Rethinking Civilian Control: Nuclear Weapons,
American Constitutionalism and War-Making
Ryan FriedFor Presentation at the 2012 Millennium Conference
London School of Economics and Political Science21 October 2012
This paper is a draft. Please do not quote, cite, or disseminate without the author’s expressed permission.
In his recent work, Bounding Power,1 Daniel Deudney analyzes across the relationship
between material contexts and republican political arrangements in the forms of limited
1 Deudney, Daniel. Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village. Princeton University Press (2007).
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government constitutions. Exploring these linkages within the nuclear era, Deudney argues that
nuclear weapons produced strong imperatives for concentrations of authority within the
executive. This tendency has also been noted by constitutional legal scholars who have gone so
far as to characterize this concentration as despotism.2 Of course, strengthening of the national
security state and presidential executive during the Cold War in response to external threats is
widely recognized by theorists of international relations and American politics.3 Given this, this
paper analyzes these claims about concentrations of power stimulated by material contextual
developments in the overall context of US state strengthening during the Cold War. In effect,
nuclear weapons amplify a tendency that is pronounced and already recognized. This paper asks
and seeks to answer if we can discern discrete effects of material context that are not effects that
stem from anarchic dynamics of the international system, which is generally assumed to lead to
the same outcome. The preliminary conclusion is in the affirmative. While executive
concentrations are over determined, I aim to show that this concentration was greater and took a
particular form because of the specific features of the material context itself.
The argument is presented in two parts across five sections. The first part is a brief
discussion of a larger project at work of which the focus on control of nuclear weapons is a part,
followed by a summation of assumed international effects of anarchy on domestic state
strengthening, emphasizing speed of use, and deference to military control of security functions.
In addition, I explore the added contours of an underlying nuclear material context that would
produce divergent results from expectations of anarchic system effects, most closely related to
structural realism. The second and most expansive portion, offers evidence in the American
2See Ayers, Russell W. “Policing Plutonium: The Civil Liberties Fallout.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. 10(2), 1975, pp. 369-343 and Cox, H. Bartholomew. “Raison d’état and World Survival: Who Constitutionally Makes Nuclear War?” The George Washington Law Review. 57 (1988-1989), pp.1614-1635.3 For example, see Higgs, Robert. Crises and Leviathan: Critical Episodes and the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford University Press, (1987), and Porter, Bruce. War and the Rise of the State. New York: Simon and Schuster, (1994).
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case, using the Baruch Plan, both the 1946 and 1954 Atomic Energy Acts, and the decision to
install Permissive Action Links on nuclear weapons. I argue that the failure of international arms
control has resulted in a novel form of power concentration in which the concentration of power
centers on the civilian executive, rather than the professionalism of the military in an attempt to
reduce the risk of instigating nuclear conflict. This is because material contextual exigencies of
speed and scope of destruction render traditional modes of security practice ineffective.
American Constitutionalism and War-Making
A foundational premise of this project is that interstate anarchy is hostile to limited
government constitutions because of various power concentrations necessary for state survival.
While the American Union created by the 1787 Constitution accounted for this in various ways
by ending the balance of power in the western hemisphere, a second important feature of the
founding period, geographical isolation from Europe ended with the industrial revolution and the
advent of planes, intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. This necessitated a
program of domestic state building and an attempt at deep international arms control to abridge
anarchy and save the limited governing constitution. These new security arrangements are the
subject of most attention in this project. In this particular paper, I address new arrangements
related to the nuclear domain in the domestic apparatus as well as the United States’ foreign
policy. The incompleteness of the international agenda has resulted in power’s ultimate
concentration within the political system.
This study is the outgrowth of an attempt to recover historical efforts by the United States
to take strong action to preserve its limited government constitution. In eras prior to the industrial
age, the US pursued a policy of global isolation and regional hegemony rather than balancing as
a viable means of protecting its domestic institutions and from erosive centralization common to
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the balance of power. However, at the turn of the 20th century, changes in the material context
reduced effective distance between great powers making the existing US security practice non-
viable. This forced the United States to either become a centralized hierarchical state, due to
pressures related to the balance of power, or fundamentally change the character of systemic
anarchy and the units comprising it. Hence American security practice in the global industrial
and nuclear eras is measured not by relative power to other states, but rather as Deudney states,
the United States’ ability to mitigate international anarchy in a system of republican states.4 The
following section presents a theoretical framework for analyzing American interaction with the
international system under particular material contexts.
Geopolitics, Systemic Anarchy and Domestic Modes of Security Practice
This section discusses changes in the international system taking into account the change
in material context, and how the new context presented by the existence of nuclear weapons
enables states to drive toward executive concentrations of power. While nuclear weapons have
amplified centralizing tendencies in the hands of the executive in the United States, it is a
byproduct of systemic change in the international system. In short, nuclear weapons have
changed the constraints and inducements of unit level actors in the international system. As to
how they have done so, nuclear weapons lessen the costs of mobilization in the traditional
balance of power, their destructiveness holds the potential for decelerating arms races, and they
necessitate civilian executive custody because of the exponentially increased costs of war.
For structural realism, systemic anarchy is a threat to sovereign states.5 Because of this
international state of war, certain forms of domestic organization are more viable within the
4 Deudney (2007), p. 1865 Gourevitch, Peter. “The Second Image Reversed.” International Organization. (32)4, (1978), pp.881-912, p. 896.
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system than others. Given this, as Samuel Huntington has written, there is a certain tension
between state demands for security from violence and individual liberty.6
In instances of acute security threats, states traditionally are more likely to centralize their
power, with the formation of large standing armies under autonomous control of the executive
power of the state.7 The existence of large military bodies, particularly, land based military units
then serve the primary function of external defense, and in turn a possible foil for internal
repression in the name of state survival. That is, the domestic effect of large garrisons in
response to acute and immediate security concerns yields the specter of the garrison state. As
Gourevitch writes, “Defense of the realm was quintessentially that function which required a
single sovereign. It required speed, authoritativeness, secrecy, comprehensiveness.”8 These
qualities themselves are regarded as antithetical to deliberative, representative bodies.9
In such a situation, republican democracies, premised upon division, balance and mixture
– as a means of dispersing, slowing and demobilizing violence by creating co-binding internally
and internationally through mutual restraint10 – are ill suited for the balancing necessary to avoid
interstate hierarchy. As Deudney notes, “elaborate systems of internal check and balance power
restraints and the absence of centralized unitary decision making impede effective balancing
against outside threats.”11 Therefore, increased unit interaction in a pre-nuclear world of anarchy
6 Huntington, Samuel. The Soldier and the State. New York: Vintage Books, (1964).7 For more on the effects of war on centralization and state making, see Bruce D. Porter, War and theRise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: Free Press, 1994); and CharlesTilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1990 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). For a discussionof crisis and state growth in the United States, see Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical EpisodesIn the Growth of American Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).8 Gourevitch, p. 899.9 Dahl, Robert A. “Atomic Energy and the Democratic Process.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 290 (1953).10Deudney, Daniel “Political Fission.” On Security. Editor Ronnie D. Lipshcutz. New York: Columbia University Press, (1995).11Deudney, Daniel. “Geopolitics as Theory” in the European Journal of International Relations. 6:1, (2000), pp. 77-107, p. 98.
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benefits the powers of the security functions of state to the detriment of republican-democratic
governance.
This existing mode, which Deudney calls real-statism, while challenged by nascent
democracy expansion, remains the dominant mode of protection today. It is a form of arms
control in which centralization and concentration of authority produces monopolization of the
use of violence within a given territorial space as a means of avoiding state-of-nature anarchy.12
As this is done, the citizenry is routinely disarmed. Hierarchal structures are put into being as a
means of both controlling the population under its jurisdiction, and preventing international
hierarchy by balancing against other real-states.13
However, in the pre-nuclear age, not all states by virtue of their geographical position
needed to adjust their domestic security practices in this way. Geography plays a tremendous
role in eras prior to the nuclear age, in which distance from the threatening states, enable limited
standing armies, and limited mobilization of material resources to sustain it. Distance also slows
the requisite speed with which decisions regarding security are made, allowing for deliberation.
Lack of proximate threats allows for the development of liberal political cultures and institutions
of restraint conducive to democracy. A removed security environment then enables a
development of a republican-liberal limited constitutional political order.
Nevertheless, as Deudney and others have shown, geographic distance is mitigated by
the advancement of technology used for destructive purposes. The broadening scope of
destruction and speed of delivery presented first by the advent of the airplane and most
12 Ibid, p. 9213 Deudney identifies five interrelated features of the real-state mode of protection being “the monopoly of violence capability within a particular territorial space, the concentration of control over that violence capability in the hands of a distinct organization, the relative autonomy of the organizational apparatus wielding this capability, the tendency to employ the capability at its disposal and thus to couple capability to outcomes, and the public acceptance or legitimacy of state authority as a consequence of the state’s ability to provide for security” in Deudney, Daniel “Political Fission.” On Security. Editor Ronnie D. Lipshcutz. New York: Columbia University Press, (1995), p. 93.
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importantly second, by the advent of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles
renders effective geographic distance all but irrelevant and national borders porous. In the
present age, the front line is no longer itself limited to the peripheries of state borders, but rather
makes vulnerable the whole territory of the state.
Often overlooked in works released at the birth of the atomic age is William Liscum
Borden’s There Will Be No Time, whose writing reflects much of what has since become. He
argues that the novelties of speed and scope of destruction that comes with the nuclear age
renders even industrial age wartime weapons, emphasizing full mobilization of citizens, obsolete.
The importance in preparing for nuclear war, Borden writes lies in preparation accomplished
“before the fighting begins.”14 Victory then, if there is such a thing, is accomplished not by the
destruction of cities, or citizens, but through destroying the opponents’ nuclear stockpiles in
being, before they destroy yours. Contrary to structural realist expectations, readiness to fight
wars in the current technological age then, no longer requires complete social integration of the
whole population toward a military ethic, but rather in the readiness to rapidly launch its nuclear
weapons before they themselves are destroyed in similar fashion. Similarly, because of the
intense speed element involved in nuclear weapons decision making, and particularly the
increased costs of war, the ability to launch nuclear weapons has concentrated itself into one
individual, the chief executive, who is fundamentally unaccountable.
This material contextual dynamic is also illustrated by a novel shift in civil military
relations in which the professionalism of the military cannot be relied upon, and rather, the
executive must be active and assertive in controlling the very weapons the military would
traditionally be entrusted to use. This Assertive Civil-Military Control as defined by Feaver,
using Huntington as a foil, is a method that does not presuppose that the military will conform to
14 Borden, William Liscum. There Will Be No Time. Macmillan: New York, (1946), p. 218.
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the values and more importantly the orders of civilian society or that the officer corps will
understand civilian leadership.15 Nor does it place its trust in military professionalism to restrain
itself. As it relates to control over nuclear weapons, assertive civilian nuclear control is a means
by which the military is restrained in its ability to use the nuclear weapons in its possession, by
keeping custody of the ability for launch out of their control. It is an emphasis on the ‘never’ end
of the always/never problematique, a means by which the weapons will not be fired unless given
the order by the civilian command. While in possession of the military, the weapons themselves
cannot be armed or used because of the method of positive control.
The need for the control of such weapons outside the bounds of what Huntington called
military professionalism, is a corollary of the increased costs of war and a heightened fear of
military accidents or unauthorized uses. In the aftermath of a major nuclear exchange, in as little
as 500 detonations, the planet becomes uninhabitable.16 As argued by the astrophysicist Carl
Sagan, global nuclear war would not only bring about the physical destruction of the countries
launching such weapons, but would very likely end life on earth as we know it. As he writes it,
“cold, dark, radioactivity, pyrotoxins and ultraviolet light following a nuclear war…would
imperil every survivor on the planet.”17 Sagan raises the specter that even a massive disarming
first strike by either superpower at the time might be sufficient to wipe out all life.
Therefore, the increasing speed of delivery in conjunction with the rapidly expanding
scope of nuclear destruction necessitates further positive control measures to prevent the military
from unauthorized use. This in turn reinforces the unchecked power of the president, for it
would be only he who can give the order to strike.
15 Feaver, Peter. Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, (1992), pp.3-254.16 Sagan, Carl. Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe. Foreign Affairs. (1983/1984), pp. 257-292.17 Sagan (1983/1984) p. 292-293.
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Paradoxically, while this hyper concentration has led to absolute presidential authority in
the nuclear domain, the rest of the political system has been largely unaffected. While the US has
compensated for its historical dearth in institutional capacity to internally balance against real-
states by expanding the national security state, it has done so in such a way as to preserve a
modicum of democratic practices. Given this claim to existing hierarchy within security serving
apparatuses of state, the United States regime has highly competitive free elections, oversight,
formal checks balances, and a robust free press. Even over the course of the Cold War, many US
freedoms and guarantees expanded.
The existence of nuclear weapons then, also serves the purpose of limiting the extent to
which states need to strain to balance against others within the international system in light of
external threat. The United States’ historical declaratory policy of first use of nuclear weapons,
particularly with reference to the defense of Europe from Soviet encroachment illustrates this.
