Single Integrated Operational Plan - History - Early Targeting After The Second World War - Truman

Truman

Strategic nuclear strike plans were developed during the immediate post-World War II period, when Soviet conventional forces in Europe greatly outnumbered the West's. While the United States was the only nation with the atomic bomb, in 1946 it had only 17 Silverplate B-29 bombers and 11 atomic bombs. Many early American war plans were based on using hundreds of atomic bombs, but the bombs were not available; for example, an autumn 1945 plan envisioned using 196 atomic bombs on Soviet industrial targets, but SAC could not deliver such quantities until 1952. The bombs were of the Mark 3 type, weighing five tons and requiring 39 men two days to assemble. The press reported that "atomic-capable" B-29s were deployed to Britain in mid-1948 during the Berlin Blockade, by which time the US possessed about 50 atomic weapons. The Soviets likely knew through espionage, however, that none of the aircraft was a Silverplate; rather, they would have been used as part of plan DOUBLEQUICK, involving World War II-like sustained conventional bombing raids on Soviet air bases in Eastern Europe.

Strategic bombing during World War II of key transportation and energy sites was more effective than attacking cities, and early postwar non-nuclear war plans envisioned focusing on the Soviet petroleum industry. US war planners lacked updated maps of the USSR, however, and had to use pre-World War II maps—some older than the Russian Revolution—or perhaps German aerial photos from the war. Due in part to the lack of updated intelligence nuclear planning increasingly focused on urban areas, which were easier to target and offered the potential for "bonus damage". The early Plan Totality targeted 20 cities with the 30 nuclear bombs then available. Plan BROILER (November 1947) envisioned 34 bombs on 24 Soviet cities. It and later plans such as HALFMOON (May 1948; 50 bombs on 20 cities) and OFFTACKLE (December 1949; 104 urban targets, 220 bombs, 72 more reserved for followup attacks) envisioned Western forces in Europe slowly retreating while the United Kingdom was reinforced as an air base for atomic attacks on the Soviet Union. President Harry S. Truman hoped for an international ban on atomic weapons and believed that the American people would not support their use for "aggressive purposes", and ordered JCS to devise a plan for conventional war; however, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in July 1948 ordered them to stop and resume atomic war planning due to the Berlin crisis.

Officials were pessimistic about the effectiveness of the atomic plans, however. Britain's 1948 SPEEDWAY plan assumed that the Soviets would not have atomic weapons, but nonetheless forecast that the west could not "withstand a Russian advance in Western Europe, even with the full defence co-operation of the Western Powers", including 560 American and British atomic-capable bombers. The American TROJAN (December 1948) envisioned 133 bombs (although only 50 existed) hitting 70 cities. A committee led by General Hubert R. Harmon reported in May 1949 that even if all precisely hit their targets, the USSR would not surrender, its leadership would not be seriously weakened, and its military could still operate in Western Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The attacks would reduce Soviet industrial capacity by 30 to 40%, but only temporarily without followup attacks. The Harmon report had three immediate results: 1) It supported those within the United States Navy and elsewhere who criticized the centrality of atomic bombs and mass attacks on cities in American war planning. 2) It led to a substantial rise in nuclear-weapons production. 3) It caused the Joint Chiefs of Staff to, in fall 1949, assign SAC with the duty of slowing a Soviet invasion of Western Europe as part of NATO. The imbalance in forces was so great, nonetheless, that American planners feared that even Britain would have to be abandoned during the invasion, a possibility they did not discuss with their British counterparts.

The Soviet Union tested its first atomic weapon in 1949. By this time Truman was pessimistic about international arms control and told his advisors "Since we can't obtain international control we must be strongest in atomic weapons." He approved the Harmon report's recommendation for increased weapons production, and approved another increase soon after the start of the Korean War in summer 1950. JCS decided to emphasize "the destruction of known targets affecting the Soviet capability to deliver atomic bombs", with refineries, chemical and power plants, and shipyards as secondary and tertiary targets. The three categories were codenamed BRAVO (blunting), ROMEO (retardation), and DELTA (disruption/destruction) of the Soviet ability to fight, and formed the basis of American nuclear targeting for almost a decade. When military theorist Bernard Brodie studied the resulting target list, however, he strongly criticized the planners' ignorance of actual Soviet military capacity and resulting failure to estimate what effect the attacks would have. Brodie later recalled that "There was no calculated strategy for destroying Soviet capability to make war. The planners "simply expected the Soviet Union 'to collapse' as a result of the bombing campaign.... People kept talking about the 'Sunday punch'." He recommended that targets be chosen based on analysis of the results of their destruction, and that "city-avoidance" strategies be studied. Brodie presented his report in April 1951, but JCS found SAC head LeMay more persuasive. LeMay objected to the list because of the difficulty of attacking isolated targets and the requirement for pre-attack reconnaissance for many of them. He preferred attacking industrial targets in urban areas so that even if a bomb missed, "a bonus will be derived from the use of the bomb". The target panel agreed to have SAC review future target lists before sending them to JCS.