Massive 1960s Nuclear Bombs Being Reactivated by Pentagon

WASHINGTON —  The Pentagon has decided to bring out of mothballs and redeploy 1960s-vintage nuclear bombs that are more than six times more powerful than the largest warhead or bomb now in the U.S. arsenal.

The Defense Department, which acknowledged the reactivation of the B53 bombs, refused Tuesday to discuss the decision. In a statement, the Pentagon said only: “The B53 reactivation provides more flexibility in the planning process.”

One prominent nuclear weapons analyst said the decision to bring back the B53 apparently was prompted by a desire to make up for the nuclear punch lost earlier this year when the last of the nation’s aging Titan 2 ICMB missiles was retired.

First Deployed in 1962

The nuclear warheads carried by those Titan 2 missiles were based on the same design as the B53 bomb, which was first deployed in 1962.

William Arkin, an analyst with the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal Washington think-tank, said the reactivation of the huge gravity bombs appeared to be aimed at maintaining a weapon for use against deeply buried Soviet targets such as command centers.

“I believe the reasoning is flawed, but I think it’s being brought back on line for use against buried targets,” Arkin said. “The problem is it’s a great deal harder to get a weapon like this to the target on a bomber than on a missile.”

The B53, designed to be dropped on targets from B-52 bombers, has an explosive yield of 9 million tons of TNT. It is not the largest warhead or bomb ever built by the United States, nor is it as large as some individual bombs and warheads still thought to be in the Soviet Union’s arsenal.

But, in terms of both size and explosive force, the 8,850-pound, 9-megaton B53 dwarfs every nuclear warhead currently fielded by the United States. The next most destructive nuclear weapon in the stockpile is the B28 bomb, which in one variant has a yield of 1.45 megatons.

Modernizing Arsenal

The decision to reactivate a bomb like the B53 is unusual because it reverses a long-standing effort by the United States to modernize its nuclear arsenal with smaller bombs and warheads that rely on improved accuracy rather than brute force to destroy potential targets.

According to Pentagon and Energy Department officials, however, those modern weapons might not be effective against deeply buried command centers. Just two months ago, a top Energy Department official disclosed that preliminary research was under way to develop a new type of warhead that could burrow into the earth before exploding.