An ABM Primer, Part One: Missed Opportunities

The New START Treaty expires on Feb. 6. When it goes, there will be nothing to hold back a new nuclear arms race. To understand how this happened, we must go back to the beginning--to the ABM treaty.

A Sprint ABM being launched

(Note: This article contains material from my book, Scorpion King: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump, published in 2020 by Clarity Press. This is the first of a three-part series on the ABM Treaty, which served as the foundation for arms control in the nuclear era and without which there can be no meaningful progress in reviving arms control post New START.)

Early in the morning of October 14, 1964, in the desert test facility of Lop Nur, a team of technicians working under the supervision of a Yale-educated Chinese physicist named Chen Nengkuan assembled a nuclear device made from enriched uranium 235. After hoisting the device to the top of the test tower that had been photographed by the United States the previous spring, the Chinese detonated, at precisely 3:00 pm, a 20-kiloton nuclear device. The Chinese were quick to announce their achievement, but the United States, through its worldwide network of seismic stations, was also able to detect, isolate, and characterize the Chinese event.43 President Johnson decried the Chinese test as a “tragedy for the Chinese people,” but privately noted that China was a long way from having a deliverable weapon and that the specter of a nuclear-armed China was a problem that would be faced by a future president.

On November 3, 1964, the American people voted for their thirty-sixth president in one of the largest landslides in American presidential election history, larger than Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 victory. Having assumed office in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson had been concerned that he lacked a mandate to govern in his own right. He no longer needed to be concerned about that. Lyndon Johnson chose Hubert Humphrey, the champion of arms control and disarmament, as his vice president. President Johnson was congratulated by Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin and President Mikoyan, who just a month prior had removed Nikita Khrushchev from power in what amounted to an office coup. Moscow Radio, expressing a relief that was felt not only in the Soviet Union but also in Europe and the world as a whole that Johnson, and not his vehemently anti-communist Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, had won, broadcast that the American people had chosen the “more moderate and sober policy” toward East-West relations. On the cusp of a time of historical change, President Johnson’s implementation of this “moderate and sober” mandate would dictate the course of the Cold War for decades to come.

Lyndon Johnson (left) and Robert McNamara (right)

Now Johnson was the “future President.” The Chinese nuclear threat, or perceptions thereof, would now play a major role in propelling the United States down one of the more controversial arms acquisition paths of the nuclear age, one which continues to this day: ballistic missile defense. The Soviet missile threat was seen as being too massive to be viably countered by any system of surface-based missile interceptors. But the Chinese missile threat, comprised of a much smaller number of missiles, was a different story.

The Sino-Soviet schism, which came to a head in the late 1950s, allowed the United States to begin viewing these two communist nations separately when it came to threat analysis. Building a ballistic missile defense system that was Chinese-specific was considered plausible, even after most U.S. defense analysts agreed that trying to put in place a similar system to counter the Soviets would be ineffective and cost-prohibitive.

The allure of a ballistic missile defense system had been around since the dawn of the missile age. In 1955, the U.S. Army had begun research and development work on the Nike Zeus antiballistic missile (ABM), but it was never deployed. President Eisenhower decided in 1959 to keep the Nike Zeus program alive as a pure research-and-development effort, which by January 1963 had evolved into what was known as the Nike X system. But whereas Nike X represented a viable ABM response based upon Soviet strike capabilities that existed pre-ABM, it was not a system that took into account what the Soviets would do to counter it.

It was this cause-and-effect relationship between defensive and offensive weapons that led two top-level Pentagon scientists, Jack Ruina and Murray Gell-Mann, to write a 1964 paper titled “BMD and the Arms Race.” The main thesis of the Ruina/Gell-Mann paper was that ABM systems were inherently destabilizing and should not be pursued. The best way to control the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the paper stated, was to limit ABMs.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concurred, concluding that ABMs undermined arms control and encouraged an arms race because ABMs by their very nature called into question the assured destruction capabilities of the other side, having the potential to lead to a massive arms race as each side increased its offensive strike capability to overcome the defensive characteristics of a given ABM system.

