we'd know, they might be

using it against us. So it's vastly, this, this question of when the

decision would, would come, vastly complicated our ability to plan on

the use of atomic demolitions. In a like manner, but probably less so

completely, it complicated our ability to use artillery-projected

weapons, missile-projected weapons and so forth.

Implementing Flexible Response Doctrine

Interviewer:

DURING THAT TIME, HOW DID YOU ENVISAGE THE USE OF THESE TACTICAL

NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Camm:

In the late '50s, when the plan was to use nuclear weapons from the

outset, it was clear to us that we would start using nuclear weapons

the instant the enemy ground forces began coming in against our ground

forces. Now, when that might be depended on the way the war started. If

the war started with, uh, the enemy, uh, air attacks against us, and

we're rushing out of our concerns, and having what we call a meeting

engagement, uh, that would be, um, uh, more ragged type of, of use of

nuclear weapons on our part, than if there had been a period of tension

between the two forces, and we'd deployed and were facing each other

eyeball to eyeball, you know, much like the military forces in Korea

had been facing each other across the DMZ for many, many years. In that

case, of course, we would have had all of our targets zeroed in, our

nuclear weapons ready to go, and the instant they started a crossing

in, in,.. mass in any particular sector, then we would implement

pre-planned nuclear fires against that particular sector, in mass; now,

that would not necessarily be in conjunction with a strike from SAC in

our air forces, which would be striking targets deeper, and not so

directly involved in, in striking the enemy forces that were

threatening our ground forces.

Interviewer:

WHY WAS THERE THAT DISCONTINUITY?

Camm:

There was a distinct discontinuity between the air forces, and the

ground forces, for a couple of reasons: they're two forces, and

whenever you have two forces, uh, you have two different minds

directing them; they're not going to be done exactly the same; but

beyond that, the army moved towards the flexible-response, uh,

strategy, more rapidly than did the Air Force. In Europe, for example,

in 1961, '62, '63 time frame, when I was there, whereas we in the army

were planning to respond initially to enemy attack with conventional

response at first, always ready to fall back on nukes when released,

the Air Force was still planning to respond with nukes as soon as

possible, and to the extent that their airplanes were all designed to

deliver high-speed, high- speed delivery of nuclear weapons, their

armaments were virtually all nuclear, had practically no iron bombs, of

the sort that we use in conventional war; and this disturbed us in the

Army very much, because when we considered how we would be facing the

Russians initially, which would be conventionally, we would like to

have some airplanes, which are very powerful support for us, behind us

and supporting us with their firepower, conventional firepower. But

they didn't have it; in the early '60s there were virtually no iron

bombs in Europe. And so the structure between the Air Force and the

Army, at that particular time, was not consistent.

Interviewer:

YOU BECAME THE PLANNER FOR THE SEVENTH ARMY IN 1962. YOU DESCRIBED A

CONVERSATION YOU HAD WITH YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER. WHAT WAS THAT?

Camm:

In, uh, 1962, I was, uh, sent to Seventh Army Headquarters, in Germany,

to be the planner -- that's both conventional and nuclear-war planner

-- and we, uh, were in the process of reviewing the Seventh Army plan

for how we would deploy our forces in time of war. And I remember my

initial courtesy call on the commanding general, in which I said,

"General, we are preparing to revise the emergency... defense plan, for

the Seventh Army, aid I need guidance from you on one important aspect,

which concerns our initial assumption concerning the use of nuclear

weapons. I find that the plans, as they're written now, assume that the

instant we start fighting with the Russians, that we'll use nuclear

weapons from the outset," because that was the Eisenhower

Administration's policy, "but now we're in a new administration" (the

Kennedy Administration). "I've just come from the Army staff, where we

were developing the flexible-response policy, which assumes that at the

outset we will fight conventionally, but be prepared to use nukes. But,

sir, I would like to know what guidance do you have? Shall we use nukes

from the outset, or shall we use conventional forces from the outset?"

And this commanding general said, "Frank, you and I have both just come

from the Pentagon, the Army staff; we are both sold on the flexible

response option initially, so I want you to write the plan that way."