Lacking conventional military parody with the Soviet Union in Europe, the United States relied
upon the speed and destructive potential of theater nuclear weapons to right the imbalance. In
the event of a conventional war, the United States planned to use its nuclear weapons first in the
defense of Europe, the timing of which within the conflict was subject to revision. The
Eisenhower administration’s policy of Massive Retaliation – relying upon nuclear weapons
while cutting the defense budget, effectively more ‘bang’ and less ‘buck’ foresaw using nuclear
weapons early in the event of a conflict. The policy of flexible response spawned by the
Kennedy Administration, foresaw using nuclear weapons selectively after a series of escalatory
conventional exchanges. While the issue of presidential control of the first use of nuclear
weapons did not become politically salient until the 1970s, Congressional testimony offered by
then the Director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Fred Ikle expresses the
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very essence of the centrality of the first use of nuclear weapons to the defense of Western
Europe:
…many non-nuclear weapon states depend of the nuclear deterrence of present security arrangements. A nonuse pledge could undercut such arrangements and thereby increase the incentives of such allies to acquire their own independent nuclear weapons…We are now faced with superior conventional strength in areas we have important commitments: I refer in particular to NATOs central front. In this context, it must be remembered that our principal goal is the deterrence of war altogether, and that NATO’s doctrine of potential first use can enhance this deterrence.18
Because nuclear weapons are so efficiently destructive, collective mobilization for war need not
be extreme, as the destructiveness of nuclear weapons renders large conventional buildups
unnecessary for security through deterrence.
This observation about changing patterns of great power warfare is not without historical
precedent. Changing destructive technologies have historically shifted the ways in which wars
are fought, and the implements with which they are fought. Like the dreadnaught after the
advent of the submarine, the need for large scale standing militaries to deter great power
revisionism has become effectively obsolete, which in effect has had the side benefit of lessening
a historical threat to liberty – the existence of large standing armies.
Lastly, the scope of destructive potential granted by the existence of nuclear weapons has
induced particularly early in the atomic age, efforts at international control by abridging anarchy
and seeking to avoid the balance of power politics so characteristic of the Westphalian state
system. Often ignored in looking back to America’s atomic monopoly was the strong emphasis
placed on the need to internationalize the control of atomic energy. Even the 1946 Atomic
Energy Act was designed specifically with this understanding in mind. In his report from the
Special Committee on Atomic Energy, Senator McMahan writes, “…since the only real solution
to the whole problem lies in continued world peace, legislation should be directed in specific
18 Ikle, Fred C. “Statement of Hon. Fred C. Ikle, Director, US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.” Testimony in the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Security and Scientific Affairs. Washington D.C., March 25, 1976, 153.
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terms toward that end and should contain a practical expression of our desire for international
cooperation.”19 In essence, the 1946 Act was originally a placeholder, and would be subject to
significant revision once an agreement, like the Baruch plan, would be reached on international
control. As will be argued below in the case study, the 1954 Atoms for Peace proposal was a
further effort aimed particularly at slowing the arms race. That these efforts were not successful
placed further impetus on centralizing tendencies deemed necessary to survive within anarchy.
This phenomenon of multilateral arms control is a corollary of the increased costs of
using nuclear weapons. A prevailing debate of international relations literature centers upon
whether states act based on relative or absolute gains. According to the structural realist tradition,
any state that improves its position in the balance of power does so at the expense of other states,
which lose relative power. This is a zero sum world in which states cannot improve its own
prospects of survival without threatening the survival of other states. Other states then, take
actions to secure or improve its own position within the system, setting off a cycle of
competition that goes in perpetuity. While this may have been the case in eras prior to the
nuclear age, the prospects of state survival in a violence rich material context under balance of
power conditions are truly bleak. The incredible absolute costs of even a limited nuclear war are
so great that states have continually sought a comprehensive and binding international arms
control agreement to limit the costs of war. In the ill fated Baruch Plan and Atoms for Peace
initiative, a nuclear great power sought cooperation rather than great power balancing to restrain
institutionally and normatively the ability of states to employ nuclear weapons.
Accounting for the change in material context, brought about by the existence of nuclear
weapons, reveals a story of American Political Development that diverges widely from
19 Senator McMahan. “Committee Report No.1251 on the Atomic Energy Act of 1946” Congressional Record. 79th Congress (April 19, 1946), p.S6.
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conventional understandings of recessed capacities,20 civilian control,21 popular military
participation,22 and institutional restraint.23 However, it also diverges from structural realist
assumptions of the requisites of collective mobilization and requisite efficiencies in speed
required to use weapons at its disposal. In the nuclear age, the apparatuses of national security
have loosened the constraints on the government in the name of existential necessity out of fear
of sudden annihilation. Seemingly paradoxical, the contours of the contemporary material
context allows for formal democratic practices continue outside the realm of national security, as
the existence of nuclear weapons and their distinctiveness from everyday life,24 no longer
requires large standing armies.
What follows is a case study from the United States, analyzing a particular concentration
of power I argue that is unique to this particular material context due to the failure of
international control of nuclear weapons. In analyzing the Baruch Plan and Atoms for Peace, we
can see that the speed and destructiveness of nuclear weapons themselves leads to the tendency
of states to seek an abridgement of anarchy and balance of power politics, attempting to limit the
arms race. That these efforts ultimately failed exacerbated centralizing tendencies in the
American executive branch. By looking at the construction of the 1946 Atomic Energy Act, we
can see the formative structure of nuclear custody, in which the president and civilians within the
executive branch and congress is entrusted with the maintenance, custody, and oversight of the
20 Katznelson, Ira. “Flexible Capacity: The Military and Early American State Building.” Shaped By War and Trade. Ira Katznelson and Martin Shefter, Editors. Princeton: Princeton University Press, (2002).21 Hogan, Michael J. A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State. New York: Cambridge University Press, (1998).22 See Skocpol et al.’s work in Shaped by War and Trade. Ira Katznelson and Martin Shefter, Editors. Princeton: Princeton University Press, (2002).23 Friedberg, Aaron. “Why Didn’t the United States Become a Garrison State?” International Security. 16:4 (1992), pp. 109-142.24 Nuclear weapons are ‘distinctive’ in the sense that outside of energy use and medical applications, the public has little to do with existing nuclear technology. In the current nuclear age, the material context is abundant in violence potential, and so balancing against hierarchy in the interstate system is relatively easy. This is because a quantitative imbalance in weaponry does not lead to qualitative difference in the means of violence wielded by states.
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nuclear stockpile, rather than the military. This tendency was further manifested by the decision
to employ permissive action links further solidifying civilian executive control over the custody
of nuclear weapons while permitting their possession to the military given Cold War exigencies.
International Nuclear Cooperation to Abridge Nuclear Anarchy
A hallmark of realism is the idea that interstate cooperation under anarchy is difficult and
ultimately impossible because of the existence of relative gains. In essence, the transaction costs
are too great to risk the effort. For structural realists, this dynamic is intractable, because even
when both parties share interests, and would even gain from cooperating, the relative gains of
one state over another that might result would be employed at the lesser party’s expense.
Neoliberals differ arguing that the fear of relatively greater gains does not always inhibit
cooperation. States can be motivated to cooperate to achieve absolute gains if their concerns of
future intentions can be alleviated. For neoliberals, barriers to cooperation thus are
surmountable.