The A-35 ABM being test fired

In the early 1960s, the Soviets had been making strides toward fielding a viable ABM system of their own. In early 1961, a V-1000 missile was used to shoot down a SS-4 intermediate-range missile using a conventional high-explosive warhead, marking the first time in the world that a genuine anti-ICBM capability had been tested. The Soviets began installing V-1000 sites around the Estonian capital of Tallinn, and later around Leningrad, with installation completed in 1962. However, these sites were dismantled in 1964, when the Soviets began fielding the A-35 ABM system around Moscow.

Designed to protect the Soviet capital from single-warhead Titan II and Minutemen II missiles, the A-35 was a three-stage missile with a 300-kiloton warhead possessing a range of some 300 kilometers. The system’s manually directed radars reduced its efficiency, and it soon became obvious to Soviet military planners that the A-35 ABM system as designed was ineffective.

The perception of a growing Soviet ABM capability had led to McNamara’s Counterforce strategy (also known as the “Athens Doctrine, named after the May 5, 1962, meeting of NATO ministers in Athens, Greece, where McNamara detailed the new strategy) coming under closer scrutiny from none other than McNamara himself. The Counterforce strategy held that the first salvo of nuclear weapons launched by the United States in retaliation against a Soviet nuclear attack would be targeted against Soviet military forces (missile silos, bomber bases, and so forth) instead of Soviet cities. A certain portion of U.S. nuclear launch capability would be held back for potential use against Soviet military, industrial, and civilian targets, if needed. The key to such a new strategy rested with survivable missile systems, such as the silo-based Minuteman and the submarine-launched Polaris. Counterforce became the U.S. nuclear doctrine, and the planning guidance for SIOP-63—which went into effect in June 1962—reflected this thinking.

Misperceptions existed in the public sector that the No Cities targeting approach of the Counterforce strategy somehow made nuclear war more feasible. Furthermore, as the Air Force expanded the number of targets it needed to strike in order to achieve a genuine Counterforce capability, it began to demand even more nuclear weapons and vehicles to deploy them.

The Counterforce strategy brought with it an assumption that there would need to be an even larger air defense capability (to defend against Soviet bombers ostensibly launched on their own “counterforce” sorties) and missile defense (to defend against Soviet ICBMs targeting American nuclear forces). All of this led to increased military spending, which the Johnson administration could ill afford. When combined with the ongoing negative reaction to the Athens Doctrine from the Soviets and America’s NATO allies, McNamara had no choice but to turn to a strategic deterrence strategy of “Assured Destruction,” defined by McNamara as “to deter deliberate nuclear attack upon the United States and its allies by maintaining a highly reliable ability to inflict an unacceptable degree of damage upon any single aggressor, or combination of aggressors, even after absorbing a surprise first strike.” In short, Assured Destruction existed when the United States maintained the capability to absorb the full brunt of a Soviet nuclear surprise attack and still retaliate with a force guaranteed to destroy 20 to 25 percent of the Soviet Union’s population and 50 percent of its industrial capacity.

Assured Destruction, which soon morphed into “Mutually Assured Destruction,” or MAD, retained as a working principle the concept of “damage limitation.” This concept had American nuclear forces targeted in such a manner as to reduce the damage any Soviet nuclear attack might inflict on American population and industrial centers by attacking and diminishing the strategic offensive nuclear forces of the Soviet Union. But even this concession to the original Athens Doctrine was soon de-emphasized by McNamara out of concern that the Air Force would turn damage limitation into a genuine first-strike capability.

The Titan !! ICBM being launched from a silo

By the end of 1964, McNamara had set the strategic missile strength of the United States at 1,054 missiles (1,000 Minuteman missiles and 54 Titan II missiles) and 656 Polaris missiles on 41 submarines. As the Minuteman capability stood up, the original workhorse of the U.S. ICBM force, the Atlas missile, began to be phased out. The Air Force was not pleased with the limitation on a Minuteman force it once envisioned as being 10,000 in number. However, technology soon intervened in a way that forever changed the calculus of mass destruction.

