Page "Strategic Air Command" Paragraph 18

SAC ’ s assumption of control over nuclear strategy led to the adoption of a strategy based on the idea of counterforce.

SAC planners understood that as the Soviet Union increased their nuclear capacity, destroying or “ countering ” those forces ( bombers, missiles, etc.

) became of greater strategic importance than destroying industrial capacity.

In 1954, the Eisenhower administration concurred with the new focus, with the President expressing a preference for military over civilian targets.

While the Eisenhower administration approved of the strategy in general, LeMay continued to increase SAC ’ s independence by refusing to submit SAC war plans for review, believing that operational plans should be closely guarded, a view the Joint Chiefs of Staff eventually came to accept.

By the end of the 1950s, SAC had identified 20, 000 potential Soviet target sites and had officially designated 3, 560 of those sites as bombing targets, with the significant percentage being counterforce targets of Soviet air defense, airfields and suspected missile sites.

LeMay and SAC ’ s continuing efforts to assume greater control over nuclear strategy were vindicated on August 11, 1960, when Eisenhower approved a plan to create the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff ( dominated by SAC ) to prepare the National Strategic Target List and the Single Integrated Operation Plan ( SIOP ) for nuclear war.