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Writer's picturerichard lightner
Jan 23, 202312 min read

GENEVA

Exhausted by the Indochina War the French stated that their contribution to the defense of Europe would be lacking if the war didn’t end. Thus, the Viet Minh planned military victories to enhance their position at Geneva. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 100)


Scheduled to begin April to resolve the Korean War. However, the topic quickly turned to Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 358)

Did the Chinese and the Soviet Union pressure Ho Chi Minh to negotiate at Geneva? Nonetheless, the Saigon French adamantly opposed any “compromise that would recognize Hanoi’s authority over any part of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 363)

Partition came up at the conference and all of the Vietnamese rejected it. However, this was the only way the anti-Vietminh could survive. Many hoped for US involvement to save them. The US did give public pronouncements that indicated a support for an independent, anti-communist Vietnam with no French control. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 364)


The conference lasted from April 26, 1954 to July 21, 1954. It wasn’t until the Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended that the Geneva Conference dealt with it. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 369-370) The French representative refused to talk with the Vietminh representative. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 370)


“The Communist powers at Geneva appeared solidly united. They seemed to know what they wanted, coordinated their tactics, and concealed the differences that in fact did exist among them.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 371-372)

The Soviets and the Chinese accepted that controlling all of Indochina was not possible. The just wanted to end the war. It Chou-En-lai who “persuaded the Vietminh to totally withdraw from Laos and Cambodia. The Vietminh were disheartened that the Soviets and Chinese did not back them fully on their demands. The Vietminh delegates believed that, “the cease-fire demanded by the French as just a step toward the withdrawal of the Expeditionary Corps, to be followed by elections, which they were certain they would win, would then make them masters of the whole of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 372)


“The demands raised by Foreign Minister Pham Van Dong at the beginning of the conference confirmed the impression that the Vietminh, confident that they would defeat the French, were not at all interested in a peace at the price of concession.” However, they were forced by the Soviets and the Chinese to “accept less than what they thought they should have obtained.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 373)


“The anti-Communist Vietnamese authorities did not feel obliged to honor the pledge of the French at Geneva that all public institutions and services were to be handed over to the Hanoi regime in working order. The French government, however, did honor it, and subsequently paid Hanoi the sum of 265 million francs in reparations.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 419-420)


“According to the Geneva Agreements, the country was to be reunited in 1956 by national elections to be held, in an undefined way, under the supervision of an International Control Commission (ICC), which was also to police execution of the truce terms, However, the ICC, composed of representatives of Canada, India, and Poland, proved itself unable to correct treaty violations by either side, and the reunification elections were never held. After signing the agreements calling for the partition and subsequent elections over the strong protests of the Bao Dai government, France withdrew from Vietnam and disavowed further responsibility. The South Vietnamese government, together with the United States, did not approve the accords. Both promised, however, not to use force to upset them. Both insisted that elections should be held under United Nations supervision.” While the North Vietnamese committed themselves to the Geneva Agreements Diem claimed they had military forces in the South which violated the Agreements. The North also tried to stop the almost one million refugees fleeing to the South. The North initiated terror campaigns “against traditional leadership elements.” (Bain 4)

Communist Vietnamese agents left behind “by the departing Viet Minh also threatened to obstruct freedom of choice.” Senator Mike Mansfield detailed this in a report after visiting Vietnam and Laos in 1955. (Bain 4) He claimed the Viet Minh essentially had a “fifth column.” (Bain 5)

Mansfield’s report that a possible further conflict would be a threat to world peace. (Bain 5)


“In the years after partition, the governments of both the North and South consolidated their positions.” (Bain 5)


Two parts to the Geneva Agreement

1. “implementation of the cease-fire and the regrouping of the French and Vietminh forces in their respective zones.” This was the only agreement signed. The line for the division of forces would be along the 17th parallel. Civilians would be allowed to move the area they desired. There would be no reprisals against former enemies and “a ban on the introduction of fresh troops, military personnel, arms, munitions, and military bases.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 378)