While this debate has illuminated IR theorizing for the past 30 years, it has left out
another cause for interstate cooperation, the existence of absolute losses presented by destructive
technology, ecological degradation, and extra territorial threats from space. This phenomenon
identified by Deudney in Bounding Power and “Regrounding Realism” increasingly causes
states to bind together in comprehensive arms control agreements when states are no longer
secure from violence. Stated a different way, states in anarchy in anticipation of its effects can
exit anarchy without creating hierarchy. The effort by limited government constitutional states to
create international institutions then is truly a conservative project. For the act of exiting anarchy
both prevents the tragic costs of war and thus ensures state survival without security state
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building imperiling limited government constitutions. The failed Baruch Plan and Atoms for
Peace illuminate this under theorized concept in international relations.
Central to the issue of atomic weapons in the aftermath of the War, was the agreed upon
urgency of constituting some form of international arms control agreement. However, the nature
and scope of that agreement, including the necessity of even having one diverged widely in the
halls of government. The first position, readily dismissed by the Truman administration, was to
have limited to no arms control. The atomic monopoly would be the provision only of the United
States as a trusteeship – a guarantor of world peace. Moreover, the Russians could not be trusted.
Advanced most notably by Secretary of the Navy, John Forrestal, he concluded regarding
international negotiations, “We tried that once with Hitler. There are no returns on
appeasement.”25 Admiral Nimitz argued that the United States was in a dominant position in the
international system with sole possession of the bomb, and should exploit this advantage in order
to secure an international agreement on American terms.26 General Carl Spaatz of the Air Corps
argued that the United States’ military strength had been degraded significantly since the end of
World War II, and so had to retain its monopoly to enforce stability and peace. This position was
also held by Secretary of the Treasury Fred Vinson, Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson,
and Attorney General Tom Clark among others, who generally felt that Soviet power would
stand to gain greatly in the arms control effort by effectively giving their geopolitical rival the
technics and knowhow to construct a bomb.
That the United States could survive as a republic in the international system given the
context of nuclear weapons figured heavily in the argument for doing something to abridge
international anarchy. Spearheaded by James B. Conant, chair of the National Defense Research
25 Forrestal quoted in Bernstein, Barton J. “The Quest for Security: American Foreign Policy and International Control of Atomic Energy, 1942-1946.” The Journal of American History. Vol. 60(4), (March 1974), p. 101926 Ibid, p. 1019
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Committee and Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development,
as well as numerous Manhattan project scientists, the approach suggested called for a
comprehensive system of deep arms control, and information sharing to mitigate the possibilities
for nuclear arms races. A policy of secrecy and monopoly would only lead to a temporary
advantage at the cost of damaging long-term relations with the Soviet Union – making an
eventual deal less likely.
Calls for international control of atomic energy became more pronounced in the
immediate postwar world. The melodramatic “We are here to make a choice between the quick
and the dead,” accurately described the scope of international attention placed upon the first
attempt at international atomic control.27 President Truman had appointed Bernard Baruch to the
United Nations’ Atomic Energy Commission, to negotiate a comprehensive and binding
agreement. What became known as the Baruch plan entailed a ban on all atomic weapons and the
creation of an Atomic Development Authority to police all stages of development and research
of atomic energy. The United States would dismantle its existing weapons after an adequate
control system was in place. Furthermore, a declaration of violation and sanctions against
transgressors would not be subject to veto by the permanent members of the UN Security
Council.
This plan was challenged by the Gromyko plan of the Soviet Union, in which a
convention was called for that would prohibit the manufacture and use of atomic weapons. All
atomic weapons would be destroyed within three months of the convention’s effective date.
There would also be full information sharing of atomic energy, without binding onsite inspection
regimes called for in the Baruch proposal. In effect, the Soviet Union was asking for the United
27Baruch quoted in McDougal, Walter. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. New York: Basic Books, (1985), p. 85
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States to disarm unilaterally and divulge atomic information in return for an unenforceable
promise not to take advantage. Soviet resistance over the removal of veto power, and concern
over opening its closed political system to onsite inspections effectively sank the best chance at
international control of atomic energy.
This is not to say that this attempt was utopian or idealistic. Whatever the deficiencies of
the Baruch plan, it was an unprecedented offer of disarmament by a great power with material
interests befitting its position within the system. However, while the prospects of absolute costs
suggested international arms control, both the Soviet Union and the United States chose instead
to play according to the balance of power, unwilling to take the first step or relinquish an
advantage.
Regardless, an important distinction between the two plans is necessary. American
opinion strongly favored international control. Scientists and politicians, detailed in works such
as A Cross of Iron, began to sense the damage to the constitutional structure that a peacetime
arms race might cause. While the Truman administration was not as trusting as it could have
been in waiting to relinquish its atomic weapons only after a comprehensive system of binding
inspections were placed into being and after the Soviets would have shown to be keepers of their
word, the Soviet plan lacking any enforcement measures only promised an eventual Soviet
monopoly. As McDougal writes, “That Truman’s demarche was cautious is understandable; that
it was sincere was beyond question.”28 Still, any ban on nuclear weapons would strengthen the
Soviet position in Eastern Europe given their conventional superiority and yet, the United States
in earnest pursued this policy. That it failed surely contributed to the United States spending a
greater proportion of its gross national product on defense related research, development, and
state building. However, this would not be the last effort of some kind of international control.
28 McDougal, p. 87
Fried 17
While the 1946 Atomic Energy Act aimed at centralizing and classifying the secrets of all
atomic application, it became apparent in 1949 that America’s atomic monopoly would not keep.
The running illusion that the original Manhattan project was purely an American cartel ignored
the international efforts given by Canada and the UK along with the elaborate Soviet infiltration
of these efforts. 29 As such, the US effort to embargo atomic information did little to prevent rival
and friendly states alike from acquiring atomic and later nuclear, capability. With the growing
concern that over 20 states had begun some rudimentary form of nuclear program, the
Eisenhower administration sought to share nuclear technology, as a means of preventing the very
arms races that traditional balance of power stemming from systemic anarchy might predict.
Furthermore, there was great concern of the potential for surprise Soviet attacks on
American cities, once the Soviet Union achieved parity or primacy in the number of nuclear
weapons in its possession. This stimulated the newly elected Eisenhower administration to have
a small group of top officials to deliver a series of speeches on the nuclear crisis, and Eisenhower
would soon propose mutual military fissile material reductions to the Soviets. This latter idea
never went far. However, the public information campaign outlining the nuclear danger, dubbed
Operation Candor continued through the Soviet testing of their first hydrogen bomb, of which
estimates indicated could destroy all of New York City.
Dismayed at the events, Eisenhower redoubled his efforts at Operation Candor now seen
as critical to bringing the nuclear arms crisis to peaceful resolution. In doing so, not only would
he be able to explain the situation publically, but the United States would also be able to judge
Soviet intentions by their reaction. If the Soviets still would not agree to international arms
29 Reed & Stillman. The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation. Minneapolis: Zenith Press, (2009), p. 18.
Fried 18
control, then Americans would be able to assume hostile intentions. Under such circumstances,
it was not out of the realm of possibility for the United States to initiate hostilities.
In Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace,” later codified in the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, the
United States attempted to control international competition by sharing the secrets of the atom
for ‘peaceful’ purposes. The Eisenhower administration sought to use the ‘promise’ of peaceful
nuclear technological assistance to prevent its military applications.30 The 1954 Atomic Energy
Act provides for the growth of peaceful nuclear industries domestically, granting corporations
the right to receive licenses to construct civilian nuclear reactors for domestic energy
consumption. In doing so, the act grants the Atomic Energy Commission the ability to provide
private industry with data in assisting with the construction of these private reactors. Moreover,
the act allows for the dissemination of peaceful nuclear technical information and fissionable
material to any non-nuclear state seeking it.31
For our purposes, the Atoms for Peace plan, in accordance with the 1954 Atomic Energy
Act, would also call for the eventual establishment in 1957 of what today is the International
Atomic Energy Agency, with the United States contributing fissionable materials to it, of which
the IAEA would oversee. In conjunction with this, the United States gave strong support to the
creation of EURATOM, a consortium of France, Italy West Germany and the Benelux countries
in 1958. Similar to the fledgling European Coal and Steel community, EURATOM would foster
the development of an atomic energy industry. In this way, however naïve, the more fissionable
materials devoted to the use of peaceful nuclear energy, the less would remain for nuclear
weapons programs.
30 Hewlett, Richard G. and Jack M. Holl. Atoms for Peace and War 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission. Berkley: University of California Press, (1989), pp. 306-307.31 Hall, John A. “Atoms for Peace or War.” Foreign Affairs. 43(4), (1965), pp. 602-615.
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In doing so, the hope was that normalizing nuclear energy use would decrease the
incentive to use such technology as a weapon.32 Peaceful atomic use would foster advancements
in energy and medicine, and would lead to a more cooperative global climate. As a benefit, the
United States would tighten its alliances in Europe, forestalling other states from acquiring
nuclear capability, and allowing the United States to guard against further nuclear diffusion. In
this sense, Atoms for Peace would satisfy other states’ nuclear aspirations while discouraging
military nuclear programs.
In the end, Atoms for Peace was also a failure. It did little to slow the arms race and
nothing to scale it back. The notion that atomic research is peaceful rather than military in
application ignored what has since become known as the dual use problem. In fact, as Reed and
Stillman argue in The Nuclear Express, nuclear diffusion was enhanced rather than slowed by
this proposal. Eisenhower hoped that joint contributions of fissionable materials would be made
to the IAEA where the fissionable material would be allocated to peaceful uses in energy and
medicine. However, there was no method by which the IAEA could prevent the reactors and
related technologies shared with non-nuclear states from being used to produce nuclear useable
material.
In full, these actions do not comport neatly within standard assumptions of the effects of
anarchy upon domestic political development. Rather than seeking to maintain a fleeting
monopoly on nuclear material and control of information, the Truman and Eisenhower
administrations chose to create an effort of openness and candor about the military dangers and
civilian promise of nuclear technology to slow the arms race, rather than welcome it. Rather
32 Bundy, McGeorge. “Early Thoughts on Controlling the Arms Race: A Report to the Secretary of State, January 1953.” International Security. 7(2), (1982), pp. 3-27.
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than looking to international rivalry as a form of stability, Eisenhower and Truman sought
cooperation to ameliorate the apocalyptic specter of war if such anarchic practices persisted.
Concentrated Executive-Civilian Control of Atomic Energy
The failure of the international arms control agenda had significant effects on the
domestic control of atomic energy and the limited government constitution. While the domestic
arrangements made seem to conform to traditional notions of separations of power, civilian
authority would not be able to deny the military the weapons they needed to properly balance in
the anarchic international system, a concern to be addressed in the next section.
What follows first is a brief exploration of the initial public debates over the control of
atomic energy, in which the 1946 Atomic Energy Act was triumphed as a victory of civilian
control over the military and a bulwark against the looming garrison state. It is remarkable that
the research and design of ostensibly a military weapon, in the atomic bomb, was not granted to
the military but civil authorities in the aftermath of World War II. In the wake of the atomic
detonations, the public was saturated with both hope and dread for the atomic future.
Immediately, the vast majority of nuclear physicists who worked on the Manhattan project
lobbied opposing any plan that promoted secrecy at the expense of information sharing and
international cooperation.
As Walter McDougal writes, “by all accounts, atomic energy was a revolutionary
technology that justified abandonment of old patterns of research. But in favor of what?
Unprecedented control and secrecy or unprecedented cooperation and openness?”33 The novelties
of speed and volume of destruction made it such that the resolution of any atomic war would be
decided by the number of weapons already produced. Thus, emphasis on research and
development was vital in US security practice. However, it was also argued that these weapons
33 McDougal, p. 82
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were so destructive that they could not be entrusted into the military. Still the Army and its allies
in congress felt that atomic technology was very much within their traditional policy domain.
The army’s draft took the form of the Mays-Johnson bill in October of 1945. Initial
concerns centered upon whom was most capable of controlling the ‘secrets’ of atomic energy.34
On the one hand, the military and its vocal supporters in Congress felt that “the capacity of the
military to control atomic energy in peacetime was demonstrated beyond doubt by their victory
in war.”35 A further extension of this proposition, military control meant better readiness to fight
the Russians. As military control successfully kept secret the atomic bomb in wartime, any
civilian control would rely on atomic scientists, whose loyalties in the words of Representative
August Anderson were of questionable doubt:
There are many good Americans among them, probably all of them are good…but I also know some scientists in our country, in the United States, are as red as you can make them. If they were to get any information about atomic energy, I know that it would go outside the United States just as quickly as they could hand it to some agent who would be willing to pass it along.36
In this sense, the military was viewed as the most effective organization of keeping military
secrets. Others were simply frightened of the whole subject, and viewed the military by default
as best prepared to cope with this largely still undiscovered technology. Robert Rich of
Pennsylvania expressed this sentiment, “We should let the secrets remain in the hands of our
34 It should also be noted that the public debate premised upon civilian versus military control largely ignored the fact that both the May-Johnson bill (the original draft on domestic control of atomic energy) and the McMahan Bill largely agreed for some form of civilian control. Where the disagreement existed was the extent to which the military could influence policy on atomic energy. The Mays-Johnson Bill provided for a full-time administrator and deputy with a part-time commission, in which a member of the military could occupy either post. Furthermore, May-Johnson did not refer to peacetime usage of atomic energy. The McMahan bill on the other hand called for a fulltime five-member commission, in which active members of the military were barred from the commission and in which civilian and military control issues were provided. For more see Miller below and Hogan, pp. 234-252.
35 Miller, Byron S. “A Law is Passed – The Atomic Energy Act of 1946.” The University of Chicago Law Review. Vol. 15 Issue 4, (1948), p.801.36 Representative Anderson. “The Atomic Energy Act.” Congressional Record. 79th Congress (July 18, 1946), p. H9364.
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Army until we know more about it, and until the Army is willing to convey information to us as
to what the atomic bomb really is and what it will do.”37
These efforts to institutionalize military control of atomic energy failed popular opinion.
