Nuclear Imponderables

Early Years

Q: Did you at that time, in the second half of the fifties, did you have any idea of how the conduct of warfare would have changed, considering the nuclear weapons had already been available?
General Kvapil: We knew about nuclear weapons, but it was all just in the beginnings [ . . . ]. Although we considered their use as well, in combat, we considered having some low-yield nuclear weapons that we could use in conventional combat; but of course, nothing particular was ever said openly, because everything was just super secret. [Kvapil, 16]

General Franko: Those nuclear weapons... well, you wouldn’t believe some of the nonsense I saw in my life and yet had to keep my mouth shut. Because everybody was thinking that a single nuclear bomb was equal to a round fired by a single artillery unit. Well, they simply drew a conclusion after an exercise, those old generals of the First Republic: “How many nuclear bombs were there? Ten.” They were tossing it about like potatoes. “So let’s cross out ten units of artillery.” They could eliminate the entire army artillery by the end of an exercise like this, you know. [Franko, 8]

Q: Do you believe the Czechoslovak or Soviet tactics changed as a result of the fielding of nuclear weapons?
General Raichl: [ . . . ] I have a feeling that in the beginnings and even in those years, the approach toward the use of nuclear weapons – during the exercises of course – the use of mass destruction weapons... was, well, not careless, but the weapons were used more often at the exercises than they would have been in reality. And their impact was not evaluated as dangerous as it would have been in reality. Let me give you an example: It is necessary to put it on the map somehow, the area hit by the bombs. There were charts for this, e. g., how the wind was blowing, and it was charted like that. But – the wind blows differently on ground level and in a thousand meters – so it is all much more complicated. Maybe today, with the computer technology, which does this in real time, it could be done much faster and more precisely than we did it back then. But we were looking for ways to adapt tactics and operations to the use of weapons of mass destruction. Something was being done – and we believed that what we were doing was based on some substance. [Raichl, 8]

General Šmoldas: [ . . . ] I often asked myself, what would have happened if a nuclear bomb had hit Dresden and there had been a northwestern wind blowing. The atomic cloud would have proceeded from Dresden to Prague, Brno, Bratislava... What then? The theory said “wash with water”. Great – but where to get this water and what to do with it afterwards? [Šmoldas, 8 – 9]

Q: It is said sometimes that even in the fifties, in the operations planning process, the effects of mass destruction weapons were more or less underestimated, that nuclear weapons efficiency was marginalized, even in regard of the war experience, that the real consequences of the use nuclear weapons were not known. Can you comment on this?

General Franko: Well, I can just say that … you said “sometimes”, [ . . . ] I’m convinced that it was underestimated in every way. Because even if somebody was aware that, say, there was an explosion somewhere of ten atomic bombs at once – and just some small ones, not the 10 kiloton ones, but smaller, there were even plans involving 500 kiloton or 1 megaton bombs – then the effects were evaluated absolutely correctly. Correctly. I mean – there were charts, and the things like the pressure wave, penetrating radiation, radioactive contamination, half-life, the time for which the blast area would have remained impassable, the time needed for removing the debris – anybody can calculate this.
But then there was a sudden operation leap and it was as if all those things had not happened. So [showing] there it was bad and we were here, heavy casualties or some entanglements, and to get to this point, just advance from D2 to D3 or D4. Nobody ever followed up the issues of eliminating the impacts and what would have followed. [Franko, 12]

 

Estimating Effects

General Franko: [ . . ] There were three effects. There was the pressure wave, i. e. the “dynamite” effect or something like that. Then there was the penetrating radiation which worked through armor, through water, through half-value layers etc. And there was the radioactive contamination, the long-term effect.
It was necessary to make use of these things in the framework of warfare conduct and strategy. When defense-related tasks were exercised, the terrain was contaminated by an explosion – an airburst, i. e. the bomb was assumed to have exploded just above the ground level, not 300 or 400 meters in the air. Or an underground explosion. And the area became impassable. And for a long time.
Therefore it was established, to give the commanders peace of mind, that “the penetrating radiation” wouldn’t have caused destructive effects above those of a one year long exposure to natural atmospheric radiation.” [Franko, 50]

Q: Here, in 1964, they expect 130 nuclear strikes, in the form of both missiles and aerial bombs. Could you comment on the amount? Was it a lot, or little?