Ironically, it was the Navy, and not the Air Force, that was initially responsible for the innovation in question: multiple re-entry vehicles (MRVs) in which a single delivery system, or missile, could carry more than one warhead. The accuracy of the Polaris A-3 at its maximum range of 2,500 miles was such that it was only useful as an area weapon. In order to increase kill probability, and to saturate any ABM system that might be deployed around a given target, the Polaris A-3 missile was deployed with a clam-shell multiple re-entry vehicle system, which carried three warheads underneath a re-entry shroud. Each warhead would be ejected by use of a small rocket motor, allowing for a given target area to be covered by three overlapping explosions.

When the USS Daniel Webster took up its initial operational patrol in the Atlantic Ocean on September 28, 1964, the Polaris A-3 MRV was operational. This was followed on December 25, 1964, by the USS Daniel Boone when it began its Pacific Ocean patrol. The Soviet landmass was now fully covered by the Polaris A-3 missile, making it a critical component of the U.S. deterrent arsenal.

Although the three-warhead MRV of the Polaris A-3 was designed to saturate a given defense, it still was operated on the premise of one target, one missile. In order to increase the effectiveness of an MRV missile, one would need to add what were known as penetration aids, or missile decoys. But even this did not change the one missile, one target equation. Missile designers experimented with the idea of maneuvering the “bus,” or vehicle that held the warheads. By doing this, and by controlling the timing of each warhead’s release, each warhead could be independently targeted.

Thus was born the concept of the MIRV, or multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle. Now each MIRV-capable missile became a force-multiplier, the missile-equivalent of however many MIRVs with which it was equipped. MIRVs were not developed as a response to Soviet ABMs, but once the capability to overwhelm ABM defenses was identified, the MIRV became the perfect weapons system.

However, though MIRVs were a proper response to a Soviet nationwide ABM system, there was in fact no need for MIRVs if the Soviets didn’t have a viable ABM system, which was the case in 1965. Secretary of Defense McNamara understood that if American MIRVs could overwhelm a Soviet ABM defense, then in due time Soviet MIRVs would likewise overwhelm any American ABM defense. Nonetheless, MIRVs became the weapon of choice for everyone involved in the strategic targeting business. For the Air Force and Navy, the limitations imposed by McNamara’s 1,054/656 missile cap were now meaningless because MIRVs allowed the number of deliverable warheads to be increased without changing those numbers.

As MIRVs became more accurate, each warhead could be targeted on a single missile silo, creating not only a potent Counterforce capability but a viable first-strike weapon as well. As MIRVs made land-based systems more vulnerable, they in turn enhanced the importance of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, not only as a retaliatory force but also as a backup to the Counterforce/first-strike capability of ICBMs.

During the period of 1965–1966, MIRVs were very much a theoretical weapon. However, the ascension of MIRVs as the new “wonder weapon” drove the strategic planning for future weapons acquisitions, and as such pushed the Soviet Union and the United States closer to the edge of a new, expensive, and dangerous, phase of the arms race. McNamara commissioned a study concerning ABM employment and viability under the direction of Army Major General Austin Betts. The Betts Panel examined potential Nike X deployment locations, production schedules and costs, system effectiveness, national strategic objectives, and cost effectiveness in terms of both the current Soviet ICBM threat as well as any potential improvements the Soviets might make in response to an American ABM system.

A Nike X ABM being test launched

The critical factor behind whether or not the Nike X was deemed a viable system was the degree to which it reduced the Assured Destruction aspect of the Soviet strategic nuclear force. If the Nike X could prevent the Soviets from achieving the criteria set forth by McNamara for Assured Destruction (i.e., preserving more than 75 percent of the U.S. population and more than 50 percent of America’s industrial capacity), then the United States would achieve strategic dominance because it would, theoretically at least, emerge in a superior position from a full-scale nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

McNamara had earlier commissioned a study to be conducted by the Office of Research and Engineering. Air Force Brigadier General Glen Kent headed the study. Kent organized his study so that two factors could be assessed: first, what the damage to the United States would be from a determined and adaptive Soviet attack; and second, what would constitute a proper allocation of resources among various entities (civil defense, Nike X ABM, Counterforce attacks by Minuteman missiles, antisubmarine warfare targeting Soviet missile submarines, and air defense against Soviet bombers) in order to limit damage against the United States.

