This event is part of the Nuclear Knowledges seminar.

Speaker: Austin Cooper (Purdue University)

Discussants: Alex Wellerstein (Sciences Po - CERI) and William Burr (National Security Archive)

Three well-known accidents involving nuclear weapons occurred in the 1960s, uncomfortably approaching worst-case scenarios. A two-term Democratic congressman from Oregon named Charles O. Porter had warned, years earlier, about the possibility of accidental detonation and inadvertent escalation. This paper revisits US implementation of extended nuclear deterrence during the 1950s through the eyes of Porter, one of this policy’s sharpest critics in Congress. The paper demonstrates one way that legislative oversight of US nuclear deployments could look facing tight military control. As US nuclear planners navigated major technological change from aircraft delivery systems to the missile age, their choice to make escalation easier paradoxically enhanced deterrence yet increased the risk of nuclear war. Instead, Porter explored alternatives to nuclear weapons as the main currency of superpower competition and trans-Atlantic solidarity, advocating for treaty regimes to ban nuclear testing, limit and reduce weapon deployments, and backstop Western Europe’s security without such a high risk of civilizational collapse.