General Slimák: I think it fitted the potentials at that time. Those were figures which were probably just assigned... well, not assigned, but it was a matter of orders from the Commander in Chief. [Slimák, 50]

Q: This plan involves utilizing 130 nuclear warheads and bombs in those 7 or 8 days of the operation. That is a relatively high number...

General Pezl: Yes.

Q: ... was it still possible to conduct operations in this stage?? Because the effects of radioactive radiation were immense.

General Pezl: Well, I believe I already mentioned this, that the concept is beyond the human grasp even now. Of course... most of those weapons were just small nuclear bombs used by the air force, to be used against arriving reserves, as an anticipatory strike. Once the border area had been traversed, the operation was expected to become more dynamic and fluid, so that it wouldn’t have had to come to clearly delineated fronts any more and that the main attention could have been paid to the arriving reserves.
The air force, there was a lot of it here, too. Provided that the Soviet air force had made use of these, I don’t know how many, some 12 operation airfields. We also had a strong air force, about 750 fighters.

Q: Those aerial nuclear strikes – they were to be conducted only by the Soviet air force? Or by our forces, too?

General Pezl: Yeah. The Su-7BM. They were specially designed for this. They were even trained for it – for those strikes – for lob tossing, they had to dive in, then climb, break off up there and then do a [showing] turn back like this. There were exercises for this, for the launch of these bombs. Of course, they didn’t exercise with the real bombs. [Pezl, 6]

General Vinkler: Now that I’m looking at this – it’s history by now – and see how many bomb strikes they planned etc... that would have been the end of it. Once, we were standing together with Vitanovský at one of these exercises and watched – it was a command post and staff exercise here at the Ministry, that’s where they played these things – and the respective staff reported that – that was day two of the operation – there were already two millions of dead in the country. You know, we said to each other with Vitanovský: “We’re not part of this any more.”
Of course it continued to be exercised, especially later on. It was generally the time of... you see, when you look today at those objectives we set back then... It’s like this, you see, every war that is started, it always begins with the last experience there was. And then the atomic weapons joined in – and surprisingly, our army was still alive, all the way to the end. We’d already had divisions at the Neckar at 10 percent of their strengths, yet they were still receiving objectives and tasks as if they were at full strength. It was a little... those operation plans, it’s hard to say. Well if the other side, if they had been asleep, doing nothing – yeah, then it could have been done. So, unrealistic like this. [Vinkler, 3]

Q: I have one question, regarding the operation preparations, relating to the weapons of mass destruction – so you did know the plans for the nuclear strike, which were to be done by our side, i. e. not only by the opponent? Were you informed of where would they be used?

General Franko: Yes, yes. I’ll show you here – so this is the republic [showing] and the high command sets this deep – I’ll give an example of 100 kilometers – a line of what’s where, what’s to go where and how etc., the Unified Command sees to this, because it has the means which will fly or shoot up there. They just told us that in this space we can utilize the effects of mass destruction weapons used by the high command. “And to this depth from the border” – let’s give an example of 100 kilometers – “you can do whatever you like. We won’t help you there. Just in case of need we’ll have to communicate, of course.” And within those 100 kilometers, there were army rockets, the division rockets R-70 as it was called back then, also the R-120s and then R-200s or 300s, differing in their effective range. [Franko, 31]

Q: Did you presume that if those 300 bombs of various capacity had exploded here, that there would still have been something worth defending?