So we reoriented the plan completely; we actually moved the 24th

Division from the right flank over to the left flank, and structured

our initial fighting posture to be conventional rather than nuclear.

That was beginning to reflect, if you will, the change in strategic

policy from the Eisenhower Administration to the Kennedy

Administration.

Interviewer:

IN A SENSE, THERE YOU WERE IN EUROPE; NATO HAD BEEN INTRODUCED TO THE

FLEXIBLE-RESPONSE CONCEPT IN 1962. BUT IT WASN'T UNTIL 1967, AFTER THE

FRENCH VETO WAS REMOVED, THAT IT ACTUALLY BECAME OFFICIAL NATO

DOCTRINE.

Camm:

Whenever there is a change in strategy from one policy to another,

there is an inertia, among the various forces involved, as to when each

takes the switch over to the new policy, as evidenced by what I said

before about the Air Force; they were much later in swinging over to

the flexible-response doctrine than we were. In the Seventh Army, the

southern half of the NATO front in central Europe was under the command

of, of Seventh Army, under Seventh, Central Army Group. And we in

effect were the people who were developing the, the tactics and

doctrine that would be deployed against the forces there, and I guess

what we were doing in revising the Seventh Army war plan, which

involved not only US Army forces but also the two German corps that

were in support as well of Seventh Army, is that we were... in the

forward edge of that transition from one policy to another; we had not

yet had articulated from NATO forces on high, uh, that there was this

definite change in policy; but we were facing reality, and we were the

US element of the NATO forces. We were the people who were most

cognizant, even though not completely cognizant, of the effects of

nuclear warfare, because we had 'em, and our other NATO allies did not.

And we recognized that if, for some reason, we didn't have release of

those nuclear weapons, we'd be in a bad fix if we started fighting the

enemy from a posture designed for nuclear weapons. You see, when you

structure yourself for nuclear warfare, you spread your forces out; you

thin them out so that you present less desirable targets to the enemy,

but when you thin yourself out, it's sort of like a football team:

where you don't have many men on the line, it's easier for the attacker

to go through you there, than when you have a lot, so it's a question

of mass or not, and so we didn't want to be thinned out for a nuclear

posture, and then have the enemy attack and not be able to use nuclear

weapons, so we were facing reality as what we would have to do, and

let's face it, when the enemy is facing you, and you have to fight him,

you're gonna fight him in the best way you can with the means that you

are permitted to use. And we anticipated, at this stage, that we were

not likely to be permitted to use those nuclear weapons immediately.

Interviewer:

BUT THE FACT THAT YOU WERE INTRODUCING A POLICY CALLED FLEXIBLE

RESPONSE, DID YOU EVER COME UP WITH DIFFICULTIES IN DEALING WITH GERMAN

OR NATO ALLIES IN WHAT YOU WERE DOING?

Camm:

In using this, uh, approach, main but not sole reliance on conventional

weapons, uh, we weren't using the term flexible response at that time;

that's a name that, that came up later as it was introduced through

the, the NATO structure. Uh, our dealings with, uh, the German corps

commanders, concerning how we were going to deploy this, this issue

never came up. At that time -- this was in the early '60s -- the US

were the ones who had the nuclear weapons, and, uh, our NATO allies had

not really been exposed very much to the import of the use of nuclear

weapons, and since we had them, there was, seemed to foe a general

acceptance that, uh, the doctrine that we were proposing made sense. I

don't remember having any difference of view with my German planning

colleagues over this policy at all? all I had to do was point out,

"Look, if we don't get the release for these nuclear weapons, what can

we do? How can we fight? What's the best way to structure ourselves?"

And they would say, "Well, that's right; if we don't get that release

right away, we'd better... do it this way, rather than that." So there

was no problem at the working level. In my memory, concerning how to do

this.

Interviewer:

DID YOU EVER GET A PROBLEM AT A HIGHER LEVEL?

Camm:

At the level I was working, I had no problem in dealing with this with

any, uh, group of people; we had, uh, Seventh Army exercises in which

we would implement assumed attacks by the Soviets and how would, we

would respond, and the response would be conventionally, initially, and

then they would press it to the point that we would go nuke just to see

how we would operate when we went nuke, but, I'm not aware of any, uh,

policy issues within the US Army, or the...German army that we worked

with directly, or the French army who was behind us, uh, concerning how

we were doing this.