Kent’s study concluded that in order to obtain a 70 percent survival rate for the American population against then-current Soviet forces, the United States would need to spend $28 billion. However, if the Soviets then responded to the American damage-limiting actions by deploying more ICBMs and SLBMs, then the United States would need to expend even more money to sustain the 70 percent survivability factor, at a cost of some $2 dollars spent on defense to every $1 spent on offense.

Because a 70 percent survivability rate meant that some 60 million Americans were destined to die, this tack was politically unacceptable. Yet when efforts were made to improve the survivability factor to 90 percent, it was found that the exchange ratio (the amount the United States would have to spend to limit damage compared to the amount the Soviets would have to spend to create damage) rose to 6:1 in favor of the Soviets.

In short, Kent concluded, it was always cheaper to create damage than it was to limit damage. The destruction generated by nuclear weapons, combined with the vulnerability of modern urban-industrial society, meant that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could avoid national destruction in the event of an all-out nuclear conflict. This was even further underscored when one factored in that an attacker was able to modify its weapons and tactics after the defender had invested and deployed its defenses. McNamara, thanks in no small part to Kent’s study, determined that damage limitation as a national strategy simply would not work.

Instead of seeking to unilaterally limit damage through new weapons and strategies, the best option for both the United States and the Soviet Union would be to enter into negotiated treaties to curtail nationwide ABM defenses and limit the deployment of offensive nuclear forces. But, as was far too often the case, national security considerations alone did not suffice to make the case.

Politics reared its ugly head.

George Romney

Michigan Governor George Romney, by 1966 considered a leading Republican challenger to Lyndon Johnson in 1968, was being very vocal about the existence of an “ABM gap,” hoping to repeat the success that the so-called missile gap had created for John Kennedy in 1960. Romney made a point of the ABM gap during an interview on Meet the Press. Melvin Laird, head of the GOP Congressional Committee, was likewise making it clear that the ABM issue would be a focus of the Republican Party challenge to the national security policies of the Johnson administration.

Romney and Laird had support from hawks in the U.S. Senate, such as Republican Strom Thurmond, but also including a number of prominent Democrats (e.g., Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Richard Russell) when it came to the early deployment of an ABM system. Both Thurman and Russell had long records of supporting a strong defense against a Soviet threat, whether real or perceived.

Jackson’s motivations were more complicated: as the senator from Washington State, Jackson had become known as “the senator from Boeing” due to his unwavering support of the Seattle, Washington–based company. Boeing was a major contractor involved in the ABM system.

Secretary of Defense McNamara had opened the door for congressional action when, in his annual military posture statement presented to the House of Representatives in early 1966, he noted that a small ABM system could provide a “highly effective defense” against any ballistic missile attack launched from China. McNamara had made this statement in order to head off congressional pressure, noting that there was no rush to field such an ABM system because any viable Chinese missile threat would not materialize for many years.

Congress was considering three options for an ABM system: a “thick” nationwide system, costing some $40 billion and designed to provide maximum protection against a Soviet missile attack; a missile protection option designed to defend ICBM bases; and a “thin” nationwide system designed to protect against a Chinese-style attack and projected to cost around $5 billion. Based upon the work done by General Kent, McNamara was strongly opposed to either the thick defense or the equally expensive ICBM base defense, primarily because he believed the Soviets would be able to easily overwhelm these defenses with missiles then in development.

However, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, alarmed by intelligence reports detailing the deployment of Soviet ABM systems around Tallinn, Leningrad, and Moscow, together with other reports indicating the Soviets were modernizing their ICBM force, believed that national security could not brook a continued delay in fielding a national ABM defense. In 1966, Congress, against the desires of the Johnson administration but with the full support of the JCS, had authorized and appropriated some $167.9 million to produce the Nike X ABM. But President Johnson and Secretary McNamara, by the end of 1966, had refused to spend these funds.

The political pressure on Johnson was starting to heat up. The JCS desires for immediate deployment of an ABM system were about to be made public by the Republicans in Congress, as was the intelligence about the deployment of a Soviet ABM system. Lyndon Johnson could ill afford to continue to delay on the issue of fielding an American ABM system. It looked as if McNamara was going to be overruled on this issue.

