DATE=10/29/1999 TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT TITLE=U-S NUKES / CUBA NUMBER=5-44653 BYLINE=ANDRE DE NESNERA DATELINE=WASHINGTON CONTENT= VOICED AT: /// EDS: This is the second of a two-part series on a recently released Pentagon report on the stationing of American nuclear weapons overseas. The first report (issued 10/28/99) dealt with an overview of the document. /// INTRO: An article in "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" chronicles the stationing of U-S nuclear weapons overseas and for the first time provides a glimpse of U-S nuclear policy at the height of the Cold War. V-O-A National Security Correspondent Andre de Nesnera spoke with the authors of the report and says they were surprised to learn that in the early 1960's, nuclear-capable weapons were stationed at a U- S base in Cuba. TEXT: The article is based on a recently declassified Pentagon history dealing with the deployment of U-S nuclear weapons overseas from 1945 to 1977. The article says at the peak period - in the late 1960's and early 1970's - about 12,000 U-S nuclear weapons were stationed overseas: 7,000 in NATO countries, 2,000 in Pacific nations and about 3,000 on board ships of various kinds. 27 countries and U-S territories had American nuclear weapons on their soil at one time or another: such countries as Canada, the Philippines, Denmark, Iceland, Spain, South Korea and Japan. One of the co-authors of the article - weapons expert William Arkin - says the Pentagon history reveals that nuclear components were also stationed in Cuba in the early 1960's. /// ARKIN ACT /// In the case of Cuba, in 1961, non-nuclear- nuclear depth bombs - these are bombs that were intended for anti-submarine warfare, they would be dropped from an airplane into the ocean and explode under water and destroy a submarine - were stored in Guantanamo Bay. /// END ACT /// Mr. Arkin says technically, the anti-submarine bombs stationed at the U-S naval base in Guantanamo Bay were not nuclear weapons as such because the nuclear material - the plutonium and uranium core - was stored in Florida. /// SECOND ARKIN ACT /// And during a crisis, an airplane would pick them up from the Jacksonville area and fly them down to Guantanamo Bay. And so that way, I guess, the letter of the (Pentagon) history would be that nuclear weapons were never stored in Cuba even though in this very `nuclear' history, it says that these nuclear components - these bombs without the uranium and plutonium - were deployed. And they were subject to the same presidential authorizations and requirements for presidential approval as were regular nuclear bombs, because obviously, they were just as sensitive. /// END ACT /// Mr. Arkin says the two dozen or so depth bombs were stationed in Cuba from December 1961 to about September 1963. He says they were on the island during the October 1962 missile crisis when the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of war over Moscow's stationing of nuclear missiles on Cuba. Mr. Arkin says the Pentagon history does not indicate whether President John F. Kennedy or his secretary of Defense - Robert McNamara - knew the weapons were stored in Cuba. Ted Sorensen was a senior adviser to President Kennedy. /// SORENSEN ACT /// I do not know anything about it, but frankly I wasn't all that surprised or shocked (to read about it). In Cuba, the depth charges were in Guantanamo Bay, an American base on the island of Cuba. So I am not certain that there is anything quite so surprising. It is quite different to have those weapons under your own control, on your own base - which in effect is the next thing to being American territory - and actually stationing them in another country where you do not have that kind of base or legal rights of control. /// END ACT /// At the present time, the United States has between 6 and 8,000 nuclear weapons stationed overseas - all of them NATO countries. They are Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Italy and Turkey. (Signed) NEB/ADEN/KL 29-Oct-1999 12:49 PM EDT (29-Oct-1999 1649 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .