Washington,
D.C., 27 October 2004
- The recent passing of Paul Nitze at the
age of 97 has brought forth the expected array of obituaries,
retrospectives and assessments of his lengthy and often controversial
career, in the process turning people's minds back to an era when
superpower rivalry and the threat of nuclear annihilation hung
over the world as the United States and Russia engaged in what
John F. Kennedy termed the long, twilight struggle. As the many
obituaries that have appeared since his death detail, Nitze's
life in public service, following a successful early career as
a Wall Street financier, placed him at the center of practically
every significant decision or debate about U.S. Cold War strategy
and nuclear weapons policies, though not always at the highest
levels. As his memoir, titled From Hiroshima to Glasnost,
underscores, this career stretched from his work with the World
War II Strategic Bombing Survey, which placed him in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki soon after the atomic bombs were dropped, to his
negotiations with the Soviets on intermediate nuclear forces under
Reagan. His commitment to rigorous analysis and advocacy of what
he saw as the logical consequences of this analysis in strategic
planning and arms control negotiations often put him at odds with
colleagues as well as his adversaries and critics, who saw his
assessments as biased towards worst-case scenarios. Both Nitze's
memoir and his biographers have detailed the history of his often
contentious battles, inside and outside of government, whenever
he believed that U.S. was pursuing ill-advised and even dangerous
policies with respect to fielding the necessary levels and proper
mix of military forces both conventional and nuclear, and pursuing
arms control agreements with the USSR.
Nitze's refusal to be pigeon-holed with any one party or side
in a policy debate often led observers and critics to argue he
was at best contradictory in his positions, at worst cynically
partisan in his critiques (a "flip-flopper" in current
usage), though he would hold that his positions were always founded
upon rational analysis of the facts, not emotional attachment
to ideological positions. In hindsight, the record suggests that,
while U.S. military might had to be both effective and usable
to provide a viable deterrent in his view, Nitze's longer-term
objective was to build up in order to build down through carefully
crafted arms control agreements. For Nitze, God (or more often
the Devil) was in the details on both sides of this process, and,
as he stressed in his assessment of the pros and cons of anti-missile
defense systems, often the critical question was whether the weapons
system, or the proposed policy, was cost-effective at the margin.
(Note 1)
In his 1988 biography of Paul Nitze, Strobe Talbott, the author
of numerous books on U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations and
later Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, draws a parallel
between Nitze and the protagonist of Herman Hesse's novel Magister
Ludi, or The Glass Bead Game, which centers on the
arcane and highly complex game of the title that requires a lifetime
of study to master its intricate interplay of musical and mathematical
forms. It was an apt analogy, given that Nitze's life work was
devoted to tackling and mastering the equally arcane, complex
and daunting challenges posed by the introduction of nuclear weapons
into the arsenals and strategic calculations of the United States
and its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union (not to mention his personal
search for understanding of Bach). As Talbott discusses, for Nitze
these weapons introduced a new reality in terms of strategic vulnerability
for the United States, but also offered tools for addressing this
situation, if only the requisite intellectual power was brought
to bear upon determining how these weapons could be harnessed
to America's political and strategic interests and goals. (Note
2)
For Nitze, the emphasis upon the need for dispassionate, objective
analysis of nuclear weapons capabilities and the development of
both military plans and diplomatic policies built upon these analyses
would be the constant motif of his thinking on these issues. To
this end, Nitze became the undisputed master of his game, with
a grasp of the technological and operational aspects of nuclear
planning. For some, this might be seen as the logical next step
in the development of U.S. deterrence policy, once his predecessor
George Kennan had established the political and economic thrusts
of America's postwar response to the Soviet threat. As historian
Gregg Herken, author of The Winning Weapon and Counsels
of War, puts it, "while George Kennan laid out the grand
strategy for containment, it was Paul Nitze who determined how
that strategy would be carried out--by containing the Soviet Union
with the threat of nuclear weapons." For Kennan, however,
Nitze was guilty of a severe distortion and misapplication of
the policy he had outlined, and the diplomat denounced Nitze for
"militarizing" containment.