General Franko: No. I could just repeat that a hundred times and achieve nothing. My opinion was not taken into account. It was a wishful thinking kind of thing. Because the entire West, the capitalism, and the East against the West, they all had budgets which corresponded to their potentials. But I believe that neither Bohemia, nor Slovakia would have been a primary target. It was a target, but of some 3-4 strikes, which would end it anyway. They were not stupid. It could have been Bratislava, or Brno or Prague. And it would have taken just some five one-megaton strikes and the republic would come down. Including the transportation infrastructure, of course.
What you’re talking about, those 300 [strikes], that was a so-called territorial exercise, with no regard to what was happening around, where a strike could have been expected, where we could have drawn some resources from. It was in a complete contradiction with probability figures. Take Slovakia, for example – four strikes would have been enough, a 250 [kiloton] and two one-megaton ones, one on Bratislava and one on Martin, where the tanks were manufactured, and it would have been over. There would have been no movements, no railways, no gas pipelines, nothing. [Franko, 52]

 

Were There Soviet Nuclear Depots?

Q: Did you know that since 1965, there had been [nuclear] depots built in Czechoslovakia?
General Kvapil: [ . . . ] Those nuclear weapons, they were always kept secret. We knew that it had to be somewhere there, because we were supposed to get them, I don’t know, on the second or third day... But frankly speaking, we got used to not caring about things we were supposed not to care about, you know. Because at that time, you could get to jail without having done anything. [Kvapil, 18 ]

General Šádek: There were no nuclear weapons here. [ . . . ] [Šádek, 3]

Q: An agreement from December 1965, signed by Lomský and Grechko, has been declassified, where both sides bound themselves to build three depots for nuclear weapons. It should have been the depots in Bíliny, Míšeň-Borovno and Bělá pod Bezdězem.

General Šádek: I swear to you I knew nothing about any nuclear weapons to be stored here. [Šádek, 7]

General Franko: I know that something was being built here, but... I know that it was never used by Czechoslovak field forces. Because, you see, those warheads – not nuclear, just the combat ones – they also need special storage procedures, particularly with long-term storage. [ . . . ]
But I’ve never heard that there were nuclear warheads in the territory of Bohemia and Moravia. [Franko, 38]

General Vinkler: There was not even confidence at the Operations Directorate [ . . . ]; an officer from the Operations Directorate was in charge of the storage and supervision, he had a special clearance for this, married a Russian [ . . . ]. Then there were talks about it up there, whether it was just one depot of atomic weapons here, as far as I know, it was in the north of Bohemia. I’m not sure, it has been so long... [Vinkler, 10 – 11]

Q: The rockets were here since the beginning of the sixties. The warheads are a different question, of course. According to your knowledge – how was this planned? What time limit was needed to transport the warheads, to assemble them?
General Picek: Well... the time limit... I cannot tell exactly. I know for certain that the warheads were here, they were supposed to be here, even the relevant documents stated so, that there were such places, it’s not a secret any more. And from there, the warheads were supposed to be transported by technical assets of the depots to certain places, where they were... I don’t recall any more how these units were called, they were some technical brigades. These brigades were in charge of assembling the warheads and the carriers, and from there they were transported to the combat rocket units, where they were supposed to be launched. [Picek, 7]

Q: The agreement [on construction of nuclear depots] was signed in 1965, their construction started, but it’s still not clear when exactly they were finished. There is a possibility that... there were indications that the construction was somehow hindered on the Czechoslovak side.

General Pezl: I don’t know about that. ... I don’t know, that would have had to be a special initiative, politically, nobody would probably... never have given such an instruction. [Pezl, 6 – 7]

General Picek: I first found out about these depots when I started working for the Operations Directorate [ . . . ] in 1967. [ . . . ] And therefore I know that there they were approved for use in 1969, I was there, and by the side of these depots, residential buildings were being built for the crews, for their families. And I know that only in 1969, the depot in Červený Újezd or what was the name was approved for use, it was somewhere near Chomutov, somewhere over there... So I know about this depot being finished. I don’t know about the others. I don’t remember whether they were already finished or not.
[ . . . ] Whether the weapons were really here or not, I don’t know either. Because – as I said – they were being finished in 1969 and I left in 1970, in May. So I don’t know what followed. I know that there was... there was one assigned to... a working group of Soviet rocket forces and artillery, a Colonel, I don’t remember his name any more, they were supervising the construction site, supervising it from the professional point of view. From time to time, a Colonel came here from the Command of the Artillery and Rocket Forces of the Soviet Army . [ . . . ] So they were supervising the technical aspects with a view of the depots’ use for their true purposes.