[END OF TAPE C06064]

Criticisms of Flexible Response Doctrine

Interviewer:

THERE WAS QUITE A LOT OF CRITICISM OF WHAT EVENTUALLY BECAME KNOW AS

THE DOCTRINE OF FLEXIBLE RESPONSE IN EUROPEAN DEFENSE CIRCLES. AND IN

FACT SOME PEOPLE HAVE PUT TO US THAT ACTUALLY WHAT YOU WERE DOING WAS

GETTING PREPARED TO FIGHT BACK TO THE PYRENEES BEFORE ACTUALLY USING

NUCLEAR WEAPONS. AND THAT IN A SENSE THAT STARTED TO DESTROY THE

CONCEPT OF DETERRENTS. NOW WHAT WOULD YOU SAY.... HOW WOULD YOU ACCOUNT

TO THAT ARGUMENT?

Camm:

A number of people have, uh, questioned the soundness of the, uh,

flexible response doctrine as saying that it, uh, weakens deterrents

that, uh, it uh, implies that we're willing to fall back not only to

the Rhine but across the Rhine perhaps even as far back as the

Pyrenees. And uh, those of us who believe in flexible response have

found that, uh, our thinking feels that whereas maybe from one point of

view it weakens deterrents it actually strengthens deterrents in the

fact that, uh, when you recognize flexible response is accommodating to

the increased, uh, number of nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union has.

When the time comes that they have as many nuclear weapons as we had,

and we were anticipating that that could occur in the sixties or

seventies. And I would say by now that probably has happened. The

question of how well we were deterred .... we were able to deter the

enemy from attacking because we would use nuclear weapons. If he had as

many nuclear weapons as we have to use against him that he could use

against us, that could operate in a very powerful way to deter us from

using nuclear weapons in the first place. The enemy calculating the

likelihood of our using nuclear weapons and so forth were to say as

time goes on and we get more nuclear weapons, the NATO allies are less

likely to respond with nuclear weapons. If we had the so called trip

wire defense concept that we're going to use nuclear weapons at the

outset, the Soviets might calculate that we would not respond with

nukes and they could just walk over us. Whereas if we strengthen our

conventional capability so that when they attacked us conventionally,

we had sufficient strength to hold them and force them to decide

whether or not their objectives were worth the risk of going to nuclear

war, uh, the pause might indeed cause them to foe more deterred from

the outset. So those of us who were pushing for at least an initial

conventional option felt that we were strengthening deterrents in the

forthcoming period of, of nuclear parity rather than weakening it.

Interviewer:

GENERAL GALWELL WHO IS PERHAPS THE MOST OUTSPOKEN CRITICS OF FLEXIBLE

RESPONSE SAID THE REAL FUNDAMENTAL...IN THE THEORY AND IN THE DOCTRINE

IS THAT THE SOVIET UNION DOESN'T RESPECT ANY RULES. IF THEY'RE GOING TO

DECIDE TO INVADE, THEN THEY'RE GOING TO DO IT WITH ALL THE MEANS THAT

ARE AVAILABLE TO THEM AT THE OUTSET. IT DOES SEEM THAT THERE'S A

CERTAIN LOGICAL ELEMENT TO THAT. THAT IT DOES RELY ON THE SOVIET UNION

RESPECTING IF YOU LIKE THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. AND THERE'S NO EVIDENCE

THAT THEY EVER HAVE DONE SO. DO YOU THINK THAT'S A FAIR POINT?

