Mid-August, 1990: Cheney, Powell Clash over Proposal to Scrap Army’s Tactical Nukes

On the homeward journey from their Middle East trip (see August 5, 1990 and After), Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney hands General Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a copy of Powell’s proposal to retire the US Army’s tactical nuclear weapons stockpile. Powell states that the arsenal is expensive, difficult to maintain, inaccurate, and, in light of modern weaponry, virtually irrelevant. The proposal is heavily annotated by Cheney’s aide David Addington. Cheney and Addington adamantly oppose any such move to retire the tactical nuclear arsenal. “[N]ot one of my civilian advisers supports this,” Cheney tells Powell. Powell’s viewpoint will eventually prevail, but not until September 2002. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 101]