2. The so-called Final Declaration set out to arrange uniting the country. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 378-379) It was an obtuse document. One part, was when the elections would take place. Again, the wording was convoluted. Nevertheless, elections were to take place in July 1956. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 379)


One argument frequently offered is that the United States never signed the Geneva Agreements and so, was not obligated to abide by them. Buttinger disagrees, arguing that no one else signed the agreements either. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 379)

Diem protested vigorously that the Geneva Agreements handed “over to the Communist the entire North of the country and more than four provinces of the center.” In addition, the State of Vietnam, essential South Vietnam claimed the entire country for itself. Therefore, the Diem government rejected the Geneva Agreements. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 380)

The conference allied for a future war by partitioning the country into opposite leaderships. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 382-383)


After the Geneva Agreements and the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles expressed the belief that a war would begin in two years. (Noam Chomsky. At War with Asia. 32. Op. Cit. Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacoutre, End of a War: Indochina, 1954. 142)

The United States response the the Vietminh agreeing to concessions at the Geneva Conference was confusing. John Foster Dulles “wanted a settlement without concessions to the Vietminh, and it expected the French to give up control of Indochina yet continue the war. . . . (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 373)

Washington agreed to the Geneva conference yet refused to cooperate in achieving its stated purpose; it accepted China’s presence but ignored its delegation; it promised military intervention but backed down when Britain and France refused to conclude an agreement that would have wrecked the conference before it ever opened. Washington even denied that intervention had ever been planned. Yet the threat of intervention was repeated firmly enough for French Foreign Minister Bidault to make it the cornerstone of his strategy at Geneva, only to have it destroyed when Dulles, on June 8, categorically declared that he did not intend to ask Congress to authorize U.S. intervention in Indochina. . . . . To top it all, Dulles continued to describe the search for a compromise at Geneva as appeasement although he had secretly become reconciled to a compromise based on partition.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 373-374)

Dulles made an agreement with the British that the US would be allowed to “arm the non-Communist half of Vietnam and no elections were to be held as long as a Communist victory seemed a certainty.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 374-375)


“In July [1954], at Geneva, the two independent nations of North and South Vietnam had come into being.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 1)

“Vietnam regained full independence at the time of the Geneva Agreements of 1954, which ended France’s eight-year struggle to reassert colonial control. . . . Vietnam was provisionally divided along the seventeenth parallel. The North fell to the Communist-controlled government of the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam” (DRV), which had been organized in August 1945 by the Viet Minh, a Communist front movement led by Ho Chi Minh.” (Bain 3) The Viet Minh’s initial victory was brief, however, Nationalist elements strongly contested its authority, and the ensuing conflict enabled the French to quickly re-establish their rule in the south. By the end of 1946, the French forces had driven the DRV government from Hanoi into the mountain jungles. When they returned victoriously to Hanoi in 1954, the Viet Minh still called their government a “democratic republic” and claimed to invite non-Communist participation. But they frankly admitted their Communist orientation and eliminated most non-Communist leaders in a bloody purge.”(Bain 3)

The French controlled southern Vietnam and in 1949 created a State of Vietnam ruled by anti-Communists with the former emperor Bao Dai as the leader. (Bain 3)


“After the Geneva Agreements, however, Bao Dai was displaced through a plebiscite by his nationalist premier, Ngo Dinh Diem, and the “State of Vietnam” became the “Republic of Vietnam” with a president and an elected legislature. The governments of the North and the South each claimed to be the only legal government of all Vietnam.” (Bain 3-4)