President Johnson meets with McNamara and the Joint Chiefs at his Texas ranch

Then, showing considerable political savvy, McNamara maneuvered back. In a series of meetings with Lyndon Johnson, held at the Johnson ranch in Austin, Texas, on November 3 and 10, 1966, McNamara pressed home his case that an ABM system simply would not work, was excessively expensive, and would dangerously destabilize the strategic balance between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Following the November 10 meeting, McNamara pre-empted the Republicans in Congress by holding a press conference at which he revealed details about the Soviet deployment of an ABM system and his own belief that ongoing U.S. efforts to improve its offensive nuclear capabilities, namely the deployment of the Minuteman III ICBM and the new Poseidon SLBM, would represent a more-than-adequate response.

McNamara again traveled to Johnson’s Austin ranch on December 6, 1966, this time joined by Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance; the president’s special assistant for national security affairs, Walt Rostow, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to review the 1968 defense budget, due to be presented to Congress in February 1967. But the centerpiece of discussion was the issue of funding to produce an ABM system. The JCS was pressing hard for the funding and was equally opposed by McNamara and Vance. Rostow took the side of the Joint Chiefs, and it looked for a moment as if Johnson was going to overrule his secretary of defense.

McNamara interceded one last time, stating unequivocally that building an ABM system was absolutely the worst decision the United States could make at this juncture. The proper course of action was to expand the offensive strike capability of the United States in order to overwhelm the Soviet ABM system. This would obviate the Soviet defense (at great expense to the Soviets) while at the same time making sure the United States did not make the same blunder.

Recognizing that Congress had already approved funding for the ABM system, McNamara proposed that the 1968 budget allow for a small amount of money for ABM procurement. However, McNamara then wanted to inform Congress that none of this money would be spent, and no final decision would be made about deploying an ABM system, until the United States made every possible effort to negotiate an arms control agreement with the Soviets that banned ABMs and limited offensive nuclear forces.

Johnson agreed to this compromise approach. He directed Secretary of State Dean Rusk to begin outreach to the Soviets for the purpose of initiating dialogue on arms reductions and limitations. The president even tried to assist this effort when he revealed in a March 1967 meeting with educators in Nashville, Tennessee, that the United States had an extensive satellite reconnaissance program and that from it the United States was able to know exactly how many ICBMs the Soviets had. “I wouldn’t want to be quoted on this,” Lyndon Johnson said, knowing full well he would be quoted, “but we’ve spent thirty-five or forty billion dollars on the space program. And if nothing else had come out of it except the knowledge we’ve gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn’t need to do. We were building things we didn’t need to build. We were harboring fears we didn’t need to harbor.”

But even this “slip of the tongue” did not produce results; the Soviets, having invested so heavily in seeking nuclear parity, simply refused to talk about arms reductions. There were several reasons behind the Soviet obstinacy over arms limitations talks, the main one being that the United States was not seen as an honest partner when it came to arms reduction talks.

On June 19, 1967, Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin was in New York to attend an emergency session of the UN Security Council convened to address the consequences of Israel’s Six-Day War against its Arab neighbors. Once these meetings were finished, Soviet and American officials conspired to organize an unplanned summit between President Johnson and Premier Kosygin. The Americans preferred a meeting held in Washington, while the Soviets preferred New York City. As a compromise, a decision was made to meet at Glassboro State College in New Jersey, a location almost exactly half-way in between.

Alexei Kosygin (left) meets with Lyndon Johnson (right)

The meeting was intended to provide a forum for the discussion of serious arms control issues. At the initial introductory meeting on June 23, 1967, President Johnson told Kosygin that in the three years he (Johnson) had been in office, there were no new arms control treaties between the two nations. Johnson’s primary purpose in convening the Glassboro Summit was to engage the Soviets in a meaningful dialogue on arms control to head off a spiraling arms race. The issue of ABMs was addressed in detail. But ultimately Kosygin saw little hope of genuine discussions so long as the Vietnam War continued and the situation in the Middle East remained unresolved. The Glassboro Summit ended shortly thereafter with nothing having been accomplished.

The lack of results from the Glassboro Summit represented a setback to the Johnson administration’s ambitions to pursue a meaningful arms control agenda. There were almost immediate consequences for this failure. Upon their return to Washington, Johnson and McNamara met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where it was agreed that in the face of the Soviet refusal to discuss the ABM issue, the United States would initiate immediate action to expand its offensive strike capability.