Newspapers denounced the haste of the Mays-Johnson Bill, indicating that it was a bid for
military control. Scientists denounced the bill as overemphasizing military uses of atomic
energy, to the detriment of other peaceful uses such as medicine, and industry. The bill provided
for too much secrecy and too burdensome security measures, providing insurmountable barriers
for scientists to freely participate in atomic research. As detailed by McDougal, Chicago
physicist Herbert Anderson led the cry of his colleagues that “the war is won. Let us be free
again.”38 There would need to be a greater degree of legislative oversight and presidential
control, along with fewer restrictions on research, and, to avoid militarism, fewer military
representatives on the board.39
Scientists and concerned citizens around the country formed independent citizens
committees to publicize the dangers of nuclear weapons and plea for global peace. “To many this
was a simple choice between war and peace,” wrote one article.40 As stated by Representative
Estes Kefauver of Tennessee:
Do we put our hopes for peace in atomic energy as a weapon and turn it over to the military here, thereby making certain the armament race already begun? Or do we leave the development of atomic energy in civilian hands…and proclaim to the world our faith in the future of civilization?41
Placing active members of the military on an otherwise civilian commission would be
ahistorical, concerning both traditional constraints of civilian control over military policy and the
37 Representative Rich. “The Atomic Energy Act.” Congressional Record. 79th Congress (July 20, 1946), p. H9546.38 McDougal, p. 8339 Hogan, p. 23640 Miller, p. 81741 Representative Kefauver. “The Atomic Energy Act.” Congressional Record. 79th Congress (July 18, 1946), p.H9348.
Fried 23
interjection of military influence into domestic politics. The armed forces, “with their essentially
authoritarian training and discipline would not be adequately responsive to the public will.”42
Senator Brien McMahon introduced an alternative bill, calling for an Atomic Energy
Commission under control of five civilian commissioners appointed by the president, freedom of
information in basic science and a patent policy ensuring rewards for private investors. It
forbade any weapons R&D in violation of any existing international agreements and kept all
fissionable material under the control of the AEC. The bill was immediately supported by the
national press, and atomic scientists. Secretary Henry Wallace endorsed the McMahon Bill,
“stressing how important it was to adhere to the principle of civilian control, and to avoid any
possibility of military dictatorship.”43 It seemed that civilian supremacy under the guise of
openness and international cooperation was at hand.
Then, the Soviet spy ring in the Manhattan project was discovered in mid-February of
1946. Secretary of War Robert Patterson attacked the McMahon bill asking how the armed
services could be excluded from a policy area directly relevant to national security. Arthur
Vandenberg proposed his amendment providing a military liaison committee to consult on all
matters relevant to national security. However, McMahon maintained that such an amendment
would give the military a veto power over atomic policy and a “position of authority in our
national affairs unprecedented in our history.”44 Still skeptical Members of congress charged that
the AEC’s proposed powers would be considered unconstitutional, that the bill would give the
atomic secret away to (Red) foreign governments, or that the concept of any form of monopoly
was against capitalism and limited government. Despite fears over big government,
conservatives sought to give the military arm substantial authority, trusting them rather than
42 Miller, p. 818.43 Hogan, p. 23744 McDougal, p.83
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unreliable New Deal bureaucrats in light of the discovery of the Soviet spy ring. The Vandenberg
amendment was added, and more changes would be made in the House.
The McMahon bill came before the United States Senate in July of 1946, with the
Vandenberg amendment able to sway enough Senators for passage to the House where it faced
an uncertain future. Opponents of the bill sought amendments to virtually all sections of the bill.
The section granting the AEC the authority to educate the world of the danger and promise of
atomic energy was stripped, granting a measure of unprecedented secrecy to the scientific
enterprise. Provisions calling for the close monitoring of loyalties of all workers in the AEC
were put into place.
Almost a year to the day of the bombing of Hiroshima, President Truman signed into law
the Atomic Energy Act. As was written in the Washington Post the following day, “Army
domination of atomic energy development legally ended yesterday.”45 The final bill was in
essence, fully representative of a separation of powers agreement based upon division, balance
and mixture. Fully in civilian hands, control over atomic energy was to be divided between all
three branches of government. Congress was provided a Joint Committee on Atomic Energy to
provide funding and oversight for the new executive department, the Atomic Energy
Commission. As was written in the McMahan report, the development of atomic energy entailed
a such a commission with “broad powers to stimulate private [and military and industrial]
research…be required to own all materials from which an atomic bomb might be made, and to
operate all plants where these materials were manufactured.”46 These concepts as well as the
strict control of information deemed vital to the security of the United States were enshrined in
45 Associated Press. “President Signs Atomic Bill Terminating Army Domination. The Washington Post. (August 2, 1946), p. 9.46 McMahan, p. 6.
Fried 25
the 1946 Atomic Energy Act. Any action stemming from either congress or the executive branch
would be subject to judicial review, a presidential veto, or a new law from Congress.
However, such a firm barrier between civilian and military control over atomic energy as
well as separation of power between the president and Congress would be severely undermined
in the absence of an international control agreement given the exigencies of anarchy. Domestic
practices related to realist oriented balancing would significantly degrade these power separation
arrangements because of exigencies of speed with the closing of effective distance. This is even
evident in the congressional debate showing a willingness to give large policy responsibility the
president because of the destructiveness of the technology. Jerry Voorhis of California expressed
this consensus, saying on the floor of the house that, “I believe all decisions with regard to what
is going on to be done under this bill should be made at the very highest level in our
Government, that is, the President of the United States.”47 In the absence of international arms
control, secrecy, surveillance, and presidential delegation for military use would be the result of
the Atomic Energy Act of 1946.
Regarding secrecy, the AEC was given wide authority to classify atomic ‘secrets’ not
subject to the purview of public debate rendering such checks and balances effectively moot.
Almost immediately, the establishment of the AEC drew complaints of secret administration
without adequate public consideration or oversight.48 More pernicious is language provided in
the bill requiring the surveillance of the loyalties of workers within the atomic energy industry
and granting the president expansive authority to “utilize the services of any government agency
to the extent he deems necessary or desirable”49 to protect against the dissemination of classified
47 Representative Voorhis. “The Atomic Energy Act.” Congressional Record.79th Congress (July 19, 1946), p. H9466.48 Marks, Herbert S. “The Atomic Energy Act: Public Administration without Public Debate.” The University of Chicago Law Review. 15:4 (1948), pp. 839-854.49 Italics mine, Atomic Energy Act, p. 14.
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data or materials. This authority granted the president also extends to the extensive surveillance
of Atomic Energy workers under this act. The bill requires that the FBI investigate “the
character, associations, and loyalty”50 of AEC workers, which the way the bill is written, does
not discount continual surveillance, given the president’s authority granted in section 10.
More indicative of the power potential of the executive is the president’s granted
prerogative to “direct the commission to (1) deliver such quantities of fissionable materials or
weapons to the armed forces for such use as he deems necessary in the interest of national
defense.”51 This grant of authority has been used by presidents to assert a plenary nuclear war
power, as it enables the president launch nuclear weapons without deliberation or effective
restraint.
