NSC, “Agreed Concepts Regarding Atomic Weapons”

Towards the question of nuclear launch procedure, the document gives the following directive:

2. Use of Atomic Weapons

In the event of a positive decision, the President would authorize the Secretary of Defense to use atomic weapons under such conditions as the President may specify.

3. Atomic Weapons Stockpile Custody and Operation

a. The Department of Defense should have custodial responsibility for stocks of atomic weapons outside the continental United States and for such numbers of atomic weapons in the continental United States as may be needed to assure operational flexibility and military readiness for use, subject to 2, above. The Atomic Energy Commission should maintain custodial responsibility for the remainder of the stockpile of atomic weapons.

Note that this is not a two-man rule situation: the President retains total control over the authority to give authorization, and the conditions under which the weapons can be used.

It also makes explicit that possession of a weapon by the DOD is not, by itself, a granting of authority for use.

An earlier version of this directive was more vague:

In the event of a positive decision, the President will authorize the Secretary of Defense to use atomic weapons under such conditions as may be specified.

The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) strongly objected to this language. They also objected to earlier comments from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they saw as giving too much latitude to the military to make use decisions:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff cannot, therefore, agree to any other agency interposing itself between them and the President in submission to him of recommendations for a military course of action; nor could they agree to any such other agency having a voice in determining how, when, and where such military operations are to be conducted.

Therefore, the decision as to where, how, and what numbers, and in what types atomic weapons will be employed must be made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the President as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces; …

The AEC objected that this language was much too confusing, lacking needed clarity regarding the “how, when, and where” of nuclear weapon use. This gives some additional context to the particular formulation in the “Agreed Concepts” directive.¹

1. Memorandum by the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Dean) to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council (Lay) (27 May 1952), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, National security affairs, Volume II (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1984), 947-953.