The cheapest and most effective way to do this was to move forward with the development and deployment of MIRVs. However, McNamara recognized that this measure had inherent risks, namely that if the Soviets followed suit and deployed its own MIRV capability, then the United States would find itself on the receiving end of a more potent Soviet arsenal, magnified by the reality of the larger payload capability of the Soviet missiles. Therefore, even though the United States would develop a MIRV capability, a final decision to deploy MIRVs would be withheld pending a renewed effort at negotiating a treaty to ban ABM defenses. If such a treaty could be implemented, then the MIRV program would be terminated.

Like the United States, the Soviets were assessing their potential enemy’s strategic capabilities and making their own adjustments. The Soviets were following the deployment of the Minuteman missile with great interest. They knew that the Minuteman operated as a wing of 150 missiles. Each wing consisted of three squadrons, each composed of five flights containing ten missiles each stored in an unmanned launch facility, or silo. The silos were separated from one another by three miles, which also represented the distance the silos were from their respective launch control centers (LCC).

In order to successfully target the Minuteman missile complex, the Soviets would either have to saturate the area with huge warheads in the large megaton range, hoping to collapse the silos, or target each silo independently with smaller warheads requiring a much greater degree of accuracy. The Soviets soon realized that the weak link in the Minuteman system was the LCC. If the LCC could be taken out, then this achieved the same effect as taking out ten missiles in their silos.

If the Soviets were to embark on a Counterforce strategy of their own, then they would need a missile capable of carrying a warhead large enough to defeat a hardened LCC and accurate enough to get within .5 nautical miles of the target—a circular error of probability, or CEP, of about 925 meters. Soviet recognition of this operational requirement led to their development of the SS-9.

The SS-9 was an “ampulised” missile, meaning that it would be loaded into its missile silo as a sealed round of ammunition, completely fueled and ready to fire. In this mode, the SS-9 could guarantee being able to launch for a period of at least five years. It would be transported to its silo, loaded in, fueled, and then sealed and left unattended. Like the Minuteman, the SS-9 silos were to be separated from one another—but by eight to ten kilometers, making them difficult to target.

An SS-9 being test fired

Whereas the SS-9 ICBM was designed as a Minuteman-killer, the Soviets still needed an equivalent ICBM to match the Minuteman in performance (i.e., the ability to be quickly launched). The answer came from the design bureau of Vladimir Chelomei in the form of the SS-11, a lightweight ICBM that ultimately would be deployed in more numbers than any other Soviet ICBM. The SS-11 was designed to be silo-launched as a certified round of ammunition and was able to be stored, fully fuelled and ready to launch, for up to five years. The Soviet Union was in such a hurry to match the Minuteman capability of the United States that secret survey teams were already constructing silo locations for the SS-11 even before the missile was initially tested. The SS-11 carried a 1.1-megaton warhead, but its accuracy was so poor as to limit its effectiveness to “soft” targets, like cities and major industrial areas.

It was a moment that Lyndon Johnson would not be able to share with his long-time secretary of defense, Robert McNamara. Since 1966, McNamara had become more and more controversial in the face of his opposition to both the president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the war in Vietnam. McNamara’s resistance to an ABM system also alienated him from his military counterparts.

On November 29, 1967, with a contentious political season approaching, President Johnson had pulled the plug, announcing that McNamara would be resigning from his position as secretary of defense and moving on to become president of the World Bank. McNamara left office on February 29, 1968. For his seven years of dedicated service, President Johnson awarded him both the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal.

McNamara was replaced by Clark Clifford, who took over in March 1968. Unlike McNamara, Clifford was not a proponent of arms control; he wanted to limit any initial steps involved in arms negotiations to simple administrative and procedural functions and await a specific Soviet proposal. Clifford viewed any commitment made by the United States up front as concessions preceding the negotiations, something he contended was never a wise move in the field of diplomacy.

But Lyndon Johnson wanted more. His time as president was running out. Because he had not been elected president in 1960, Johnson was not affected by the Twenty-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting a president to two terms in office. It was widely assumed that Johnson, despite being heavily criticized over the conduct of the Vietnam War, would seek reelection. However, a strong showing by antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy during the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968, followed four days later by Robert Kennedy’s announcement that he would challenge Johnson for the nomination of the Democratic Party, compelled Johnson to rethink his ambition. (Bobby Kennedy’s bid for election was tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet on June 5, 1968.)

