Naval SAMs did have nuclear warheads on US warships for the majority of the Cold War, I believe right up to the end of it. I assume the Soviets had many of the same reasons for putting nuclear warheads on their naval SAMs, if that is true that they had them (link?), and this is the first I have read of it.
The Tolos and Terrier were both nuclear armed. RIM-2D was the nuclear version of the Terrier, and like all US anti aircraft weapons on ships it probably also had a surface to surface capability. That covers a lot of potential targets and capabilities, out to the horizon anyway, (two opposing ships armed with nuclear tipped SAMs would make a quick naval battle, like whoever shoots first wins, which I imagine might have been the fate of the usual Soviet trailing warship traveling in and observing the US battle group when the shooting was about to start), but the advertised purpose was for use against groups of incoming aircraft (or missiles) in order to protect a carrier battle group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-2_Terrier
William T. Lee also wrote a great book on the subject of nuclear tipped SAMs and the Soviet Sam network in particular. http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1996_h/h960927l.htm
The premise of his work was that nuclear SAMs by their nature were capable of being ABMs if only they were connected to a central ‘battle management’ network, which is hard to detect with spy satellites. He believed the Soviets were attempting to make a national ABM network with nuclear tipped SA-5s and SA-10s.
Who knows, but it is a fascinating book.
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