Stockpile: The Story Behind 10,000 Strategic Nuclear Weapons

by Estate of Gerald E. Miller

In 1960 there were some 3,500 strategic nuclear weapons in the United States and by the mid-1970s there were more than 10,000. This book, written by a member of the U.S. nuclear weapons force, gives an account of that buildup and the efforts taken to keep the stockpile under control. Jerry Miller highlights the strategies, targeting and attack plans, and arms control measures associated with the bomb. He addresses the role of the military in establishing requirements and the role of the scientists in meeting those requirements and identifies the weapons' strengths and weaknesses and their significance for the future. A final chapter reviews threat scenarios and suggests actions to bring the nuclear force into line.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2010

Reviews

[Tech Historian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it for the "I was there" part.

Stockpile is worth reading if you skip the first three chapters and read it in conjunction with the George Washington University National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 130 - The Creation of SIOP-62 -'More Evidence on the Origins of Overkill.

One of the great things about books written by people "who were there" is that you get their unvarnished opinion and an eyewitness perspective. One of the downsides is that unless they've had a second career as an academic or researcher, you get a lot of opinion, hearsay and misinformation and a very narrow point of view. All of us who lived through the Cold War had our opinions shaped by our culture of the time. The problem is that a great deal of what we believed in the 1950's through 1990's motivated the Soviets was simply wrong. (Some was worse than we thought, some better and some we're still shaking our head over.) One of the overall problems with chapters 1-3 is that author simply blurs his "I was at SAC headquarters for awhile" with "here's what was going on for the last 50 years." (The vice admiral went on to have a distinguished career as commander of the Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets, but it would have been helpful to have a short bio to understand when and how long he was at the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff at Strategic Air Command Headquarters.)

Given his time at SAC I was also surprised about his high praise of Air Force Intelligence at the expense of trashing the NRO along with the CIA and NSA's contributions. Not to belittle Air Force Intelligence, (it produced a great product) but it had many sources. SAC's radar order of battle, ICBM penaid strategy and national means of technical verification weren't discovered by the good fairy, nor were they discovered by the ELINT flights on the periphery of the Soviet bloc.

His comments about the invulnerability of our Tridents on Ohio-class boats in the late 70's until the fall of the Soviet Union also seem to a few decades out of date - probably true when he was around for the Lafayette-class Poseidon - it may not have been accurate post the Walker spy ring. Given the current state of the Soviet Navy one can speculate they may once again be our must invulnerable leg of the triad.

The other thing that surprised me is the authors lack of curiosity. It's two decades since the Cold War ended. A significant amount of information has since been published about Soviet thinking about nuclear weapons. Yet other than a reference to the great tennis forehand of an ex Soviet general staffer he met at a conference, there are no references to what the Soviets were doing and thinking. None. The notes as references are embarrassingly sparse. Not a single reference to any Soviet literature. Wasn't the author even curious?

Stockpile's value is when the author talks about his personal experience in developing targeting for the SIOP (the operational war plan in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.) His insight about why the stockpile of weapons kept on growing, and why the targeting list kept on expanding is priceless from an "I was there" perspective. But without dates and even a cursory job description it's hard to separate out his contributions at SAC from the comments of others who assembled the first SIOP. (The GWU archive - Briefing Book No. 130 - The Creation of SIOP-62 -"More Evidence on the Origins of Overkill" - has source material on the subject unmentioned by the author.)

Chapter 5, counter-value versus counter-force was the best explanation of the evolution of the policy I've read in awhile. His observations of the battles of the interservice battles in making the Navy's SLBM count, and his comments about the disconnect between civilian policy planners and their military counterparts (along with Chapter 12 the Politicians,) were worth the price of the book. Finally, I was pleasantly surprised to find his views about "secrecy" to parallel Daniel Patrick Moynihan's and Chuck Hansen's!. Something sadly lacking in our current government.

His comments about "hedges" in Chapter 14 "Arms Control" doesn't mention the Soviets ultimate hedge during the Cold War - their biowarfare program which loaded SS-18's with weaponized Anthrax. While we were negotiating nukes and they had an ace up their sleeve (which violated a major arms control treaty they had signed.) Not a single player in the Arms Control negotiating team has had the courage to say "we were taken at the poker table." His observations about "unilateral actions" versus treaty reductions were a great reminder of how we need to be master of our own strategy. The Chapter 15 discussion about alternatives past the sacred triad were helpful.