“According to the Geneva Agreements, the country was to be reunited in 1956 by national elections to be held, in an undefined way, under the supervision of an International Control Commission (ICC), which was also to police execution of the truce terms, However, the ICC, composed of representatives of Canada, India, and Poland, proved itself unable to correct treaty violations by either side, and the reunification elections were never held. After signing the agreements calling for the partition and subsequent elections over the strong protests of the Bao Dai government, France withdrew from Vietnam and disavowed further responsibility. The South Vietnamese government, together with the United States, did not approve the accords. Both promised, however, not to use force to upset them. Both insisted that elections should be held under United Nations supervision.” While the North Vietnamese committed themselves to the Geneva Agreements Diem claimed they had military forces in the South which violated the Agreements. The North also tried to stop the almost one million refugees fleeing to the South. The North initiated terror campaigns “against traditional leadership elements.” (Bain 4)

Communist Vietnamese agents left behind “by the departing Viet Minh also threatened to obstruct freedom of choice.” Senator Mike Mansfield detailed this in a report after visiting Vietnam and Laos in 1955. (Bain 4) He claimed the Viet Minh essentially had a “fifth column.” (Bain 5)

Mansfield’s report that a possible further conflict would be a threat to world peace. (Bain 5)


“In the years after partition, the governments of both the North and South consolidated their positions.” (Bain 5)


Two parts to the Geneva Agreement

1. “implementation of the cease-fire and the regrouping of the French and Vietminh forces in their respective zones.” This was the only agreement signed. The line for the division of forces would be along the 17th parallel. Civilians would be allowed to move the area they desired. There would be no reprisals against former enemies and “a ban on the introduction of fresh troops, military personnel, arms, munitions, and military bases.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 378)

2. The so-called Final Declaration set out to arrange uniting the country. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 378-379) It was an obtuse document. One part, was when the elections would take place. Again, the wording was convoluted. Nevertheless, elections were to take place in July 1956. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 379)


One argument frequently offered is that the United States never signed the Geneva Agreements and so, was not obligated to abide by them. Buttinger disagrees, arguing that no one else signed the agreements either. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 379)

Diem protested vigorously that the Geneva Agreements handed “over to the Communist the entire North of the country and more than four provinces of the center.” In addition, the State of Vietnam, essential South Vietnam claimed the entire country for itself. Therefore, the Diem government rejected the Geneva Agreements. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 380)

The conference allied for a future war by partitioning the country into opposite leaderships. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 382-383)


After the Geneva Agreements and the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles expressed the belief that a war would begin in two years. (Noam Chomsky. At War with Asia. 32. Op. Cit. Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacoutre, End of a War: Indochina, 1954. 142)

The United States response the the Vietminh agreeing to concessions at the Geneva Conference was confusing. John Foster Dulles “wanted a settlement without concessions to the Vietminh, and it expected the French to give up control of Indochina yet continue the war. . . . (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 373)

Washington agreed to the Geneva conference yet refused to cooperate in achieving its stated purpose; it accepted China’s presence but ignored its delegation; it promised military intervention but backed down when Britain and France refused to conclude an agreement that would have wrecked the conference before it ever opened. Washington even denied that intervention had ever been planned. Yet the threat of intervention was repeated firmly enough for French Foreign Minister Bidault to make it the cornerstone of his strategy at Geneva, only to have it destroyed when Dulles, on June 8, categorically declared that he did not intend to ask Congress to authorize U.S. intervention in Indochina. . . . . To top it all, Dulles continued to describe the search for a compromise at Geneva as appeasement although he had secretly become reconciled to a compromise based on partition.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 373-374)

Dulles made an agreement with the British that the US would be allowed to “arm the non-Communist half of Vietnam and no elections were to be held as long as a Communist victory seemed a certainty.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 374-375)


Prior to Geneva there was a conference in Berlin where John Foster refused to “compromise” with the communists and “opposed any conference attended by Communist China.” This caused a rift between the US, France and Great Britain. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 365)


Scheduled to begin April to resolved the Korean War. However, the topic quickly turned to Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 358)

Did the Chinese and the Soviet Union pressure Ho Chi Minh to negotiate at Geneva? Nonetheless, the Saigon French adamantly opposed any “compromise that would recognize Hanoi’s authority over any part of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 363)