As Fred Kaplan, author of The Wizards of Armageddon,
notes in his Slate obituary on Nitze (Note 3),
Nitze's legacy can be viewed as providing the intellectual and
policy basis for the rise of America as a global superpower after
World War II, a status that was founded primarily upon America's
nuclear might, which created nightmarish dilemmas for the country's
leaders and its people. Kaplan cites documents with which Nitze
is closely tied that illustrate his central role in defining the
Cold War's strategic dilemmas and laying out the logical (in his
view) solutions to these dilemmas. Only one of these, NSC 68,
is easily available online. (Note 4) In order
to provide an inside look at Nitze's career and the range of events
and issues with which he was engaged, the National Security Archive
is posting on the Web a selection of other declassified documents
dating from his time as head of the Policy Planning Staff under
Truman to his work for Reagan on arms control matters. (Note
5) As the document descriptions below detail, Nitze's involvement
in nuclear weapons policies included delicate questions of U.S.
obligations to consult with allies before the use of nuclear weapons,
his role in drafting the Gaither Report that criticized Eisenhower's
military policies and made the case for an emerging "missile
gap" with the Soviet Union, his discussions with NATO allies
on military planning to defend West Berlin against a Soviet attack,
his participation in the SALT I negotiations, his central role
in spearheading criticism of the arms control policies of Ford
and Carter, and his position as negotiator, presidential advisor
and "éminence grise" on arms control issues during
the Reagan administration. All in all, it is a remarkable record
of determined and unflagging engagement publicly and behind the
closed doors of government with the key problem of the Cold War
era: how to respond rationally to the fact of nuclear weapons
without giving in to either despair or unfounded optimism about
the security dilemmas they created. The wisdom of his responses
and the impact they had upon U.S. and Cold War history are issues
that will likely be the focus of historical study and debate for
some time, as the records of the era are opened to scrutiny.
Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
Document
1: U.S. Department of State, Memorandum from Under Secretary for
Political Affairs to Secretary of State, "Summary of Discussion
Between Sir Oliver Franks, Air Marshall Sir William Elliott, General
Bradley, Messrs. Nitze and Matthews," 13 September 1951
Source: National Archives, Record Group 59, Department
of State Decimal Files, 1950-1954. 711.5611/9-1351
During most of Truman's second term, Nitze served as director
of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, taking over from
his predecessor, George F. Kennan. At PPS, Nitze had a range of
duties, some of which included producing major strategic assessments
that followed up on NSC 68. As indicated by this document, he
also worked on nuclear weapons policy issues. During this meeting,
he and top U.S. officials met with their British counterparts
to discuss one of the most sensitive alliance issues, the problem
of nuclear weapons use. With East-West tensions worsening largely
because of the Korean situation, the British, as now a close ally,
worried that the United States would precipitately use nuclear
weapons against North Korea or China. While top British officials
sought assurances that Washington would consult London before
making a nuclear use decision, Nitze and his colleagues were unwilling
to make any commitments in advance.
Document
2: U.S. Office of Defense Mobilization, Science Advisory Committee,
Security Resources Panel, "Deterrence and Survival in the
Nuclear Age," 7 November 1957 ["Gaither Report"]
Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Special Assistant
to the President for National Security Affairs, National Security
Council Series. Policy Papers Sub-Series, box 22, National Security
Council Files 5724 (2)
Out of government during the Eisenhower administration, Nitze
remained active in foreign affairs issues through his involvement
in the Council on Foreign Relations and the School for Advanced
International Studies (SAIS), which he had helped found, among
other activities. He emerged as a sharp critic of Eisenhower's
tight military budget policies. This document, generally known
as the Gaither Report--after H. Rowland Gaither, the chairman
of the Security Resources Panel--played an important role in raising
concerns about an alleged missile gap and mobilizing support for
a U.S. ICBM buildup, during Eisenhower's second term. While not
a senior member of the Gaither panel, Paul Nitze played a key
role in drafting the report and, as Fred Kaplan recently suggested,
it, like NSC 68, was "another barn-burner." President
Eisenhower discounted the report but the substance leaked to the
press and initiated considerable agitation in Congress and elsewhere
about the U.S. strategic position and calls for higher levels
of military spending.
For
an early and highly informative study of the Gaither report,
see Morton Halperin's "The Gaither Committee and the Policy
Process," World Politics, April 1961. Nitze was
a key source of information for Halperin’s article, which
showed so much inside knowledge that it upset some of the committee
members. (Communication from Morton Halperin, 27 October 2004)
Document
3: Speech by Paul Nitze before World Affairs Council of Milwaukee,
"Conditions for a German Settlement," 21 February 1959
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Department of
State Decimal Files, 1955-1959, 762.00/3-1759
In the wake of a note on the Berlin question, which the Soviet
Union sent the Western powers in November 1958, the United States
and its closest European allies wondered whether Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev would initiate a major crisis over the status
of West Berlin. In this speech, Nitze reviews the post-World War
II debates over the future of Germany, including George Kennan's
"Plan A," assesses Soviet intentions, and mulls over
the political and military options available to the Allies in
the event of a military crisis. Nitze believed that the situation
was serious and in early 1959 saw "little prospect of weaving
through the next twelve months without war and without the surrender
of Berlin, unless we combine firmness with great discretion."
While supporting a firm stand, Nitze saw a great risk of nuclear
weapons use, which he believed had to be "avoided at all
costs."
Document
4: Memorandum for the Record, "Debriefing by Assistant Secretary
DOD/ISA Paul H. Nitze on Recent European Trip," 20 December
1961
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Politico-Military Affairs Combined Policy Office
Subject File 1961-1966, box 4
An early supporter of John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign,
Nitze was offered several job possibilities after the election.
One was assistant to the president for national security affairs;
the other was assistant secretary of defense for international
security affairs. Not realizing how important the White House
job could be, Nitze instead chose the position at ISA, then called
the "little State Department" because of its many diplomatic
responsibilities (overseas base agreements, military assistance,
etc.). With another Berlin crisis unfolding, Nitze became especially
heavily involved in European defense issues. This memorandum,
prepared by State Department official Seymour Weiss, reviews the
wide range of issues that Nitze and the Pentagon covered during
recent defense talks in France and Germany. Issues included planning
by the British Army on the Rhine (BAOR), plans for the deployment
of medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), military plans by
NATO's Allied Command Europe (ACE), discussions with the British
on the Skybolt air-to-surface missile, the recent NATO meeting
in Paris, and a controversy with West German defense minister
Strauss over U.S. nuclear weapons-sharing arrangements for West
German fighter jets, such as the 104G. A recurring issue was control
over nuclear weapons. The discussion concluded with a review of
discussions with Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Lauris
Norstad over military planning for a Berlin crisis. One of the
original planning documents was called the "Horse Blanket"
because its many contingencies and options were described on a
very large piece of paper. The scaled-down version, with fewer
options, on a smaller piece of paper was called "Poodle Blanket."
Document
5: Minutes, Meeting of Military Subgroup, Washington Ambassadorial
Group 3:00 PM, July 30, 1962
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Bureau of European
Affairs, Office of German Affairs, Records Relating to Berlin,
1957-1963, box 5, Berlin-Military Sub-Group 1961-63
In his role as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs Nitze chaired the Military Subgroup of the Washington
Ambassadorial Group representing the three occupying Western powers
in West Berlin, the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France, but
also West Germany (because of its direct interest in the Berlin
problem). During the summer of 1962, amidst growing concern about
the possibility that East-West tensions might worsen, Nitze's
committee looked closely at military plans. Here they reviewed
a British paper on the phases of Berlin military operations, a
possible role for nuclear weapons use, such a "demonstration"
shot, in a conflict; and the possibility of limited war at sea.
While the Germans were interested in plans for selective use of
nuclear weapons, Nitze was especially concerned about the danger
of a preemptive war and uncontrolled nuclear use.
Document
6: Interview with Secretary of the Navy Nitze by Alfred Goldberg,
RAND Corporation, June 15, 1966
Source: Library of Congress, Paul H. Nitze Papers,
box 13C, Nitze, Paul H., Interview with A. Goldberg, RAND, August
1966
In this interview with Alfred Goldberg (who later became chief
historian, Office of Secretary of Defense), Nitze focuses on his
role in strategic bombardment issues, beginning with World War
II, especially his thinking during the late 1950s and early 1960s
about the possibility of a counterforce nuclear strategy.
Document
7: U.S. Embassy Helsinki Cable 1454 to Department of State, "Thinkpiece
Re Present Position of Preliminary SALT," 1 December 1969,
Excerpt
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Policy Planning
Council Records, Miscellaneous Records, 1959-1972, box 296, SALT
Helsinki Cables
In the last years of the Johnson administration, Nitze rose to
the post of Deputy Secretary of Defense, which post he left when
Nixon came to power. Recognizing Nitze's influence and expertise,
when the new administration assembled a delegation for the Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), it kept him on its side by bringing
him into the SALT negotiations as a representative of the Defense
Department. At the head of the delegation was Gerard C. Smith,
who played a dual role as director of the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency. Soon after the preliminary talks began at Helsinki, Nitze
joined other delegates in sending "thinkpieces" assessing
areas where U.S. and Soviet interests converged and diverged,
possible scope of an agreement, and Soviet negotiating tactics.
Document
8: Seymour Weiss memorandum to Under Secretary of State Elliot
L. Richardson, "SALT: Luncheon Discussion with Paul Nitze
and Gardiner Tucker," 15 January 1970, with cover memos attached
Source: Record Group 59, Records of the Department
of State, Policy Planning Council Records, Miscellaneous Records,
1959-1972, box 298, SALT January 1970
As part of the permanent State Department bureaucracy, Seymour
Weiss had developed his own sources of information at the Pentagon
and, of course, had worked with Nitze in the past (see document
4). Here Nitze and Gardiner Tucker, the recently-appointed Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis, review a number of
SALT issues, including the form of a possible agreement, proposals
to ban multiple independently- targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs),
and the status of anti-ballistic missiles, among other problems.
Of particular interest is the discussion of a proposed ban on
testing MIRVs, which Nitze and Tucker rejected, and the differences
between Nitze and Tucker over an ABM agreement, with Nitze and
Tucker debating the merits of an agreement on minimum, even "zero,"
deployment. While Henry Kissinger would later regret publicly
that the United States had not sought a MIRV ban, it is evident
that Nitze and Tucker were among those at the Pentagon who were
reluctant to see any restrictions on U.S. freedom of action to
deploy MIRVs. On ABM deployments, however, Nitze was less of a
hard-liner on an agreement to limit them sharply.
Document
9: Paul Nitze, "Friday, 26 May 1972 U.S. SALT Delegation,"
29 May 1972
Source: Library of Congress, Paul Nitze Papers,
box 27A, unlabelled file
Here Nitze provides a blow-by-blow and often amusing account
of the frenzied activity, on the eve of the Moscow summit between
Nixon and Brezhnev, which produced the final SALT agreements on
the brink of the signing ceremony in the Kremlin. While Smith,
Nitze and other members of the SALT team had played a key role
in negotiating the agreements, they got "no respect"
after arriving in Moscow to complete the paperwork and attend
the signing. The Nixon White House, which had little interest
in sharing credit with the negotiators, had even less interest
in their care and feeding; in Nitze's account negotiators were
left to fend for themselves in sometimes bizarre circumstances.
Document
10: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, "Intelligence Community
Experiment in Competitive Analysis, Soviet Strategic Objectives
an Alternative View, Report of Team 'B,'" December 1976
Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 263,
Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence
Estimates Files
In the last few years of Kissinger's tenure in government, Nixon/Ford
détente policies experienced strong criticism from Republicans
on the right, led by Ronald Reagan, as well as from some liberal
democrats and former socialists. Some of these tendencies began
to crystallize into what later became known as "neo-conservatism."