Camm:

What I've tried to do in assessing the relative impact on the Soviet

nuclear planner of these alternative strategies is to try to put myself

in his place and say I want to attack central Europe. And what is the

circumstance that I would prefer the NATO alliance to present against

me... what confrontation would I rather have from them to succeed. Now

frankly, I'm not able to conceive of a circumstance that the Soviet

planners find it worth attacking. As long as they see that there's the

likelihood or the possibility that nuclear... it'll escalate the

nuclear war and whatever they're attacking can be destroyed to the

point of not only thats(?) attack whatever they're trying to cease is

destroyed, but also a good number of their forces and capabilities are

destroyed. I'm not able to... at this time to conceive of a situation

that's that grave that pushes them to that. After all, we chose not to

intervene in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Now if we had, maybe they would

be confronted with that as long as we don't push into their area, I'm

not able to conceive of a circumstance which they find it worth their

while to attack and take that risk of increasing nuclear weapons. On

the other hand if I'm a Soviet planner, and I'm not going to make one

great big massive attack which would bring this nuclear confrontation I

still want to knock the NATO allies down. I want to destroy their self

confidence. I want to reduce their cohesion. I might say well the best

way to do that is to nibble them to death. You know, let's grab a

little enclave here. Just dash across the border with some conventional

forces and cease a few hundred square miles here and what happens. And

the best way to do that is with my conventional forces. Now the

question is, would I be deterred more from trying that dash if I was

confronting a strong conventional capability that would make it hard

for me to make that in one dash than if I wasn't. You know, again it's

sort of like the football team.... football team that faces a very

strong front line has difficulty crossing that front line to get across

unless it has a great passing capability.

Interviewer:

...THE FACT THAT THE SOVIET UNION NEVER PLAYS GAMES. NOW THE FIRST HALF

OF YOUR ANSWER WAS FINE IN WHICH YOU SAY LISTEN, I CAN'T CONCEIVE OF

ANY SITUATION WHERE A SOVIET PLANNER OR GROUP OF PLANNERS WOULD BE

PREPARED TO RISK EVERYTHING WITH A MASSIVE ONSLAUGHT. BUT ON THE OTHER

HAND, IF I WANTED TO NIBBLE THEM TO DEATH...AND THEN YOU STARTED TO

TALK ABOUT THE ...CAN YOU JUST START AGAIN BY SAYING IF ON THE OTHER

HAND I WANTED TO NIBBLE THEM TO DEATH...I WOULD DO THIS...

Camm:

If as a Soviet planner, I wanted to nibble the NATO alliance to death

primarily either to reduce their self confidence or to create

dissension among the NATO allies as to how to respond, I could well

conceive setting up some sort of attack to grab a few square miles of

territory or something sufficient to slap them in the face and create

the issues among the various NATO allies about how to respond. And if I

have a good strong conventional capability I reach out and grab that if

there isn't much conventional capability against me. On the other hand,

if our NATO allies have a fairly strong conventional capability facing

me, it's a lot harder for me to guarantee that I can break through and

achieve that nibbling. And uh, the stronger that conventional defense

against me, the more I'm deterred from trying a conventional nibble.

Because if I tried it and didn't succeed, then just think I would be

the one who loses face rather than they.

Nuclear Weapons Supporting Flexible Response Doctrine

Interviewer:

NOW WHEN YOU WERE WITH THE PENTAGON EARLIER ON AT THE START OF YOUR

INVOLVEMENT WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE ARMY. IN A SENSE YOU WERE

TRYING TO GET MORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND SUFFICIENT NUCLEAR MATERIAL FOR

THE USE OF THE ARMY AND FOR THE ARMY TO ADOPT A NUCLEAR STRATEGY. WHEN

YOU WERE IN EUROPE AND YOU WERE TRYING TO IMPLEMENT THE DOCTRINE OF

FLEXIBLE RESPONSE, IN A SENSE YOU WERE ALMOST DOING THE REVERSE. DO YOU

ACTUALLY...WOULD YOU SAY THAT THERE WAS A CHANGE IN EMPHASIS OR CHANGE

IN YOUR VIEWS OR POLICY OVER THAT PERIOD?

Camm:

Someone could say that the fact that when I was in Europe I was arguing

for the conventional response was diam... diametrically different from

my earlier position when I was trying to get nuclear weapons for the

Army, get more of them. I don't consider to be different at all. The

flexible response puts main but not solo reliance on conventional

forces. But it, you can't operate it unless you've got some nuclear

weapons behind you to fall back on in case it fails. Back in the early

or mid-fifties when we were trying to get more nuclear weapons, we

didn't have enough nuclear weapons available to have any substantial

effect on the ground in Europe once the Soviets had a substantial

number of nuclear weapons. And to me, what we were doing, once we did

get enough nuclear weapons in the Army, to implement the nuclear

response if needed, then the flexible response was feasible. Until that

time we had to concentrate on having the nuclear response first.