Partition came up at the conference and all of the Vietnamese rejected it. However, this was the only way the anti-Vietminh could survive. Many hoped for US involvement to save them. The US did give public pronouncements that indicated a support for an independent, anti-communist Vietnam with no French control. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 364)

As the Battle of Dien Bien Phu began the French sent General Paul Ely to the United States to ask for US aid to help the French “until the Geneva Conference had produced an acceptable settlement.” The French had lost interest in fighting the war. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 365)


The conference lasted from April 26, 1954 to July 21, 1954. It wasn’t until the Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended that the Geneva Conference dealt with it. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 369-370) The French representative refused to talk with the Vietminh representative. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 370)


“The Communist powers at Geneva appeared solidly united. They seemed to know what they wanted, coordinated their tactics, and concealed the differences that in fact did exist among them.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 371-372)

The Soviets and the Chinese accepted that controlling all of Indochina was not possible. The just wanted to end the war. It Chou-En-lai who “persuaded the Vietminh to totally withdraw from Laos and Cambodia. The Vietminh were disheartened that the Soviets and Chinese did not back them fully on their demands. The Vietminh delegates believed that, “the cease-fire demanded by the French as just a step toward the withdrawal of the Expeditionary Corps, to be followed by elections, which they were certain they would win, would then make them masters of the whole of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 372)


“The demands raised by Foreign Minister Pham Van Dong at the beginning of the conference confirmed the impression that the Vietminh, confident that they would defeat the French, were not at all interested in a peace at the price of concession.” However, they were forced by the Soviets and the Chinese to “accept less than what they thought they should have obtained.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 373)


“The anti-Communist Vietnamese authorities did not feel obliged to honor the pledge of the French at Geneva that all public institutions and services were to be handed over to the Hanoi regime in working order. The French government, however, did honor it, and subsequently paid Hanoi the sum of 265 million francs in reparations.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 419-420)


Geneva Conference 1954

In February of 1954, the Russians proposed that the French end the Indochina War without conditioning that upon the Chinese ending their aid to the Vietminh. (Randle 25)


There were rumors that the French Premier, Mendes-France made an agreement with the Russians before the Conference. Randle finds that “baseless.” (Randle x)

The Agreements were vague “at crucial points.” So claims of violations of the Accords are “meaningless.” Considering the many conflicting interests over Indochina having a firm agreement was difficult. Peace would not come about. (Randle x)


The Russians sought a peaceful settlement of the Franco-Vietnamese War in 1953. They promoted a policy of “peaceful coexistence.” The Chinese told the French that they “would not oppose a solution to the Indochinese War that might entail Vietnam’s remaining with the French Union.” (Randle 4,18)

Furthermore, the Russians proposed “a meeting of the Big Four foreign ministers.” Britain and France agreed. (Randle 18) The Americans were not so sure but “eventually agreed.” (Randle 19)

At a meeting of Britain, France, the US, and the USSR. The conference took place in Bermuda. The Russians wanted the Chinese to be represented but the United States resisted. IndoChina was on the agenda. (Randle 20)

The Geneva Accords of 1954 involved “participating powers” which were not the United States or South Vietnam. The seventeenth parallel was chosen as the dividing point between of the two “zones.” There “was and end to hostilities; the independence and neutrality of Laos and Cambodia; and the setting up of international machinery to supervise the implementation of the agreements - an International Control Commission (ICC) of India, Poland, and Canada reporting to the two co-chairmen, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.” The two zones should not interpret this set of events as a license to resume the war. The two zones also were not meant to be a division into two countries. Elections would take place under “international supervision” in 1956. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 103) Significantly, there were not rules or provisions for the elections. In addition, Hilsman claims that the Poles obstructed and confused the actions of the ICC. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 104)

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Different Points of View over the future of Atomic weapons.

