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Foreign. This week, the latest in our series looking at US Presidents and what they have done with the so called presidential sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. We turn to Eisenhower. With Truman, things had been relatively simple. He introduced the concept of presidential sole authority and he did it for a relatively simple reason. To keep this terrifying new weapon out of the hands of possible trigger happy generals. This bomb was different from other weapons and far too dangerous to be left to the military. No, he took it away from the generals and put it squarely in civilian hands. The nuclear material would be held by the newly formed civil civilian Atomic Energy Commission and any authorization for its use would be made by the civilian president. But after Truman came Eisenhower and he changed everything. He of course had been one of the big generals in the second World War, the man who organized D Day. So we can understand that he surely had a different attitude towards the military than his predecessor in the White House. Truman of course had served in the military too, but his service had been back in the first World War. Eisenhower had been right there, one of the decisive players in a war which of course ended in two nuclear attacks. So yes, both Presidents were ex military, but their attitudes to the military and to the atomic bomb were starkly different. Eisenhower became president in 1953 and we can assume the military were rubbing their hands in glee when he took office. One of their lads in the White House, someone who can surely be more sympathetic to our cause than Truman ever was. And what was their cause? To get the nukes back, to get them out of civilian control and back into military hands. They wanted custody of those atomic bombs and wow, maybe even one day the authority to use them. But just now in 1953 as Eisenhower was taking office, both of those things remained firmly in civilian control. Eisenhower began making changes, but this wasn't because he was some big tough military dude. The nuclear landscape had changed since Truman had set the rules. For a start, America now had a nuclear armed enemy. The Soviets had exploded the first atomic bomb in 1949 and would get the hydrogen bomb just a few months after Ike's inauguration. So Truman's plan that the US President, if he ever had to use the bomb, would have time to sit back and ponder and discuss and take advice. And then if he opted to use it, could start the lengthy process of transferring the nuclear cores from civilian control to the military, well that was all starting to evaporate because now the US President was facing a nuclear armed opponent and he may have to act fast if things got nasty. Truman had been banking on having time Ike was seeing that time be eaten up by events. The first big nuclear change under Eisenhower was to step up the transfer of nuclear cores to the military. And that happened as soon as he was in office, 1953. We saw last week that under Truman a limited amount of nuclear cores had been released from civilian custody and handed over to the military who had just kept on asking for them. Oh, we need them. We need them for training. We need them to send a message to those damn commies. More, please, more. And as Alex Wellenstein had noted, this limited transfer of nuclear cores to the military was, was the start of a slippery slope. And so it proved, because under Eisenhower, more and more and more nuclear cores were handed over. The military had lots of the so called non nuclears, that is the new Mark 4 atomic bomb, but minus its crucial nuclear core. Well, now they were getting nuclear cores which could be nicely matched with the existing bombs. And more and more of them were being handed over under Eisenhower. But don't think that Eisenhower was being reckless here dishing out nuclear cores to anyone who stuck their hand out. No. Erich Schlosser in his book Command and Control tells us that although Ike was of course a military man, his confidence in the military to hold all this nuclear material, quote, had its limits. And so Eisenhower allowed the transfer of plenty of atomic bomb cores. But as for the new hydrogen bomb, well, forget it. The military would not be taking possession of any nuclear cores for any H bombs. They would remain strictly under civilian control. And if some dreadful emergency arose and it was decided that H bombs might need to have those nuclear cores inserted, well, even then they would not just be turned over to military hands. Instead, a civilian from the Atomic Energy Commission, known in this context as the Nuclear Corps custodian, would be there to supervise the installation. This custodian would be physically present, whether that's on ship or at an air base where the H bombs were stored. And he would have the nuclear core locked securely away and he would hold the keys and he would only release the nuclear core upon receiving the specific order to do so from Eisenhower. Now, of course, this irritated the military who regarded these custodians as babysitters. It's an insult. Why do we need a babysitter? And it's inconvenient having one of these pesky civilians hanging around the ship or on the base rattling his keys. And so the civilian custodian arrangement was changed in 1956, so it didn't last long. Eisenhower decided that a civilian custodian would no longer be required. Instead, a Military guy would take on the role as a so called designated representative of the Civilian Atomic Energy Commission. And so the military got their way, they got the keys, and as Eric Schlosser writes, quote, legally the hydrogen bombs were still in civilian custody. But in reality, after nearly a decade of unrelenting effort, the military had gained control of America's nuclear weapons. So that's the slippery slope that Alex Wellerstein spoke of right there. The they got the mark 4 non nuclears, then they got more and more, and then they got the cores for those non nuclears, then they got the hydrogen bomb cores, but only in the presence of a killjoy babysitter from the aec. But then they managed to ditch the killjoy and grab his keys. So bit by bit, America's nukes were moving from civilian troll to the military. So that was the first big nuclear change under Eisenhower. Another big change was announced in 56, when the White House made it clear that it was now the policy of the United States to treat their nuclear weapons as a weapon like any other. No longer would they hold an elevated status as something dangerous and separate and exotic. No longer would we need to whisper in their presence. Nope, they are bombs just like any other. It is the policy of the United States to integrate nuclear weapons with other weapons in the arsenal of the United States. Nuclear weapons will be used in general war and in military operations short of general war as authorised by the President. So nuclear bombs, stop thinking you're so special and get in there with the rest of them. They are bombs like any other. So forget Truman's notion that this thing will hopefully never be used, that this thing is something different, something special, something to be kept separate. If you look back through my podcast archive, you'll find an episode called Bashing the Octopus on the Head, which was about Eisenhower's policy of massive retaliation. That policy meant that if an enemy stepped out of line, then we will, yes, retaliate massively. We will go absolutely nuts on you. And as of 1956, that could mean using nuclear weapons. So whether you're invading Western Europe or just thumbing your nose at us, we can come at you with massive retaliation. And that might well include a nuclear response. So don't even try it. That was the message. So two big changes in nuclear policy so far under Ike, nukes are no longer special and we're handing more and more of them over to the military and effectively dissolving the notion that they're under civilian control. But the biggest change was yet to come, and it was so big, so momentous that the general public did not know about it, Congress didn't know about it, America's NATO allies didn't know about it. Indeed, it was only confirmed and made public after the end of the Cold war. Back in 1959, when Eisenhower introduced his biggest nuclear change, there was no effective early warning system. The DEW line, which had been set up to detect Soviet bombers coming in across the Arctic and down through Canada, had gone live in 1957. But it would have been hopeless against say, an incoming missile. So that's why the ballistic Missile Early Warning system was set up in Alaska, Greenland and the Yorkshire moors. But that wasn't active until 1961. And so there was a worry in this intervening period, Washington might not get much notice. If the Soviet launched an attack, the DEW line would surely pick up waves of Soviet bombers. But what if they sent just one little plane? Well, you might think that won't be much of a nuclear attack. Just one single bomber with perhaps one single bomb. But imagine this. All that single bomber has to do is to nuke Washington. Do that and you could in theory wipe out the President and all his close advisors and decision makers. You could conduct what they call a decapitation strike, knock out Washington and you've knocked out America's capacity to retaliate. Because we all know that there is presidential sole authority that one man, and one man only can make the decision on American nuclear use. Well, kill the President and take the rest of Washington with him for good measure. And there's no one left to inherit that decision making power. So arguably the idea of sole authority had given America a weak point. Because if you place all that power in one man, then what happens if that one man dies suddenly? Well, you shift the power to the Vice President. There's a line of succession. We all know the rules. We've all seen that famous picture of LBJ being sworn in on the plane next to Jackie. There's a procedure. Well try carrying out that procedure. If everyone and everything in Washington has been vaporized, what then? Doesn't the very notion of presidential soul authority make America somewhat vulnerable? And doesn't it make the whole notion of nuclear deterrence vulnerable? If an enemy could knock out America's ability to retaliate by nuking just one city. Eisenhower thought he had the answer to this pre delegation. That is give certain carefully selected people the authority to launch nuclear weapons and let those certain carefully selected people be hundreds or even thousands of miles away from Washington. That way Washington and everyone in it can be destroyed. And yet America will still have nuclear decision makers who have been pre authorized by Eisenhower to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack under pre delegation. The people who will be given this authority will be military men, commanders out in the field. This makes sense because they will be the men in possession of the nuclear weapons, but also by the nature of their job, several of them will be thousands of miles away from Washington and therefore will surely have survived any decapitation attack on the capital. To learn about Eisenhower's pre delegation and a great book is the Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg. The author was a political scientist working on nuclear matters when he first got a hint of the existence of pre delegation in 1959. And it astonished him. He was told by a nuclear officer with the navy out in Hawaii that his boss, Admiral, felt the commander in the Pacific had been given a secret letter by Eisenhower which granted him the authority to launch his nuclear weapons if he felt it necessary. And if communications with Washington were gone. Now, Ellsberg knew that atmospheric conditions in Hawaii meant that communications with Washington were usually down at least once a day. So we had a situation where every day this admiral had the authority to use nuclear weapons if he felt it necessary. Ellsberg was dumbfounded because this went against everything that he and everyone else knew or thought they knew about presidential sole authority. Only one man has the authority to launch nuclear weapons. That was the deal. Everyone