"How Close did the United States actually get to using..." Topic

… NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN VIETNAM IN 1968?

"In their critically acclaimed comic book series, Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons render an alternate, dystopian 1985 America in which the United States won the Vietnam War after obliterating North Vietnamese forces through the deployment of Dr. Manhattan, a one-time nuclear physicist transformed into a supernatural being by a radiation experiment gone awry. Within weeks of unleashing Dr. Manhattan's destructive powers on the battlefield, North Vietnamese soldiers laid down their arms in defeat. "Often they surrender to me personally," Dr. Manhattan recalls, "their terror of me balanced by an almost religious awe. I am reminded of how the Japanese were reported to have viewed the atomic bomb, after Hiroshima."

In an eerie twist on life imitating art, recent news coverage suggests just such a reality could have come to pass. The publication of Michael Beschloss' new book, Presidents of War, shined light on declassified documents describing the efforts that President Lyndon Johnson's senior military officers undertook without presidential authorization in early 1968 to prepare for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

How close did the United States actually get to deploying nuclear weapons in Vietnam in 1968? Who initiated this plan, codenamed "Fracture Jaw," and when did the president become aware of it? What can today's leaders learn from this incident, and what implications does this episode have for command and control of nuclear weapons during wartime and the so-called "nuclear taboo" that purportedly dissuades their use?…"

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Armand

Is that US billions or British billions.
Asking for an ally.

Zero.

I talked to a USAF crewman that claimed once they had an F-4 on the runway with a center line nuke loaded. Can't verify it either way. He was in Thailand.

Wolfhag

The Rainbow plan developed before WW2 had plan Blue for war between the US and UK. I also found out that the British had a contingency plan for a war with the US. Contingency plans keep the war planners busy.

As a side note some of the planners were making war plans for a zombie apocalypse. I guess it's something to do at a quiet time.

@sir gawaine.

The entire population of the USA is somewhat less than 1 billion. Is thePentagon using foreign contractors?

Because few people can predict the future well we have soldiers planning for nearly everything. Even if it does not happen the plans are often a good starting point for things that do happen.

We could have nuked Hanoi, or we could have sent several hundred heavy and medium bombers with conventional bombs over Hanoi 24/7 for a few days and leveled the city that way.

There is much we could have done that we did not do. But you need to be ready, just in case.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Thanks.

Armand

Greater chance they would of used it in the Korean war.

Yea, zero.

The Pentagon has BILLIONS of officers

I think you mean dollars, not officers, maybe along the lines of "The Pentagon has BILLIONS of dollars to spend on producing plans for every contingency."

There are only about 7 billion people on the whole planet.

The Marines had contingency plans to invade NVN in 1973. I was part of the exercise at HQ USMC in Quantico. However, I never saw a mention of nukes. It was mostly a high level logistical exercise and amphib landing by the 1st and 3rd MAR DIV.

Wolfhag

Cannot help but think that nukes, to clear a landing site of opposition, might not be the healthiest option for amphibious forces.

Had Khe Sanh been in the ultimate danger of falling, I am bound to wonder about tactical nuclear weapons. But I wonder how effective against a surrounding dispersed enemy and with your own folk in the middle!

Same applies, if not more so, to Dien Bien Phu. French colonial problem essentially however Commie the attacker.

Now Korea. Imagine if the Pusan Peninsula was about to fall, with thousands of US troops facing POW camps, one nuke might have said this is the Line in the Sand. There was a front line there, not an encirclement.