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Everyone knows—or should—that the U.S., with its nuclear arsenal, is the mightiest nation in human history. But few people really realize the staggering dimensions of that might. For one thing, facts about the arsenal have been shrouded by military secrecy. For another, the destructive power possessed by the U.S. simply beggars imagination.
Last week the world got its best glimpse yet of the size and condition of the U.S.'s nuclear nest egg. It came when Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara testified on behalf of the recently signed nuclear test ban treaty before the Senate Foreign Relations, Senate Armed Forces and Joint Atomic Energy Committees.
Up to a point, McNamara was merely propagandizing for the treaty. But beyond that point, McNamara, who seems to look upon himself as the world's only real authority on security regulations, had plainly decided that it was time for the U.S., its friends and its enemies, to get a better idea of what U.S. nuclear power actually means.
McNamara's major points were both enormously revealing and profoundly encouraging. Among them:
> The U.S. is vastly superior to the Soviet Union in its nuclear arsenal, and it is increasing its lead every day.
> The U.S., of its own strategic choice, relies on thousands of relatively small nuclear warheads, rather than on the explosive force of a few monster superbombs.
> The U.S. has nuclear weapons scattered and hidden all over the Western world. Thus, thousands of missiles and planes would definitely survive any conceivable atomic attack by the Soviets and could strike back with a barrage of missiles and bombs that could obliterate Russia or Red China.
> The U.S. even has its master || command system so organized that there is little, if any, chance that Russian assault would so disrupt it as to prevent nuclear retaliation.
As always, McNamara was crisp and decisive, clicking off facts with computerlike precision. But candid as he was, he was still cautious. And in many instances, what he said could only serve as a launching point for what he did not say. Thus, the real, breathtaking picture of U.S. nuclear power could only be seen with the help of other, previously published facts, of earlier testimony before Congress, and of educated estimates and extrapolation.
In Tens of Thousands. "We maintain," said McNamara, "a total number of nuclear warheads, tactical as well as strategic, in the tens of thousands." The actual number may be reckoned with reasonable accuracy at some 33,000 warheads on station; or held, carefully stored, in ready reserve; or otherwise committed to the arsenal. Another 15,000 are in preparation.*
Of the U.S.'s ready warheads, more than 25,000 are "tactical"—designed for short-range (mostly under 30 miles) battlefield or defensive use. Many are tiny power-packages of less than a kiloton (equal to 1,000 tons of TNT) that could be sent on slender, supersonic missiles to wipe out a company, sink a ship or shoot down planes.