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- WASHINGTON (AFP) - Newly
declassified Pentagon documents show the United States secretly deployed
nuclear weapons in 27 countries and territories during the Cold War, according
to a report in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
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- Although the massive Pentagon document blacked out the
names of some places where nuclear weapons were deployed, the list was
in alphabetical order and the reporters pieced together most of the locations.
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- Between July 1945 and September 1977, the report says
the United States deployed nuclear weapons in 27 different locations --
including 18 sovereign countries. The other locations were in US-controlled
territories.
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- The Pentagon document lists the type of weapons stationed
and how long they were deployed, and also details nuclear weapons deployed
at sea.
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- At the end of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, about 1,600
nuclear weapons were stationed in the Pacific -- excluding Hawaii -- in
Okinawa, Guam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan.
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- About half the weapons stationed in the Pacific were
at US bases on Okinawa.
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- Japan also hosted non-nuclear components for nuclear
weapons between 1954 and 1965, although the United States has never before
admitted they were there.
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- The United States had planned to use Japan as a base
for a nuclear attack against China or the Soviet Union in the event of
a conflict.
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- The article also says Washington pulled its nuclear weapons
out of Taiwan in the 1970s to improve its relations with China.
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- Even countries that had declared themselves nuclear-free
hosted US nuclear weapons. Iceland for example, had non-nuclear components
between 1956 and 1966, and complete weapons between 1956 and 1959.
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- West Germany had 21 different types of nuclear weapons,
beginning 1955. Some of those weapons are still there, according to the
report.
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- President Harry Truman ordered the first deployment of
nuclear weapons overseas in 1951 to Guam.
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- He also authorized sending non-nuclear components to
three bases in Morocco, which was then controlled by France, without obtaining
permission from Paris.
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- They arrived in 1953 at the Ben Guerir, Nouasseur and
Sidi Slimane bases and stayed for 12 years.
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- The three authors of the report had originally requested
the document under the Freedom of Information Act in 1985, but the Pentagon
only recently declassified and released to them the formerly top-secret
"History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945
through September 1977."
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- The Pentagon document revealed the following locations
where nuclear weapons were deployed: Alaska, Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, Johnston
Island, Midway, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom and West Germany.
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- The report's authors pieced together all but one of the
other locations: Belgium, Canada, France, Greenland, Greece, Iceland, Italy,
Japan, Kwajalein, Morocco, the Netherlands, Okinawa, Philippines, South
Korea, Spain, Taiwan and Turkey.
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- The missing location fell between Canada and Cuba on
the alphabetical list.
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