History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons 1945-1977

Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons July 1945 Through September 1977, February 1978, Top Secret, Excised copy, Excerpt

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An excised table in a Department of Defense history provides the starting years for of U.S. nuclear deployments in the NATO countries. The names of the countries are excised, except for the United Kingdom and West Germany, but the alphabetical order of the list makes it possible to identify Turkey, right before the United Kingdom. As Italy and Turkey were the only deployment sites for Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), the identification of Turkey is a certainty. Besides the Jupiters, deployed during 1961-1963, the United States also deployed gravity bombs beginning in February 1959, Honest John missiles in May 1959, and 8-inch Howitzers in June 1965.

This report, released by the Defense Department in excised form in 1999, provided the first detailed information about the scope of overseas U.S. nuclear weapons deployments during the Cold War. William Arkin, Robert S. Norris, and this writer used the details to fill in the excised blanks and identify each country where nuclear weapons were deployed. An article in the November—December 1999 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Where They Were and a follow-up, “How Much Did Japan Know” in the January-February 2000 issue, reported on the findings.

Source:

Freedom of Information Act request

Link:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/19675-national-security-archive-doc-01-office

Internal Link:

https://surinamepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/History-of-the-Custody-and-Deployment-of-Nuclear-Weapons-July-1945-Through-September-1977.pdf

Date:
February 1, 1978
Categories:
Nuclear Warfare, Nuclear Weapons “on Dutch soil”
Tags:
Boxes:
DoD
Years:
1978
Persons:
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