Lyndon Johnson announces he will not seek reelection

On March 31, 1968, Lyndon Johnson addressed the American people in a live televised speech, during which he announced that he was ordering the suspension of aerial bombing attacks on North Vietnam in favor of peace negotiations. Johnson concluded his presentation with a stunning statement: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

Johnson was in poor health, and he and his family were very concerned that he might not survive another term in office. Thus liberated from the constraints of a national election, Lyndon Johnson turned to thoughts of his legacy. Worn down by Vietnam, Johnson was intent on closing out his tenure as president with far-reaching arms limitation agreements. Lyndon Johnson had sought arms control treaties even prior to his decision not to seek a second term. On January 22, 1968, Johnson had sent a letter to Soviet Premier Kosygin in which he proposed early talks on strategic missile controls.

Having not heard back from the Soviets, on March 16, 1968, Secretary of State Rusk instructed the U.S. embassy in Moscow to seek a favorable response to the president’s letter. The U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Llewellyn Thompson, met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on March 26, 1968, to discuss Johnson’s proposal, only to be told that the Soviet government, though attaching great importance to the idea, was still studying the proposal.

By May 2, 1968, the continued Soviet silence prompted President Johnson to write another letter, noting his concern over the “necessity to initiate meaningful discussion as soon as possible,” noting that “each passing month increases the difficulty of reaching agreement on this matter as, from a technical and military point of view, it is becoming more complex.” Johnson told Kosygin that it was important that they be able to announce to the world that “they have agreed to commence bilateral negotiations on an agreement to limit strategic offensive and defensive missiles within a specific time from the date of the announcement.”

On May 17, 1968, the Soviets responded indirectly, having a diplomat state that Moscow was still considering the U.S. proposal that talks begin. Then, on June 21, 1968, Aleksei Kosygin finally responded in a letter of his own to Johnson. The Soviet premier told Johnson that the Soviets “attach great importance to these questions, having in mind that they should be considered together, systems for delivery of offensive strategic nuclear weapons as well as systems for defense against ballistic missiles. All aspects of this complex problem are now being carefully examined by us, and we hope that before long it will be possible more concretely to exchange views with regard to further ways of discussing this problem, if of course the general world situation does not hinder this.”

On July 1, 1968, both nations simultaneously announced that they agreed to meet in the “nearest future” to discuss strategic nuclear arms limitations, as well as limitations on ballistic missile defense. Johnson decided he would up the ante by increasing the pressure on the Soviets to come to the negotiation table. On July 2, Dean Rusk met with Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoliy Dobrynin and informed him that President Johnson wanted another summit meeting with his Soviet counterpart in the near future.

President Johnson’s desires for an arms control agreement did not, however, directly translate into an agreed upon position within the U.S. national security hierarchy. Secretary of Defense Clifford was concerned about on-site inspection and verification regimes that would be associated with any such agreements. Others wanted to preserve the ability to maintain qualitative force improvements, both for a nuclear warhead for the Sentinel ABM but also for any future MIRV warhead.

Under pressure from the White House, a policy paper was prepared on July 31, 1968, that outlined the basics of an agreed-on U.S. position on strategic arms limitations: a freeze on ICBM, MRBM, and SLBM submarines; a ban on deploying mobile ICBM systems; a ban on mobile ABM systems; and an agreement to limit any ABM system to a specific number of fixed launchers and associated radars.

A final meeting of the principal players tasked with drafting a U.S. position was held on August 7, 1968. It soon became clear that there were many issues that lacked resolution. The Joint Chiefs were very concerned about cheating scenarios involving mobile ICBMs. Dr. Ivan Selin, representing Clifford, responded that the Soviets would only be able to field 200–300 mobile ICBMs without being detected, and the U.S. nuclear force was able to withstand a surprise attack from thousands of nuclear warheads. This kind of cheating scenario, in Selin’s opinion, was not possible. Furthermore, “Our forces are so large and diverse,” he stated, “that our assured destruction capability is relatively insensitive to most forms of qualitative improvements, cheating or abrogation scenarios.”