 

    During the Afghan War, President Donald Trump (GAG!) authorized a General to use the Mother of all Bombs, a bomb just shy of the power of an atomic bomb, on his own. Notice that this had no positive affect for the US in the outcome of the war. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/asia/moab-mother-of-all-bombs-afghanistan.html)

 

    There is a plethora of information about the development and use of the atomic bomb during World War II. Much of the world was astounded that the US used such a bomb on civilians. Others said, drop more.

 

    The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 9, 1945, “served as the symbolic coronation of American global power.” Nevertheless, the use of the atomic bomb in World War II brought international condemnation.    At the Tokyo War Crimes Trials of 1946-1948, Justice Pal of India cited the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as war crimes. U.S. President Harry S. Truman responded by publicly saying that the atomic bombs were dropped “in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands of young Americans.” However, President Truman in correspondence with John Foster Dulles that his reasons for dropping the atomic bombs were the attack on Pearl Harbor and the murder of our prisoners of war. “The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.” (Martin Sherwin. “Hiroshima and Modern Memory.” The Nation. October 10, 1981)

 

    “In the summer and fall of 1945, US atomic policy left us troubled and perplexed. Roosevelt, we thought, had been committed to a policy of international understanding and conciliation. . . . Truman’s policy, however, appeared to have the opposite aim: to keep a monopoly of the atomic bomb in U.S. and British hands, and to use it as a strong trump card in tough political bargaining with the Soviet Union.” (Sherwin, Martin. A World Destroyed: the Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance. 1975. xi)

 

    And, well before the bombings FDR and Churchill “rejected steps that might have led to the international control of atomic energy.” (Martin Sherwin. “Hiroshima and Modern Memory.” The Nation. October 10, 1981)

 

    According to nuclear physicist Hans Bethe who worked on the Manhattan Project, “Many of us had been influenced directly or indirectly by Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist. He argued that only international control of nuclear weapons could save the world from a nuclear arms race, and that such a race would imperil, not enhance the security of the United States and Great Britain. Many other scientists, especially at the University of Chicago Metallurgic Laboratory, at the initiative of Leo Szilard, had come independently to the same conclusion. 

 

    Martin Sherwin, George Mason University History professor who specialized in the history of nuclear weapons, wrote that, this interpretation by physicists and historian is wrong. Roosevelt decided, with Churchill, “that the bomb should remain and Anglo-American monopoly.” (Sherwin, Martin. A World Destroyed: the Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance. 1975. xii) 

    However, this is not mentioned in Hiroshima in America: fifty years of denial, by Robert Jay Lifton and Gregg Mitchell.

 

KOREA

    There are numerous arguments about whether or not the atomic bomb should have been used in Korea, Vietnam, or other existential circumstances.

    In late 1950, following their invasion of Korea, Chinese forces surrounded U.S. Marines. “Distraught himself, the chief executive (Truman), told a press conference on November 30 that nuclear bombsight be used against the enemy and seemed to indicate that the decision would be MacArthur’s.” (William Manchester. American Caesar. 608, 610; Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 30)

 

    The U.S. developed the ability fire an “atomic shot from a cannon.” (Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 34)

    

    “In mid-May Ike (President Dwight Eisenhower) told the [American] National Security Council that using nukes in Korea would be cheaper than conventional weaponry, and a few days later the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended launching nuclear attacks against China.” (Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 34)

    This is interesting since Eisenhower’s reaction to Hiroshima was, we didn’t have to use that awful thing on them. (Lifton, Robert Jay and Mitchell, Greg. Hiroshima in America: fifty years of denial. 1995. 213)

 

    Operation Hudson Harbor - flying lone B-29 bombers over North Korea to simulate a dropping of an atomic bomb. North Korean leaders must have had “steel nerves” as this simulation was eerily similar to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Operation Hudson Harbor concluded that the use of atomic weapons would not be “useful” as it was difficult to identify “large masses of enemy troops.” (Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: a History. 2010. p. 157-159)

