The Short, Happy Life of the Glick-Em - Air Force Magazine

viet SS-20 because the GLCM andthe Pershing II had distinctive,complementary characteristics.The new Pershing was a followonto the existing, shorter rangePershing IA. As a ballistic missile, itoffered a high assurance of penetratingany Soviet defenses. Its speedenabled it to threaten time-sensitivetargets. It was designed to take advantageof the existing Pershing IAinfrastructure in Europe.The smaller GLCMs were projectedto have lower life-cycle costs.Their longer range—1,550 miles—allowed them to be based fartherfrom the front lines. This increasedtheir survivability and—not incidentally—allowedmore allied nationsto accept deployments on their territory.As Brown put it: “The deploymentof a mixed ballistic/cruise missileforce hedges against the failureof one type of system, provides theflexibility to select the best weaponfor a given mission, and greatly complicatesenemy planning.”Naval OriginsThe Air Force’s BGM-109G GLCM,nicknamed Gryphon, did not beginlife as an Air Force system. It was amodified version of the Navy’s Tomahawksea launched cruise missile.Development began in 1977.Because of the political need forthe system, the GLCM passed rapidlyfrom concept through development,but its progress was not alwayssmooth. Engineers found thatthey needed to do much more thansimply slap a Tomahawk on a trailerand hand the driver a portable radio.Development of the TransporterErector Launcher and associated infrastructuresuch as the launch controlcenter was a task that proved tobe far more complicated than firstimagined. Crashes of test vehiclesalso caused the Joint Cruise MissilesProject Office to decertify the missileon two occasions.The finished production missilewas almost 21 feet long, with itsstubby wings stretching out to aboutnine feet. Top speed was just underMach 1. The Convair Division ofGeneral Dynamics was the primecontractor. McDonnell Douglas madethe guidance system, and WilliamsInternational/Teledyne provided thesmall F107 turbofan power plantGLCMs were stored in protectivealuminum canisters with their wings,control fins, and engine inlets retracted.In a crisis, the canisters wouldbe loaded onto Transporter ErectorLaunchers—giant 78,000-pound tractortrailers. The TELs and their supportvehicles would be deployed tosecret, presurveyed launch sites inremote areas of the host country.Coordinates for the launch location,along with weather information, werethen to be entered in the missile’sflight computer. Two launch officerswould have taken 20 minutes to en-USAF photo by TSgt. Bill ThompsonIn a crisis, the GLCM system would be deployed to secret, presurveyed launchsites. At top, a camouflaged GLCM unit was hard to spot. Here, a GLCM wasfired during a test launch in the US.72ter launch codes received by satellite.Once authorized, the officerswould have simultaneously pressed“execute” buttons.GLCMs were blasted out of theirlaunch tubes by a solid-fuel rocketbooster. Once clear of the canister,the booster was jettisoned and themissile’s wings, control fins, andengine inlet would snap into place.The turbofan engine then took overand powered the missile on a precise,preprogrammed route to a targethundreds of miles away.The GLCM was intended to overflyfriendly nations at high altitudesto save fuel. Approaching hostileterritory, it would then drop to analtitude of about 50 feet above groundlevel and its terrain-following guidancesystem would steer it toward itstarget. On final approach it wouldswoop upward to avoid any physicalAIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002

USAF photo by MSgt. Jose Lopez Jr.The INF treaty called for destruction of all but eight display articles. Here, atDavis–Monthan AFB, Ariz., a circular saw cuts through the door of a GLCMtransport–launch vehicle.Pershing IIs were at best redundantand at worst provocative. They rejectedthe whole idea of “linking”US and Western Europe together viaplacement of new INF systems onEuropean soil.The leading proponent of this viewwas Paul Warnke, the dovish directorof the Arms Control and DisarmamentAgency in the Carter Administration.“There is no military justification”for cruise missile deployment,Warnke wrote in an op–ed article inthe Washington Post. “The potentialtargets for these missiles are alreadycovered by ballistic missiles.”Warnke was enthusiastic aboutdepriving the US of nuclear weapons.He urged the Reagan Administrationto quickly strike an arms dealthat would halt the deployment ofthe American GLCMs and PershingIIs in return only for a reduction—not the elimination—of the SovietSS-20 force. Warnke opined that,without progress on arms control,“The United States will face a furtherdeterioration in its relations withthe Soviet Union, and WesternEurope’s confidence in Americanleadership will decline.”In the end, of course, Reagan declinedto take Warnke’s advice. FormalINF talks between the US andthe USSR began in 1981 but didn’treally get serious until the majordeployments began. The US positionwas a simple one: “zero–zero”—elimination of the new longer-rangeINF systems in Europe by both sides.Moscow, for its part, proposed alimit of 300 missiles and nuclearcapableaircraft, with British andFrench nuclear systems counting towardNATO’s quota.Soviet WalkoutAt the time, GLCM deploymentshad not yet begun, and with thepower of the anti-nuclear movementstill building, the Soviets must havethought time was on their side. ButNATO hung together. After additionalUS systems began arriving inEurope in late 1983, the USSRwalked out of the talks. No negotiationstook place in 1984.Eventually, Moscow blinked andagreed to come back to the negotiatingtable. In January 1985, Secretaryof State George P. Shultz and SovietForeign Minister Andrei Gromykoagreed to parallel talks on INF, strategicforces, and defense and spaceissues. That fall, Moscow hinted thatit wanted an INF treaty separate fromthe other negotiating tracks. Sovietnegotiators offered a proposal thatwould have allowed NATO to keepsome GLCMs—but which still wouldhave permitted SS-20 warheads equalto GLCM and British and Frenchforces combined. This was clearlyunacceptable to the West.Then the pace of events began toaccelerate. High-level discussionstook place in 1986, capped by theconfusion caused by the October 1986summit between Reagan and Sovietleader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik,Iceland.In February 1987, the Soviet Unionannounced that it was ready to workan INF deal detached from all othernuclear issues. That July, Gorbachevagreed to the original US zero–zeroposition. He also agreed to then unprecedentedverification protocols,including on-site monitoring of INFproduction facilities.The political context of the INFaccords will be a subject of historicalinquiry for years to come. Deterioratinginternal conditions in theUSSR clearly played a part in Sovietdecisions. Perhaps Reagan’s determinationto pump billions into strategicdefense technology contributed,too.The agreement also validatedNATO’s original two-track responseto the advent of the SS-20. The deploymentof GLCMs and PershingIIs demonstrated in a convincingmanner the depth of the US commitmentto European security and thestrength of alliance solidarity.The two sides signed the INF treatyin 1987, and soon thereafter the AirForce began withdrawing its GLCMsfrom Europe. By May 1991, all weregone, sawed up into expensive scrap.All, that is, except for the eight displayarticles permitted under termsof the treaty. The US Air Force Museumat Wright–Patterson AFB, Ohio,has the first of the Gryphons thatwent on alert at Greenham Common.The Ground Launched Cruise MissileHistorical Foundation dedicateda second display article this springat the Pima Air and Space Museumin Tucson, Ariz.Eventually the GLCM foundationhopes to have a full display reflectingall the capabilities of a squadron,including launch facilities andsecurity forces.“We knew all along we were politicalpawns,” said Livingston, whoserves as president of the foundation.“Everybody knew the importanceof what we were doing. Thatpride has carried over to today.” ■Peter Grier, a Washington, D.C., editor for the Christian Science Monitor, is alongtime defense correspondent and a contributing editor to Air ForceMagazine. His most recent article, “Meltdown of the Nuclear Critics,” appearedin the June 2002 issue.74AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002