Interviewer:

BASICALLY, WHO WAS DECIDING THE NUMBER OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO BE

DEPLOYED IN EUROPE? THE NUMBER OF TACTICAL NUKES THAT WERE GOING TO BE

THERE?

Camm:

The decision concerning how many tactical nuclear weapons should be

deploy...deployed to Europe, was based on a number of factors. Number

one, of course, was the number of Soviet forces, and how many targets

there would be. And the Army and the JCS were calculating this in all

many ways, and they were making recommendations to the Secretary of

Defense, and the President concerning how many weapons should be needed

to solve that problem. The second issue concerned how much nuclear

material there was. The Atomic Energy Commission was producing nuclear

weapons and producing only so much plutonium and uranium, and from that

there were only so many weapons of different sizes available. So the

decision makers had to take that into account. And for, well all during

the '50s I believe, it was that availability of critical nuclear

material that governed how many nuclear weapons for us. We couldn't get

enough to even partially meet the JCS demands. But beginning in the

early '60s the amount of material began to become more and more

available and the numbers of weapons, uh, available. Another aspect had

to do with what our NATO alliance wanted to do. The NATO ground forces,

which is what I was interfacing with, of course want to be with the

state of the art. The wanted to have nuclear weapons behind them as

well as us, so they were negotiating with the US, given numbers of

various types of ground nuclear weapons, and the total synthesis of

this was negotiated, uh, I guess at the Secretary of Defense level,

International Security Affairs offices, as an integration of these

various competing demands.

Interviewer:

DID YOU EVER GET THE FEELING THAT WAS AN ELEMENT OF OVERKILL ABOUT ALL

OF THIS? THAT ACTUALLY, IN THE END THERE WERE TOO MANY?

Camm:

It's my belief that the number of weapons that were actually built and

produced to cope with the demands in Europe, but not only in Europe, we

were also facing possible demands out in Korea particularly, were not

necessarily too many, uh, given the massive numbers of Soviet divisions

that faced us. On the other hand the number that we deployed to Europe,

if anything, if I were the master decision-maker I would probably have

deployed somewhat less, probably it made about the same number the US

kept them back here probably in sanctuary to be sent forward in a

limited nuclear war if it developed. If you have too many sitting in

Europe when the war starts, the enemy may be able to knock them out,

just hit a few of our nuclear storage depots in Europe, and take out

more than, than makes sense. So that we're less vulnerable having them

back here.

Interviewer:

THERE'S ONE OTHER QUESTION YOU ANSWERED UNFORTUNATELY WITHIN THE ANSWER

THE ANSWER TO ANOTHER QUESTION, AND I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU AGAIN, AND THAT

IS IN 1957, YOU GOT A VIEW OF THE STRATEGIC AIR FORCE'S PLANNING AND

STRATEGIC PLAN, WHAT DID YOU THINK IF THEM, WHAT WAS YOUR OPINION OF

THEM ONCE YOU BECAME AWARE OF THEM?

Camm:

Once I had reviewed the, uh, SAC plan, for the use of strategic nuclear

weapons, of course I was highly impressed with the professionalism of,

of the Air Force and the SAC planners. They're way ahead of the rest of

us, the Navy and the Army, in terms of nuclear planning back then

because they have the only...been the only people who had done that

planning. And for a while, of course, they felt they knew so much more

about it that they dominated, if you will, the JCS decision of how many

such weapons there should be in various categories. But after a while,

as we studied it further, uh, we in the Army concluded that if anything

they were dominating too much over the other services in terms of the

allocation of nuclear materials. And so we developed a special study

capability in the Army to study more carefully the needs of nuclear

weapons not only for the Army, but also for the Air Force and the Navy.

And once we concluded them, I don't think we were being too parochial,

but we did think that we should get a bit higher share than we were

getting.

Permissive Action Link to control use of Nuclear Weapons

Interviewer:

NOW, WHEN WE WERE TALKING, SETTING UP, YOU TALK ABOUT THE PROBLEM, SOME

OF THE PROBLEMS YOU HAD IN INTRODUCING THE PERMISSIVE ACTION LINKS, THE

(?), WHATEVER. AND WE DIDN'T QUITE COVER IT ADEQUATELY. DID YOU, WERE

YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR DESIGNING AND WORKING OUT SOME OF THOSE PERMISSIVE

ACTION LINKS, AND WHY DID YOU THINK THEY WERE NECESSARY? AND DID YOU

FEEL ALARMED BY PROBLEMS OF COMMAND AND CONTROL, OR DECISION-MAKING

PROCESSES?

Camm:

Yes, when the, uh, Kennedy administration came in, Secretary McNamara

and his people came in, and were asking, I think, very sound questions

about the military planned use of nuclear weapons, they began to

emphasize much more than we had before the need for control of nuclear

weapons, to be sure that the people, the troops who have the weapons in

their hands are ready to comply completely with the restrictions on

them for their use. And some technical devices call PAL, it's P-A-L,

Permissive Action Link, were developed which you could put on a nuclear

weapon, and the man who has a nuclear weapon to deliver, whether he's

an artillery-man or bomber or whatnot, uh, must dial in a certain code

number before it's activated and can be used. And the code number could

be put in the hands of the decision-maker, rather than the man on the

ground, and therefore the man on the ground couldn't use the weapons

until then. Uh, when this idea was first broached, an number of working

people in the field, the Army as well as the Air Force, the Navy,

didn't like the idea of having PALS injected on them. They said, You

know, we can be trusted." Uh, "We won't use the na..nuclear weapons

unless it's directed." Or alternatively they said, uh, "Suppose all of

our communications are knocked down, and it's clear to us that we're in

nuclear war with Soviet Union, but this particular unit which has

nuclear weapons can't use them because it doesn't have the

communication with its higher headquarters." We can have a breakdown

in, uh, our military effectiveness in that particular area. Now those

of us that were becoming more and more aware of the politic import of

nuclear weapons began to realize that we would have accept those

inefficiencies if necessary, in order to be sure the command authority

was absolutely certain that nuclear weapons deployed out in the field

would not go off until they were directed to be going off. And probably

the convincing argument had to do not with whether or not our own

troops who had custody of the weapons would set them off at the wrong

time, but really more about what happens if a terrorist group succeeds

in grabbing some of our weapons. We want to be sure that they can't use

those weapons. They don't have the PAL code, they can't set 'em off.

And so over time we began to get the people on the ground to realize

that it was better and probab; guaranteed better access by them to our

nuclear weapons in the field if they had PAL systems than if they

didn't because the higher-ups might cause those weapons to be pulled

back to more central control if they didn't have PAL systems on them.

Interviewer:

WAS THAT MORE OF A PROBLEM, I MEAN DID YOU GET THAT RESISTANCE,

PERHAPS, FROM SOME OF THE ALLIED FORCES IN NATO, WHO WERE DETERMINED,

DEPENDENT UPON THAT COMMUNICATION WITH THE UNITED STATES TO BE ABLE TO

MAKE THAT WEAPON EFFICIENT, AND CAPABLE OF BEING USED?

Camm:

I don't remember our lives being concerned about PAL at all. The, um,

US custodians of nuclear weapons in their hands that were supporting

our NATO allies, had to be in communication with their US authorities,

and if that communication broke, we wouldn't want to allow some

lieutenants and captains to be making that US decision. So I don't

think our NATO allies were concerned about it. This is really more in

terms of a US problem, I believe.

[END OF TAPE C06065 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Frank Camm, 1987

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-542j678z9s

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Description

Credits: Interviewee2: Camm, Frank A., 1949-
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 6f706abb8e120710b4a29f2bc21572c253e940e9 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Camm, 1987,” 1986-12-12, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed January 15, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-542j678z9s.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Camm, 1987.” 1986-12-12. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. January 15, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-542j678z9s>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Camm, 1987. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-542j678z9s