Originally Created 20 MAR 2009
Revised 25 OCT 2021

SECRET U.S. NAVY EYES ONLY
TO : Op-00

Op-06C2/cb
Ser: BM 00202-60
DATE: 1 NOV 1960

FROM : Op-06C

SUBJECT: Army participation in the NSTL/SIOP

Encl: (1) Precis

1. The attached precis' is submitted in response to your request of this morning.

2. The paper points up areas of vital Army interest in the NSTL/ SIOP development. We have been forced by the SIOP rush schedule and the fragmentary availability of information to rely on considerably less than complete documentation. We are confident, however, of the general validity of what is stated. It is my hope that Army response will indicate further means for achieving active and cooperative action by the Army and Navy in the development, review and management of the SIOP.

Very respectfully,
/S/
PAUL P. BLACKBURN, Jr

Copy to:
Op-09
Op-06

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PRECIS'

Points relating to NSTL/SIOP which make a case for full aggressive Army participation in the JSTPS and related actions.

1. Organization. The JSTPS service participation is as follows:

AF 146, Navy 41, Army 10, USMC 3. All division chiefs are AF. Where a Navy Deputy Division Chief is assigned he has been paralleled by a AF Deputy Division Chief of higher seniority. The JSTPS organization parallels the SAC organization; i.e. all SAC JSTPS members wear two hats and can reach DJSTPS through the SAC or JSTPS channels. The rationale for all of this has been, essentially, that JSTPS participation would be more or less proportionate to delivery force participation. Joint participation must be achieved. This is a national target list. What is done in the SIOP is important to the nation and all services. Army interest in theatre support, constraints, budgetary implications, command arrangements etc. cannot be properly presented or safeguarded without active Army participation. Army and Navy must present a common front for a truly JOINT JSTPS when the JSTPS is reorganized after the 1st of the year.

2. The SIOP is a capabilities plan. In spite of the NSTAP objectives ".....to establish an essential national task to be accomplished under the several conditions....." through the medium of a plan which will provide for the optimum integration of the committed forces for the attack of a minimum list of targets....an objectives list of targets has not been developed. Instead an open ended capabilities plan has emerged. This is of great significance to the Army. Force requirements for SIOP forces will be so demanding that the response of atomic capable forces to theatre commander requirements will be unsatisfactory. It must be appreciated that regardless of pious wording the operational control of committed atomic capable forces is withdrawn from Theatre Commanders in the initial phase of general war. This can only be acceptable if the task of these forces is properly limited and hence promptly completed - releasing forces for Theatre tasks. The ARMY interest here is primary and can only be safeguarded by active ARMY participation.

3. Damage Criteria, Assurance of Success and Restraints Criteria. These factors are inter-related and have, great importance to the Army in an operational and budgetary sense. For example, the damage criteria stated is extremely high and is compounded by an interpretation of assurance of success guidance as high as 97% for some 200 DGZs.

This approach is the sort of thing that indicates that damage levels achieved at HIROSHIMA could only be achieved by 300-500 KT at BRL (vice 20 KT actually delivered). The weapons/force requirements implication of an approach of this sort should not be overlooked by the Army. Operationally, of course, delivery units are earmarked for excessive SIOP missions at the expense of the Theatre commander's requirements. Finally, the foregoing creates greatly excessive local fallout. At present reading world-wide contamination which may also be critical has not been assessed.

At any rate, JCS restraint guidance has been generally ignored in the name of military necessity. The Army must be extremely sensitive to the troop hazard aspect of this.

4. Intelligence. We suspect, and are trying to document, that SAC intelligence is being manipulated to serve SAC policy. The appropriateness of using reasonably interpreted national intelligence estimates in a NSTL is clear. The national interest demands that the outstanding Army intelligence capability be fully utilized in this critical area.

5. Command and Control. Even at this early stage it is clear that the DJSTPS will seek to assume more and more functions which are properly those of the JCS. This will be done in the name of urgency for decisive action and unique experience of SAC personnel. The result can be a progressive isolation of the JCS from intimate knowledge of the characteristics and status of our primary war plan. None of the Joint Chiefs can properly discharge their duties if this occurs. The other services (Army, Navy) can only develop a reservoir of experienced personnel for NSTL/SIOP staffing by participation in the NSTL/SIOP development itself. The availability of experienced personnel in the Army may at some time in the future, be a critical factor in resolution of command control policy matters. In short, existence of experienced planners in SIOP matters may be the "price of admission" for influencing future SIOP developments.