In light of real-state practices and changing material contexts, the United States’ adoption
of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 represents a formative security structure, the outgrowth and
product of the real-state mode of protection given the failure of the Baruch Plan. The act was
made law with the benign intent of protecting the citizenry from foreign and domestic security
threats, at the expense of loosening the restraints of government given centripetal tendencies
from anarchy. The deference given to the executive branch in the form of surveillance, control
of information, and most damningly, the unilateral ability to launch the nuclear arsenal, would
overtime exceed constitutional arrangements. In full, the 1946 Atomic Energy Act has become
the cornerstone to what had been hoped to be avoided. A new form of hierarchy exists at the
very heart of the republic.
Still, this concentration of power in the hands of the chief executive contra the military
leadership is also inconsistent with expectations of military readiness to fight within the context
50 Ibid, p. 14.51 “Atomic Energy Act.” Legislative History of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Washington: US Atomic Energy Commission (1965), p 10.
Fried 27
of acute external threats. Within the text of the act itself, the president effectively eschews the
reliance upon the professional military as proper stewards of the weapons themselves. This was
precisely the concern of the military and their largely conservative allies in Congress at the birth
of the new Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Almost immediately following the passage of
the 1946 Atomic Energy Act, the military with congressional backing began stating wider claims
on Atomic responsibilities than were provided for in the original legislation, ultimately driving
the president to reassert his plenary authority in the atomic domain.
While the military lost the legislative fight to maintain possession of the bomb, they
continued to pressure the AEC to relinquish military control. Aided by conservative allies in
congress, members of the Military Liaison Committee (MLC) continued to pressure the AEC for
custody of atomic weapons, using the ambiguity of the MLC’s role to argue for more power than
had been intended. In the military’s view, the MLC would be serving “with and as part of the
[Atomic Energy] Commission.”52 The MLC would, or should, in this view, be consulted and
given time to consider any action to be taken by the AEC that would have anything to do with
national security or the interests of the Armed Services. In effect, the military viewed the MLC
having effective veto power over the AEC.
The AEC, directed at the time by David Lilienthal, argued that the atomic bomb was not
just another weapon of war, as was argued by the military, but rather it was an instrument of total
destruction.53 The scope of such destructive potential had broad diplomatic and military
implications, the importance of which only the president could resolve in a system of civilian
controlled constitutional government.
52 Hogan, p.243.53 Ibid, p. 248.
Fried 28
The ongoing tension between military and civilian jurisdiction over the custody of the
atomic stockpile was temporarily resolved in a meeting with Truman in mid-July of 1948, in
which the representatives of the MLC did themselves no favors:
With all the bluster he could muster, which was considerable, Symington talked about how ‘our fellas’ thought they ‘ought to have the bomb. They feel they might get them when they need them and they might not work’. When Truman asked if they had failed to work so far, Symington had to say no, whereupon Royall made things worse by talking about the money that had been invested in atomic weapons. ‘Now if we aren’t going to use them’ he announced that ‘the investment doesn’t make any sense.’54
President Truman, perhaps, to only the surprise of the military, ruled in favor of civilian control.
However, the justification he used, speaks to the core of the specific concentration of power
under study. He commented on July 24, 1948 that because “a free society places the civil
authority above the military power, the control of atomic energy belongs in civilian hands.”55
While civil military cooperation is essential in controlling atomic energy, the power vested
within the president by the Congress through the 1946 Atomic Energy Act, privileges the
“president’s special responsibilities” and enables him to see “continued control of atomic energy
to be the proper function of civil authorities.”56
This decision, a further manifestation of the president’s independence from both the
Congress and the military concerning atomic energy and the nuclear stockpile, demonstrates the
dual nature of the executive concentration. The military in this instance cannot be trusted,
because it views the nuclear arsenal as simply another weapon system that can be used to fight
and win wars. In any acute crisis involving the Soviet Union, they would not hesitate to use
them. With the decision to leave the nuclear stockpile under civilian control, the president is
asserting his authority granted by the delegation of Congress, and buttressed by traditions of
American civil-military relations the capacity to control access to atomic energy. In making the
54 Ibid, p. 249.55 Truman, quoted in Hogan, p. 251.56 Ibid, p. 251.
Fried 29
justification that civilian control of atomic weapons is the only method of ensuring the
maintenance of constitutional government, the president is subsuming the powers of nuclear war
making directly into the office of the presidency, symptomatic of broader material contextual
changes in the international system.
Assertive Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons
The issue of civilian control of nuclear weapons took on a new complexity as the
stockpile grew in quantity and quality. While the physical possession of nuclear weapons
initially remained in the hands of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Cold War threatened to
become ‘hot’ throughout the ‘50s, and given the exigencies of the balance of power, their
possession gradually shifted to the military. However, concern over the custody of the weapon,
that is, the ability to use it, became a topic of considerable executive angst until the advent of the
Permissive Action Link (PAL), which would enable the continuance of assertive civilian
executive control over the military and military operations.
The first atomic weapons were “glorified physics experiments” rather than efficient
means of destruction.57 In the exigencies of the Second World War, weapons safety was of little
concern, with there being no demonstrated worry of unauthorized or accidental use. And indeed,
for the first years of the Atomic Energy Commission, atomic safeguarding would simply consist
of separating the plutonium core of the Fat Man implosion device from the weapon casing itself;
and only upon presidential order would the implosion capsule be wedded to the rest of the
weapon.58
While the 1946 Atomic Energy Act envisioned the ability to keep this strict physical
separation between the civilian controlled explosive device and the military’s delivery systems,
57 Reed and Stillman, p. 132.58 Ibid, p. 133.
Fried 30
the international politics of the Cold War encouraged President Truman to deploy nuclear
capable bombers to forward locations in Europe. The major breach in civilian possession and
custody took place with the transfer of some nuclear capable core capsules to the US Air Force
in Guam at the outset of the Korean War. Furthermore, advancements in weapons designs, and
imperatives for speed of use resulted in the scrapping of the the removal process in the 1950s.
In place, the military installed various devices on the weapon system to prevent
inadvertent, accidental use. Environmental Sensing Devices, mechanical blocks inhibiting the
delivery of energy to arming switches and detonators and Enhanced Nuclear Detonation Systems
in which the weapon can only arm itself if it senses the “environment expected en route to the
intended target”59 were the methods of choice. While these precautions guarded against
accidental detonations in the event of a plane crash, they did not prevent unauthorized use. For
this concern, the US made use of a dual key system intended to prevent an illegal launch. The
two-man rule, a policy by which the transport, handling, maintenance and firing of the weapons
could not be done without at least two people, served as the only restraint against the
unauthorized firing of missiles, and the handling of ordinance.