Reflecting the failure or the inability of the Ford administration
to build a national consensus in favor of détente, critics
of détente in and out of government began to take on the
National Intelligence Estimates, arguing that they consistently
underestimated the severity of the Soviet military threat to the
United States. Conservatives on the President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board (PFIAB) asked DCI George H.W. Bush to establish
a special panel to assess the NIEs and develop an alternative
analysis. Headed by Harvard Sovietologist Richard Pipes, the Team
B panel included Paul Nitze, who played an active part. Other
participants were Seymour Weiss and Paul Wolfowitz. Given Team
B's ominous assumptions about Soviet intentions and capabilities,
Raymond Garthoff later argued, "it [was] not surprising that
it came up with more ominous findings." After Ford and Kissinger
left office Nitze continued to play a role as a critic by helping
to establish the Committee for the Present Danger, which brought
together "neo-cons" and Republican conservatives, a
number of whom would work for the Reagan administration four years
later.
Documents
11 a and b: Nitze and Reagan Administration Arms Control Debates
11a: Nicholas Platt, Executive
Secretary, State Department to National Security Adviser Robert
C. McFarlane, circa 23 September 1985
11b: Paul Nitze, Special
Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State on Arms Control
Matters, Memorandum for the Record, "Secretary Shultz and
Mr. Shevardnadze's Meeting September 25, 1985," September
26, 1985
Source: State Department FOIA release
For his contribution to the arms control diplomacy of the Reagan
administration, Nitze was best known for his famous "walk
in the woods" that led to the agreement with the Soviets
on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF). So far the record
of that episode remains classified, but documents on other aspects
of Nitze's official role during the Reagan years have been released.
A central issue was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program
and the ways and means to reconcile it with the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, which Nitze had helped negotiate. These documents
show some of the internal conflicts in the Reagan administration
over the interpretation over the ABM Treaty, for example, "Agreed
Statement D" which required consultations if either of the
signatories sought to deploy systems using "other physical
principles"-such as futuristic laser weapons-than those currently
in use. In his memorandum, Platt mentioned Nitze as supporting
the State Department's view that the Pentagon's interpretation
of the statement was "misleading" and that a decision
to reinterpret it "would be viewed as a cynical effort to
change the rules mid-game." In the other memorandum, Nitze
recounts his and Secretary Shultz's discussions with Soviet diplomats
on space weapons (including ASAT/anti-satellite weapons, ABM treaty
interpretations, and a ban on ship-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs).
NOTES
1. It is an interesting comment on Nitze's sense
of priorities that after leaving government service, and the end
of the Cold War, Nitze turned his attention to environmental problems
as the issue most pressing and worthy of his time and energies.
2. Strobe Talbott, The Master of the Game:
Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace (Alfred A. Knopf, New York,
1988), pp. 14-15. Another biography of Nitze is David Callahan,
Dangerous Capabilities: Paul Nitze and the Cold War (Harper
& Row, New York, 1990). Also essential is Nitze's autobiography,
From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision - A
Memoir (with Ann M. Smith and Steven L. Rearden) (Grove Weidenfeld,
New York, 1989).
3. Fred Kaplan, "Paul Nitze: The man who
brought us the Cold War," Slate, October 21, 2004,
available at <http://slate.msn.com/id/2108510/>.
4. The text of NSC 68, perhaps the key and defining
statement of U.S. Cold War strategy, can be found on the Federation
of American Scientists website, at <http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm>.
5. In addition to these documents, the reader
should consult these sources for additional documents bearing
on Nitze's role in Cold War policy-making: The Foreign Relations
of the United States series, published by the Department
of State, especially those dealing with national security policy
or arms control, for the Truman administrations and later; and
The Presidential Recordings - John F. Kennedy: The Great Crises
(3 volumes), general editors Philip Zelikow and Ernest May (W.W.
Norton & Company, New York, 2001), in particular volumes 2
and 3, which cover the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which Nitze played
a key role as a member of the Executive Committee established
by Kennedy to decide the U.S. response to the Soviet deployment
of nuclear-capable missiles to Cuba.