U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time

Washington, D.C., December 22, 2015 - The SAC [Strategic Air Command] Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, produced in June 1956 and published today for the first time by the National Security Archive www.nsarchive.org, provides the most comprehensive and detailed list of nuclear targets and target systems that has ever been declassified. As far as can be told, no comparable document has ever been declassified for any period of Cold War history.

U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time

An interesting release of information even if it is 56 years old. The lack of reliable IRBM/ICBM would mean that American bomber crews would have to fly multiple missions into Eastern Bloc, Soviet and Chinese airspace to implement the “systematic destruction” in a “greatly compressed time factor” in order to minimize the level of response. General Turgidson would approve.

Glad you posted the article.

Interesting artifact indeed.

a reply to: Mirthful Me

I'm pretty sure it now extends to Tehran and other Iranian targets and Pyongyang and North Korean Nuclear facilities.

If this is the list from 1959, and is just now being Declassified, then the New list, must include many more targets in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and All the classified areas, or underground facilities, where many countries do Research and Development, Nuclear Weapon Facilities, Air bases, Submarine location, Troop locations. Why else release this, Unless the Target lists have changed so much that it doesnt effect this being public. Since all of these target nations would have known this information, and would have counter attacked if given enough time to react, I saw a show once that talked about a Russian sub, who's mission was to stay under the Artic Ice for up to a year, if a Nuclear war did happen, then Surface after a Year, and Fire their Nukes, on any enemy survivors. Crazy Crazy world

a reply to: Glassbender777

Russian sub, who's mission was to stay under the Artic Ice for up to a year, if a Nuclear war did happen, then Surface after a Year, and Fire their Nukes, on any enemy survivors.

That is pretty much the mission of all boomers.

In the early 80's I had a class on "world power rivalries", it was essentially a class on cold war era geo-political relationships, in one lecture we were shown a several year old Soviet targeting list. It had three separate scenario lists,
a Mutually Assured Destruction list, the top 400 urban centers in the US all got at least one airburst warhead, with the more important cities getting more than one and a mix of ground and airbursts. Then military facilities were mostly designated for ground bursts as were industrial complexes and power generation facilities.
Where I live, central cal, with its its ag and defense bases was exceptionally heavily targeted each of the main cities had 3-4 warheads and crop land was allocated dozens of ground bursts by enhanced weapons, to essentially kill the area for generations.

And you can be sure the Soviets had similar plans for us.

The UK ciivl defence plans from the 1950's and 1960's were released years ago. The working assumption was that London would be hit by at least 30-40 nuclear weapons, Glasgow by at least 8 (a mixture of airbursts and ground bursts, to ensure that local housing, shipyards & steelworks would be completely destroyed).

The US & Soviet military planners seemed to miss the point that the surviving populations, having seen the destruction of their cities and the deaths/casualties amongst their own friends and families, would be incapable of following instruction from the authorities of any kind whatever ... the breakdown in their morale would occur with just one bomb, never mind another few dozen.

UK planners recognised this phenomenon, "breakdown", it happened during the wartime bombing of British cities (Coventry & the East End of London). It happened in Hamburg & Dresden too. It also accounts for the reason why the UK never took civil defence particularly seriously, the whole thing being run on a shoestring budget without any civilian shelter building plans of any kind, apart from some half hearted leaflets which would be issued if war became likely, encouraging people to dig a shelter in their back gardens or build a refuge in their own homes.

US planners rejected the concept of breakdown. They thought that US civilians would be too patriotic to give up so easily.

Horrible documents to read in the OP's link. Still with us today, no doubt.

Thanks for posting.

If any of you have seen what our nations defenses were like back then with SAC and then see what they are now you will understand that D.C. stopped trying to defend us a long time ago. Every decent sized city was ringed with anti aircraft missiles and every SAC base was ringed many times over with the NIKE missile systems and bunkers.

Seeing the big SAC base in Loring, Maine was a cool site to see. At the local airport they had pics and maps in a time line. That place was massive. Had the ability to launch two B-52s side by side and since they required so much fuel a pipeline was ran from the coast to the base.

Almost bought a sweet piece of land outside the base, it was huge with a nice decommissioned NIKE site on it. Every building still standing with one of the two missile bunkers still open and usable, the other was sealed with Asbestos and other nasty stuff the Air-force wanted to stay buried inside after clean up. Had a nice home built on it with a big detached garage, had a car lift and heat in the Garage. The only thing that stopped me from buying it was my family all being back in Florida and the horrendous lake effect SNOW AND COLD.

I know, still kicking myself for not buying it. The Missile bunker was 40x80 feet alone. That and you could be in Canada in about five minutes walk through the potato fields lol.
mapper.acme.com...,-67.791944&z=15&t=H&marker0=46.9175,-67.791944,L-31-LS

originally posted by: Patriotsrevenge
If any of you have seen what our nations defenses were like back then with SAC and then see what they are now you will understand that D.C. stopped trying to defend us a long time ago. Every decent sized city was ringed with anti aircraft missiles and every SAC base was ringed many times over with the NIKE missile systems and bunkers.

Seeing the big SAC base in Loring, Maine was a cool site to see. At the local airport they had pics and maps in a time line. That place was massive. Had the ability to launch two B-52s side by side and since they required so much fuel a pipeline was ran from the coast to the base.

Almost bought a sweet piece of land outside the base, it was huge with a nice decommissioned NIKE site on it. Every building still standing with one of the two missile bunkers still open and usable, the other was sealed with Asbestos and other nasty stuff the Air-force wanted to stay buried inside after clean up. Had a nice home built on it with a big detached garage, had a car lift and heat in the Garage. The only thing that stopped me from buying it was my family all being back in Florida and the horrendous lake effect SNOW AND COLD.

I know, still kicking myself for not buying it. The Missile bunker was 40x80 feet alone. That and you could be in Canada in about five minutes walk through the potato fields lol.
mapper.acme.com...,-67.791944&z=15&t=H&marker0=46.9175,-67.791944,L-31-LS

Well back then the Soviets had the largest air force in the world with 10,000 air craft. They outnumbered the US and NATO. Today the US Air Force alone in nearly 3 times the size of Russia. The US Navy's air fleet is also slight larger than the Russian air force. Anti aircraft batteries are a waste when you have total air superiority. Not to mention the real threat is missiles now not bombers. At one time the Russian had the numbers and we had the tech now we have both. Kind of scary if your Russia.

I bet there is more than just Warsaw and Beijing. Specifically US civilian population and South America is still an on going mess.