Green Light: nukes in backpacks

Outside of work I volunteer my time for the cause of No More Nukes. During lunchtime today I delivered a talk about the fallacy of a limited, and winnable, nuclear war, which was originated in the 1950s. In 1963 a type of atomic munition - which could be carried by just one man - was created. If you are interested in any of this, read on.

By Al Palladin – speech at the Seattle Olympic Club, December 2, 2021.

The origin story of U.S. Presidential decisions regarding nuclear weapons can be traced back to a faithful day at the end of World War II. On July 21st, 1945, in Potsdam, Germany, during the Allied Summit with the leaders of the USSR and UK, President Truman received a briefing on the first successful test of the American atomic bomb. As a close aide of the President wrote in his diary: “Now I know what happened to Truman yesterday. I couldn't understand it. When he got to the meeting after having read this report, he was a changed man. He told the Russians just where they got on and off and generally bossed the whole meeting.” Churchill said he now understood how this pepping up had taken place and that he felt the same way.”

General Eisenhower, upon learning of the atomic bomb during the Potsdam conference, immediately started arguing with his superiors against its use on Japan. Ike’s strong feelings were that a) the Japanese were already defeated and that using the bomb was “completely unnecessary” and b) he argued that once the genie was out of the bottle, it could never be put back in again. The General stated that the atomic bomb could only increase world tension – at just the moment when there was a realistic possibility of ending it. As we know, President Truman chose not to listen to General Eisenhower.

The two atomic bombs that devastated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki each weighed close to 10,000 pounds, and required the most powerful aircraft - the B-29 Superfortress - to transport them to their unfortunate targets. Strategic bombers were soon followed by ballistic missiles, and later nukes were placed on board submarines – forming what is known as the Nuclear Triad[1] . But what if a nuclear weapon could be carried by just one man? Fiction? Fact[2] .

As President Eisenhower later warned in his farewell address to the Nation: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” One such powerful influencer was James McRae, who in September of 1953 was appointed President of?Sandia Corporation. The company’s roots go back to the very origins of nuclear weapons, the Manhattan Project. McRae, whose business success was measured by the ability to make profits from selling more atomic armaments, argued for the creation of tactical nukes.

The fallacy of a limited, and winnable, nuclear war was originated in the 1950s. McRae, for example, persuaded that "greater emphasis should be placed on small atomic weapons," which could be used in "local ground combat." This led to the creation of the “Davy Crocket” nuke, which was transported by a Jeep, and to the establishment by the U.S. Department of Defense of the Special Atomic Demolition Program (SADM). Under the “New Look” idea of a limited nuclear war, small atomic weapons of up to a kiloton of blast power could create substantial immediate devastation, upon explosion, and cover key areas with radiation, making them unusable by the enemy. Atomic Demolition Munitions (ADMs) began reaching potential battlefields in 1954.

As Adam Rawnsley and David Brown wrote in their article for “Foreign Affairs”[3] : “They were intended mostly for what you might call nuclear landscaping -- to create irradiated, impassible craters or to collapse mountainsides into narrow passes in order to obstruct likely invasion routes and bottleneck enemy forces. One engineer recalls setting up an ADM in the middle of a forest: "The idea was to blow these trees across a valley to create a radioactive physical obstacle for vehicles and troops to get by," he said.”

The T4 ADM appeared in 1957 and weighed 160 pounds. It was envisioned that four to five men could carry it to final placement. In February of 1958 the U.S. Army stated its desire for a new atomic munition - that could be carried by just one man. The B54-0 was put into production a few months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, in April of 1963. The atomic weapon was designed to be 18 inches long, 12 inches in diameter and weigh only 58 pounds. According to one U.S. Special Forces operator, quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer: “It looked like nothing. They'd disguise it as a trash can, a water cooler, a keg of beer."

Variants of the B54 were made sturdy enough for airborne or underwater deployment. According to Adam Rawnsley and David Brown: “Special Forces … turned to teams trained in special high-altitude parachute jumps and scuba diving to deliver the weapon. Team leaders were allowed to choose which of their men would receive training on the weapon in order to make sure their units could pass the Army's periodic, demanding nuclear surety inspections. "The people with the best records, the people with the most experience, usually ended up on the SADM team because they had to pass the surety inspection," said Flavin. To receive SADM qualification, soldiers also had to be screened through the Defense Department's personnel reliability program to make sure they were trustworthy and mentally stable.” They became known as the Green Light Teams.

The Philadelphia Inquirer chose the following statement to headline a dedicated article: “U.S. Trained A Kamikaze Nuclear Team. They Were To Carry Bombs In Backpacks If The Cold War Blew Up. Squad Members Knew It Was Suicide.”[4] The extreme danger of handling a nuclear weapon under adverse conditions, and in the highest degree of difficulty of deployment, was compounded by known faults in the B54 device itself. There were variants of a trigger by wire – the operator had to be within 330 feet/100 m (!) away from the bomb. With later versions, the atomic explosion was to be triggered by a timer, which was intended to provide the Green Light warrior with the theoretical chance of escaping with their life. Unfortunately, it was known to be faulty, sometimes going off many minutes too soon.

The Green Light Teams’ very existence was shrouded in utmost secrecy. The members of the squads could not even discuss their real work with their spouses. The fact that their missions were kept Top Secret meant that few medals or recognition were ever bestowed upon the Green Light Team members. I am deeply honored that I can call one such American Special Atomic Demolition Munitions veteran my dear Friend, and mentor. While we have known each other for close to two decades, it was only recently that I found out what he was trained to do. To be clear, none of the above came from my Friend, only from open sources, which I cite, as well as articles on Wikipedia. When I found one such story a few days ago and sent it to my Friend, I wrote: “Glad you never had to use them”. He replied: “I am too. Would have been ugly”.

In the 1980s NBC Nightly News broadcast the United States’ plan by the to operate Special Forces-led missions involving Atomic Demolition Munitions. West Germany's Defense Minister Manfred Worner then pled for the U.S. to remove its ADM cache in the area. By 1988, the last of approximately 300 SADMs owned by the United States were removed from the NATO arsenal.

In their wisdom, at the tail end of Cold War I, Presidents Bush and Gorbachev decided to do away with tactical nuclear weapons. You can read more about that here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/mutual-unilateral-lessons-effective-de-escalation-nuclear-palladin/ and here: https://nomorenukes.org/stories ?

[1] https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Experience/Americas-Nuclear-Triad/

[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c7/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition_%28SADM%29.webm/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition_%28SADM%29.webm.480p.vp9.webm

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20210203203101/https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/30/the-littlest-boy/

[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20160427104344/https://articles.philly.com/1994-08-07/news/25840864_1_tactical-weapons-program-smallest-weapon-portable-nuclear-warheads