knows that. And yet this admiral out in the Pacific had apparently been given secret permission from Eisenhower. It seems the president had pre delegated his authority to launch nuclear weapons. Ellsberg writes that he was gobsmacked by this knowledge, but he could see the logic of it. Pre delegating the authority meant that America was no longer vulnerable to a decapitation strike. It meant that the threat of retaliation was always there, even if Washington was gone. Even if every political decision maker was gone. By pre delegating, Eisenhower had arguably strengthened nuclear deterrence. You can take away Washington and everyone in it, and we can still strike back. So could it be a solid idea then? Arguably, yes. As long as you only pre delegate that most awesome of responsibilities to eminent, experienced, responsible, sensible guys, your top generals and admirals. But no, there was more astonishment in store for Ellsberg. Just as he was getting his head round the idea that the president had pre delegated nuclear launch authority. And just as he was surely comforting himself thinking, well, only the top guys will be entrusted with this, he learned that there was such a thing as sub delegation. Yes, the top guys who'd been given this great secret pre delegation had in some cases delegated it onwards. They had delegated their delegation. They had passed the authority on to some of their more junior colleagues and they in theory had delegated it downwards to even more junior colleagues. Now, Eisenhower hadn't specifically said, yes, sure, throw it around lads, delegate away. Delegate to your heart's content, then delegate some more. But nonetheless, this was what Ellsberg had found. The authority had been passed down the chain of command. The logic behind this was that Eisenhower had pre delegated because in some cases communication with Washington might be non existent and the commander may have reason to believe that nuclear use was necessary. Okay, fine, we can understand that. But. And here's the but. What if communications have gone down everywhere else, if a nuclear attack has indeed been launched, then it's not impossible to think that Admiral felt in his base on Hawaii, which we know already was suffering a daily dip in communications, cannot communicate with his junior officers. So how can he utilize this precious pre delegation with which Ike has kindly entrusted him? If he can't speak to anyone else, then what's the point of it? So surely pre delegation carries the inherent understanding that the commanders will take it and then sub delegate. Because if they don't, then it's pointless. Eisenhower has said it's necessary because communications might go down between Washington and point X. Okay, but what if communications are then down between point X and point Y and point Z? Surely then the commander is justified in sub delegating to point Y and point Z. Indeed, isn't this implied otherwise? All Eisenhower has done is send his authority to one point in the chain, but no further. So Daniel Ellsberg admitted out there in Hawaii in 1959 that yes, sub delegation also makes sense. But how far does it go? The admiral out in Hawaii might have sub delegated down the ladder to a captain. And as he then sub delegate down to his lieutenant. And does it then get sub delegated even further? In which case, how far down does it go? Does the sailor scrubbing the decks eventually get launch authority? Do I get it? Do I have it right now and just don't know it? How far does it go? Where does it end? So it might seem worrying that sub delegation is spreading launch authority around like sweets. But as Daniel Ellsberg shows, it's only logical that it is indeed passed on because its very purpose is to overcome communication failures. There is no point in Eisenhower pre delegating his authority if it only goes to one person and then reaches a halt. If you're going to pre Delegate to one person. Arguably inherent in that process is the understanding it will be sub delegated onwards and onwards and onwards to. Well to whom? Where does it stop? That's the worry. Is it being placed in the hands of very junior very inexperienced officers? That was Daniel Ellsberg's worry. He was amazed by this, by how open ended it felt. And he was sure that this wasn't what Eisenhower intended when he introduced pre delegation. And yet ellsberg found out 40 years later that Eisenhower did indeed know about sub delegation. But at the time out there in Hawaii in 1959 Ellsberg of course didn't realize that. He didn't know that Eisenhower was fully aware of all the implications and that sub delegation was going on. So he tried to make the President aware. But as he points out in his book he had no direct line to the President. He wasn't even working for the White House. He was out there on Hawaii working for the RAND Corporation. So he couldn't just stroll into the White House and make Eisenhower listen to his concerns. His main concern being of course that there are benefits to sub delegation. There is a logic to sub delegation. But if you're passing it on to so many people and if you're passing it down the chain to relatively junior and inexperienced people then do the risks of sub delegation begin to outweigh the benefits of it? Are there risks or of the wrong decision being made by an officer who is perhaps too junior and too inexperienced? And so he took his concerns to the Kennedy camp. Kennedy of course being by this point the incoming President. So he spoke to Kennedy's defence board, McGeorge, Bundy. He outlined his concerns to him and he wondered if I lay it all on the table here will he take it to JFK and will the incoming President perhaps be able to get a handle on this and take back control from all these? In theory junior officers spread across the Pacific who have sub delegation of launch authority. So what will the incoming Kennedy presidency do with this apparent scattering of nuclear launch authority? So next week we will look at what JFK did with presidential sole authority. And was he able to take back control from all those junior officers scattered all over the place with their sub delegation?