Jeffrey LewisUS Nuclear Stockpile, 1990

Last week, I suggested that the United States should declassify aggregate stockpile numbers
for past, present and future forces and subcategorize them by purpose, delivery system, and status.

I noted that, in 1992, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell had released similar information without a crack opening in the space-time continuum. (According to a DOE fact sheet Powell showed the “notional Stockpile Numbers … to NSC before briefing, [but the numbers were] not coordinated with nor declassified by DOE”.)

Anyway, I asked someone to send me the chart. The National Security Archive’s Bill Burr obliged.

The chart shows notional stockpile sizes in 1990, under START and the first Presidential Nuclear Initiative and under what would become, with some modification, START II.

Here is the full text of Powell’s statement.