 

    The United Nations/United States forces faced defeat in Korea but Truman looked strong because he “threatened to use the atom bomb against China.” However, this “made peace talks virtually impossible.” (Stone, I.F. The Hidden History of the Korean War. 213)

    Major General Emmett (“Rosy”) O’Donnell, commander of the Far East Air Force’s Bomber Command . . . [stated that] “We have never been permitted to bomb what are the real strategic targets, the enemy’s real sources of supply.” He said that the strategic bombing commanded been “designed to deliver the atomic offensive to the heart of the enemy” and indicated very clearly that he thought the bomb should have been used against the Chinese.”” (Stone, I.F. The Hidden History of the Korean War. 245)

 

RICHARD NIXON

    Richard Barnet, former State Department aide, activist and scholar, who founded the Institute for Policy Studies (Wikipedia) warned “of the danger that the United States government might resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Barnet then cites Vice President Richard Nixon speaking to the Executive Club of Chicago on March 17, 1955 as saying, 

    “The weapons which were used during the Korean War and World War II are obsolete. Our artillery and our tactical Air Force in the Pacific are now equipped with atomic explosives which can and will be used on military targets with precision and effectiveness.

    “It is foolish to talk about the possibility that the weapons which might be used in the event war breaks out in the Pacific would be limited to the conventional Korean and World War II types of explosives. Our forces could not fight an effective war in the Pacific with those types of explosives if they wanted to. Tactical atomic explosives are now conventional and will be used against the military targets of any aggressive force.”  

    Of course, we are not aggressors by threatening China or invading Vietnam.

 

VIET NAM

    1964 American Republican Presidential candidate Senator Goldwater of Arizona was a reserve Air Force General and “suggested that the United States could isolate the Vietcong in South Vietnam any bombing the supply routes connecting China and North Vietnam.” He also proposed using nuclear weapons “to clear the jungles where the Vietcong were presumably hiding. The public reaction to those notions was one of horrified alarm.” (Thomas Powers, The War at Home. 2) It turns out that the United States bombed Southeast Asia the equivalent of many atomic bombs through out the war. 

    “Although Goldwater was finally persuaded to stop talking about nuclear weapons.”

    Although Goldwater’s advocacy of atomic weapons scared people his idea to win the war did not. Johnson portrayed himself as “responsible” as opposed to Goldwater who he implied would get us all killed. (Thomas Powers, The War at Home. 9)

    Noted military writer Hanson Baldwin believed that the US should use its overwhelming technological power to counter communism even if that meant nuclear weapons. Of course, only for “defensive purposes.” “If we cannot do this, he says, we had better “call it quits.” (Noam Chomsky, At War with Asia. 52)

 

    General Curtis LeMay advocated the use of nuclear weapons to end the conflict with communism once and for all. “We ought to nuke the chinks. . . . We are swatting flies when we should be going after the manure pile.” (Thomas Powers. The War at Home. 40; Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. Lyndon B. Johnson: the Exercise of Power. 538)

 

    So, there is pretty much agreement that the use of the atom bomb was on the table. The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki completely ignored.

 

    In 1954 the United States “assuming the Chinese Communists intervene would engage in a “highly selective atomic offensive.” (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 46) However, if the “Chinese Communists do not intervene” then the use of atomic weapons would occur if it would aid the US in the war. (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 47)

    McNaughton drafted a “Proposed Course of Action” to McNamara. In his long list of actions McNaughton noted risks. One was the “escalation to the use of nuclear weapons.” (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 442-445, passim)

    Presidential assistant for national security, Walt. W. Rostow, wrote a memorandum on May 6, 1967, analyzing U.S. bombing strategy in Viet Nam. One of his conclusions was “we do not want a nuclear confrontation over Viet Nam.” (Pentagon Papers. New York Times. 1971. 585, 588)

Atomic Bomb

Viet Nam War
 

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