Summary: Worth having on your shelf. One star for chapters 1-3, Four stars for Chapters 4-15

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a disappointing book. Is less an objective study and history of nuclear war policy than it is a personal memoir of the author's career in the navy, supplemented by his personal thoughts on nuclear issues. The book's value is in these personal recollections of the early development of strategic nuclear planning. Miller was, in the fifties and sixties, part of an interservice group that developed the SIOP, the detailed operational war plan to be used in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union - in particular, he worked on the list of targets for the nuclear bombs. The main emphasis of the book is his account of his work on this list. This is quite informative, revelatory, worth reading, but the book's true interest is in his struggle to explain how sane people could have once rationally planned to explode ten thousand nuclear bombs, thousands of them of megaton strength, on specific targets, thus turning whole countries into radioactive waste, not just Russia but all the countries allied with it, Poland, Czechoslovakia, China, etc., killing hundreds of millions of men, women, and children, who may or not be "at war" with us, killing them "just to be safe". Such madness needs an explanation, and Miller does provide reasons why the stockpile of weapons kept on growing, why the targeting list kept on expanding - not particularly good reasons - e.g., that it was the result of interservice rivalry or of the desire to increase reliability of deterrence, or to increase "the probability of target destruction", or to increase the "assurance of target destruction" (to turn the rubble to dust) - or, more simply, that it was the result of simplistic thinking, that "more is better", "better to be safe than sorry", etc. But even Miller personally has trouble understanding how the overall plan, the SIOP, was allowed to expand to such apocalyptic, world-ending dimensions - trouble understanding how such a plan could have remained "operational" for decades without anyone questioning the feasibility of its implementation, or its utility in serving any real military end, or, especially, without anyone questioning its morality. His struggle with this is worth reading. His reflections on current nuclear policy is much less so. They betray a real bias, a particular mindset. His thinking is always that of the military. Miller, for better or worse, is loyal. Has a real loyalty to the navy - loyalty to his military superiors - never criticizes the people he served under - not even the air force general Curtis LeMay who originally developed the SIOP, and who was, despite his honorable service in WWII, by this time a loose cannon, a man who far too often expressed a desire to nuke the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Cubans. Miller is silent about all this. Never writes not a critical word about LeMay. And Miller is a loyal Republican. Writes not one critical word about a Republican president. Extols Reagan for "winning the Cold War" - for winning it by his "star wars" initiative - but never mentions that Reagan's reckless belligerence in 1982 (the repeated violations of Russian airspace, the "testing" of its radar defenses, the war rhetoric, etc.) almost launched an accidental nuclear war - that create a much greater possibility of war than did the Cuban Missile Crisis, one that was the closest that the world ever came to a nuclear exchange - came so close that when Reagan learned how nearly he had provoked a nuclear war, he was scared enough to become an arms control convert. This incident is not mentioned by the author. In fact, for Miller, all Republicans are just wonderful on the nuclear issue, trustworthy - Democrats much less so. Sadly, this book is not objective, disinterested history, nor nuclear policy. Miller served honorably as a naval officer in WWII in the Pacific, retired from the Navy as an admiral in the early seventies. Since then he has been a consultant for the Pentagon, Congress, Corporations and various foundations with an interest in the nuclear policy. And some of his thinking is quite sound - i.e. the need to abandon the "untouchable" Triad policy, for a more realistic Dyad. But his political and military loyalties, his bias, are disturbing. They mar the credibility of the book. For proof, consider that in this book he compliments Arizona's Senator Kyle as being "an expert" on nuclear issues - this is the same senator who held up the ratification of the recent START theory just to deny Obama a legislative success. Additionally Miller praises, by name even, "Fox News Contributor" Frank Gaffney for his nuclear policy/arms control "expertise", the same Frank Gaffney who is now leading "the fight" against Shariah Law taking over America. Good Grief.

[Phillip Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the author provides new, inside information on the development of the US nuclear arsenal, this book is unfortunately a highly biased work, both in terms of assuming what an appropriate size arsenal is and, more significantly, in advancing a US submarine force roles & force arguement.

[Nick Black]

erp, this one looks kinda dubious.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by someone on the inside. Lots of discussion on WHY the arsenal got so large - when it wasnt needed. Love his perspective. Very repetitive though.

[Daniel Bradford]

This was a very moving story written by my former commanding officer. He clearly conveys realization of the threat that we are under. Although highly technical in subject matter, the book is a compelling read!