Q: And these Soviets, they had been here even before the August [1968]? Those Soviets, whom you’ve just mentioned. [ . . . ]

General Picek: ... they had been here even before the August. All the time, since the construction started, I think. It started I think in 1965.

Q: Did you know then that since there were Soviets here, since there was the Central Group here, did you knew what the Soviet had here and whether Soviet nuclear munitions were stored here too?

General Picek: [ . . . ] We knew the organizational structure of that army, how many divisions it had, where they were stationed [ . . . ] But whether they had nuclear munitions, nobody knew that.
[Picek, 7 – 8]

Q: At that time [in the eighties], the Czechoslovak Army already had some more modern rockets on the tactical and operational-tactical level in its inventory, in addition to the existing Frog and Luna rockets. [ . . . ]
General Zachariáš: [ . . . ] Except there was a single big BUT – all those weapons were stored without nuclear warheads. They were at our disposal, they were ready to be used, but without those nuclear warheads, which were stored separately and only issued on a special order, and only after that the assembly could have started started.

Q: I know something about this, about those technical brigades which were in charge of this. This technology was just terribly expensive, especially during the exercises, and if a single one was fired, it meant enormous costs. So it could be expected that if the war had really started, then the rockets would have been equipped with nuclear warheads, because it didn’t make sense to launch them as conventional weapons.

General Zachariáš: Exactly.

Q: So, how was the issue solved, the issue of providing the nuclear munitions, those warheads in case war broke out?

General Zachariáš: In case of war, that would have been too late, it would have had to be done before the war broke out. Because you wouldn’t have had the time to do it. Considering that even back then, it was possible to find out everything exactly by satellites. Of course they didn’t know exactly, even we did not know the places exactly, the places where the nuclear weapons depots were located. But you had had to do it in time, because the rocket forces, the units would have had to get hold of the rockets. Drills were conducted, special exercises, where the units were going to selected places to pick up the warheads, from the depots to the point of encounter, there they would take the heads and go after units or brigades which would have been ready to assemble the rockets. Then it was a matter of a couple of minutes, to assemble, it was nothing difficult.
[ . . . ]

Q: Yet in view of how long it would have taken before you received the warheads, once you were supposed to get it – for objective reasons – you had be able to have an idea of the time it would take to get it, so you could have guessed whether the warhead was already somewhere nearby, or whether it was on its way by air from somewhere, say, Ukraine.

General Zachariáš: There were special troops for this and it was a matter of a couple of hours before the warheads were ready at the launching sites. That’s why the depots were built in the directions of the axes of advance of the respective armies, where the rocket equipment was expected to be deployed, so somewhere near, not far, so that it could have been a matter of a few hours. [Zachariáš, 8 – 9]

Q: And what about depots in the Czechoslovak territory? [ . . . ]

General Slimák: [ . . . ] Those were the places which were checked when the Soviet troops were leaving. [ . . . ] I know that the reports from radiation and chemical investigation concluded that the radiation levels didn’t exceed normal levels.

Q: Does it really mean that the warheads couldn’t have been there? After all – a warhead is not an intensive source of radiation.

General Slimák: [Indicating he doesn’t know.]

Q: There is always an official standpoint, which says how to present the question in public and abroad. So, is it possible to say what was the official standpoint as to whether the nuclear warheads were here or not?

General Slimák: As far as I remember, the conclusion back then was that they weren’t here. [Slimák, 12]

 

[Translated by Jiří Mareš, Prague]