US MIRVs reentering the atmosphere

In his opinion, MIRVs represented a far greater threat than mobile ICBMs. At this point, Adrian Fisher of ACDA interjected that he thought the Soviets might seek to ban MIRVs, a possibility that Selin conceded had not been considered by the Pentagon. The two MIRV systems being considered by the United States, the Minuteman III and the Poseidon, were due to be flight tested in mid-August. Secretary of State Rusk asked if these flight tests should be postponed until after the arms limitations talks were held. However, the consensus among attendees was that the tests should go forward as scheduled. This was a critical decision because by agreeing to flight tests of an MIRV capability, the United States had made it all but impossible to ban MIRVs once negotiations began.

The final U.S. position was submitted to the president on August 15, 1968. In covering memorandums, both Rusk and Clark offered their support for the position paper, noting that the United States would maintain its deterrent posture, leave no doubt as to the adequacy of the deterrent, be confident that the deterrent could not be eroded by one or more powers alone or in combination, would maintain a damage-limiting capability, and be able to prevent other (non-Soviet) nuclear powers from threatening the agreement.

All that was needed was a summit.

Presidential politics intervened, in the form of the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon, asking to be received in Moscow. The Soviets agreed, prompting Secretary of State Rusk to ask Moscow if the Soviets might likewise agree to meet the man who was still the president. The Soviets postponed the meeting with Nixon. Then, on August 19, the Soviets finally agreed to receive Johnson in Moscow on October 15, or any other date close to that time. Elated, President Johnson prepared to make an announcement concerning his trip and the goals of limiting strategic arms through reduction talks.

At this portentous moment, unexpected events intervened. On August 20, 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. The series of reforms initiated in the country since Alexander Dubček had replaced the Czechoslovakian Communist Party leader, Antonin Novotny, in the spring of 1968 had proven to be too much for the Soviet leadership to accept. Czechoslovakia’s neighbors, East Germany and Hungary, were nervous about the liberalization of what was being called “Prague Spring” and were pressuring the Soviets to do something. On July 14 and 15, the Soviets hosted a Warsaw Pact meeting, without Czech involvement, followed on July 23 by the Soviets announcing a large military exercise, “Nieman,” which served as a cover for the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops and more than 7,000 tanks to the Czech border regions.

The final decision to invade Czechoslovakia was made between August 15 and 17, with Soviet Communist Party chair Leonid Brezhnev sending a letter to Dubček on August 19, the same date the Soviets extended the invitation to Johnson to visit Moscow.

On August 20, President Johnson convened a cabinet meeting to discuss the status of the strategic arms reduction talks. The National Security Council agreed with Johnson’s calling the Soviet invasion an “aggression” and agreed that thus there could be no summit with the Soviets on arms reduction, noting that such a meeting might be interpreted by the Soviets and others as the United States condoning the Soviet action. Ambassador Dobrynin was summoned by Rusk, who informed him of the president’s decision.

Soviet tanks roll into Prague, August 20, 1968

There was some effort to restart the talks, with the Soviets agreeing to a meeting in mid-September 1968 to set out an agenda. But Johnson had taken the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia as an insult. As Rusk told Ambassador Dobrynin on September 20, 1968, during a lunch meeting, “the coincidence of actions [the invasion of Czechoslovakia and agreeing to arms reduction talks] was like throwing a dead fish in the face of the President of the United States.”

Time had run out on the Johnson administration for accomplishing meaningful arms control with the Soviets. The presidential elections of November 5, 1968, saw Republican Richard Nixon defeat Vice President Hubert Humphrey. With a new administration due to take power, there was no incentive for the Soviets to sit down and talk, even on an issue as important as arms reductions.

History shows that under President Johnson’s leadership, so much could have been accomplished in the field of disarmament, and so little was.

(I will be travelling to Russia in March to continue my efforts to promote arms control and better relations between the US and Russia. As an independent journalist, I am totally dependent upon the kind and generous donations of readers and supporters to underwrite the costs associated with such a journey (travel, accommodations, meals, studio rental, hiring interpreters, video production and editing, etc.) I am grateful for any support you can provide.)