It would not be until the late ‘50s that the breakdown of Assertive Civilian Control
became apparent. As a means of assuaging European allies concerns regarding America’s
extended deterrence, the United States had been deploying significant numbers of nuclear
weapons to NATO member countries, while retaining nominal possession. Visiting a Thor
missile base in 1958 Britain, Congressman Charles Porter found a British missile control officer
possessing both his key, and the key of his American counterpart, abusing the two-man rule. As
is recounted:
59 Ibid, p. 135.
Fried 31
We were scared stiff by what we saw…we wondered what would happen if, for some reason – two NATO states falling out, perhaps – the Turk [i.e. a non-US missile control officer] decided to overpower our man and take away his key. Why, the Turk would have himself a modern weapon, that’s what.60
This was not the last time, the potential for unauthorized use carried salience within policy
circles. The most famous instance is detailed in the 1960 report of the head of the Los Alamos
Weapons Division, Carl Agnew on joint military control of nuclear weapons at NATO
installations in Europe. When Agnew arrived at a German air base during the tour, he was
shocked to find four German aircraft with German pilots on five-minute alert fully armed with
atomic bombs under each aircraft.61 The only US control apparent at the time was a nineteen
year-old American GI with a rifle, sans instructions or radio in the event that any of the aircraft
took off. In the event of a rogue pilot, any of those planes could have successfully delivered
their ordinance, potentially starting a nuclear exchange.
Because of the unacceptable possibility of a rogue nuclear launch and the demonstrated
abuse of the two-man rule, the United States outfitted its nuclear weapons with Permissive
Action Links (PALs). It is not surprising, given the US military’s reticence in civilian control of
nuclear weapons, that the Armed Services were unenthusiastic about this reassertion of civilian
authority. For the military, PALs showed a lack of confidence in the military, with their concern
being that PALs hampered their readiness to fight when facing acute security crises.62
Nonetheless, the Kennedy Administration decided on PALs. Initially, the devices were
five digit electronic combination locks, which when given the correct code would arm the
weapon for detonation. That code could only come from the American president. Current PALs
require a 12-digit code into control panels on the nuclear weapon.63 There is a limited try 60 Caldwell, Dan. “Permissive Action Links: A Description and Proposal.” Survival. (29)3, (1987), pp. 224-238. See also, Larus, Joel. Nuclear Weapons Safety and the Common Defense. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, (1967), pp 1 – 165.
61 Ibid, p. 141.62 Reed and Stillman, p. 142.63 Ibid, p. 142.
Fried 32
feature, which disables the weapon after repeated incorrect imputing. These 12 digit codes today
leave the military in possession of the weapon, but they are only useable if given the correct
code. Likewise, the weapons can only be used with the direct order of the president, or his
designated successors.
Permissive Action Links are a means of strengthening executive concentrations of power.
By inhibiting the military’s ability to use what they consider to be a weapon of war, the President
limits the national security state from performing what might otherwise be an automated
operation given the anarchic international system. Because the costs of nuclear war are so high,
the president can no longer trust the members of his own security apparatus to safely control the
weapons. Inadvertent or unauthorized launch augers a nuclear doomsday. The utility of PALs
then is to enable the president to overcome the nuclear dilemmas of custody and speed as the
president is able to place nuclear weapons in the possession of the military without giving
complete control.
Furthermore, with the decision to implement Permissive Action Links, the president is
asserting his sole authority to conduct nuclear war. In making the justification that civilian
control of atomic weapons is the only method of ensuring against nuclear accidents or
unauthorized launch, the president is subsuming the powers of war making directly into the
office of the presidency. In other words, in the president’s attempt to preserve civilian control
over the military, all nuclear war powers remain with and only within the powers of the chief
executive, again, hampering the military’s ability to fight and win wars. Power is still
concentrated within the executive, but the military’s ability to fight in war, is constrained. While
the military holds the bomb, the president holds the key.
Conclusion
Fried 33
This paper has argued that the specific contours of the nuclear material context in the
absence of robust arms control enabled a particular form of concentration of power into the
hands of one individual, the president. It is an advancement of an argument that essentially, the
material context of any international system directly affects the interaction of the units and the
units’ internal structure. This shift toward executive power is a byproduct of larger changes in
the international system brought about by the advent of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have
lessened the costs of mobilization in the traditional balance of power, they have the potential
because of their destructiveness to spark the deceleration of arms races and abridge anarchy, and
they have necessitated executive civilian custody because of the exponentially increased costs of
war.
Considering this material context, the Baruch Plan and Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace
policy sought international restraint and binding arms control rather than primacy. Given the
destructiveness of the weapon, Truman and Eisenhower feared increased international nuclear
rivalry. In this sense, the Baruch Plan would eliminate atomic weapons by a robust international
organization mitigating or even ending the anarchic state system. Atoms for Peace would satisfy
other states’ nuclear aspirations while discouraging military nuclear programs, decreasing the
likelihood of catastrophic nuclear war. The benefit of the arms control agenda domestically
would be that the United States would not have to take on the centralizing security practices so
common to European Westphalian states. Through restraining itself through binding
international institutions and in the process abridging international anarchy, the United States
attempted to avoid the total transformation of its constitutional order into a centralized ‘garrison
state.’
Fried 34
The inability to end international anarchy has resulted in domestic hierarchy in the
nuclear domain, potentially fatally compromising the limited governing constitution. Because of
the intense speed element involved in nuclear weapons decision-making, and the increased costs
of nuclear war making, the ability to launch nuclear weapons has concentrated itself into one
individual, the civilian chief executive. Concurrent with this, the existence of such
destructiveness renders the cost of intentional or accidental nuclear use to be so prohibitively
high that the military has been effectively disarmed in the nuclear domain. Because of the speed
of delivery, the weapons themselves are placed on high alert, ready to launch in as little as fifteen
minutes, but cannot be fired without the delivery of an arming code held at the ready by the
president. For perhaps the first time in history, the US military has possession of a weapon
without effective control of it.
What should be worth future consideration is the extent to which the structure of control
of nuclear weapons varies across states and regimes. A stronger claim to the independent effect
of material context upon domestic security practices could be made if it is demonstrated that the
same domestic executive concentrations occur in states with more authoritarian forms of
government. A cursory glance at the then Soviet Union’s security practices indicates roughly a
mirror image of the United States’ control over nuclear weapons, demonstrating that there is
nothing necessarily inherent in the United States’ constitutional political tradition that produces
this particular form of concentration. As described by Bruce Blair, the USSR developed the
same form of Permissive Action Links to prevent unauthorized use of nuclear weapons, and even
assigned intelligence officers loyal to the civilian government for equally the same purpose.64
64 Blair, Bruce. “Characteristic Behavior of the Soviet Command System.” The Accidental Logic of Nuclear War. Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1993, pp. 59-115.
Fried 35
This admittedly perfunctory evidence lends reasonable speculation that there is nothing
inherently ‘American’ about the form of concentration of power in the nuclear domain. Rather, I
postulate, that it is the material context itself, the existence of nuclear weapons, which presents
new inducements favoring the leadership of nuclear-armed states to the particular form of
executive control detailed here.
