JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 492

I cannot remember ever thinking about this, or reading about it, or havng any serious consideration of the use of any sort of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese or the Chinese at any time during the Vietnam War.  Or after it, for that matter.

But it makes sense that the issue was discussed and analyzed and vetted, if for no other reason than to dismiss it.  And here it is, in small part, on the CIA website of declassified materials.  What makes this document so uneasy to me is that even though it addresses the issue of the war not quite being winable and the use of nuclear weapons being (basically) not acceptable and perhaps tactically irrelevant, the idea, at the end of it all, isn’t completely let go.  It wasn’t the idea that you whisper into a helium balloon and then set free–it was tethered in a final “what if” circumstance and let stand for further thought. 

What happens at the end though, is this:  there is a consideration for what would happen if the U.S. DID NOT use nuclear weapons, which is on page 12, section 19–it is the “aha” part of this paper and the foot-in-the-door to Armageddon.  And what the CIA report from 1966 tells us is this, overall–it doesn’t look good if the U.S. used nuclear weapons; but it also doesn’t look good, perhaps, if we didn’t.  Dr. Strangelove didn’t have anything over these guys.  Finally, these astonishing folks throw up their hands and admit that the non-use wasn’t, somehow, “within the scope of the paper”. 

This is the cover sheet for the twelve-page report; click to enlarge.  The full text is below in the “continue reading section”. 

JF Ptak Science Books Post 493

Richard Nixon continues a post from last night on the Executive Branch and the considerations for using nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War.  Yesterday’s document related to the Johnson administration in 1966, Richard Nixon took up the issue in the first year of his failed presidency, in 1969, brainstorming the idea of first strike to end the war.  This of course was a an early decision of his on the war, before it became much more politically expedient for him (in 1971/2)  to prolong the war so that he could run for re-election to end the war in his second term–a more repugnant decision unmatched and unchallenged until he was nearly checked by the embarrassment who just left office.  As part of a study codenamed “Duck Hook” the following memorandum (Tony Lake“Memorandum from and Roger Morris, NSC Staff, to Captain [Rembrandt] Robinson, Subject: ‘Draft Memorandum to the President on Contingency Study’, 29 September 1969, Top Secret/Sensitive. Source: folder 4: VIETNAM: (General Files), Sep 69-Nov 69, box 74, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Archives.”) concerning “military expediency” was introduced into the thought pool, stating that the President should at bottom-line have considered the use of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese.  Melvin Laird, the Seretary of Defense at the time, thought the proposal for the tactical use of nuclear weapons to be “laughable” and completely off the table.  However, he also said that for Henry Kissinger, nothing was off the table:  “(for Kissinger) Laird recalled, “nothing was out of consideration” with respect to Vietnam; the nuclear threat was “always . . . there as an option.” That was “not my approach,” and he said that he had told Kissinger at the time, “just forget it.”(–George Washington University website, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 195, Edited by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball.)

In typical fashion, Henry Kissinger was not necessarily “for” the use of nuclear weapons against North Vietnam, but was in favor of using massive, brutal force against military targets–he said that he had ruled out the use of a “nuclear weapon”, but had not ruled out the use of a “nuclear device”. 

In a summary of the issue (in another of this series of Top Secret-Eyes Only declassified documents) of the bombing of North Vietnam by Kissinger and addressed to the President (though, as the editors at GWU point out, there is no evidence that this was actually read by Nixon), retains the question about the use of nuclear weapons–the editors reaching the conclusion that the documents were “implying that the matter was still up in the air or on the table”.

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 402

This letter, written in 1957  by Colonel Leslie S. Moore of the U.S. Biological Weapons Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to a member (whose name I’ve removed) of the “A.S.”(“Atmospheric Sciences”)  division, was basically a get-out-of-hell-free card for its bearer in the case of devastating nuclear attack.

“In the event of a mass destruction attack on Fort Detrick with the resulting loss of Biological Warfare physical facilities, it is anticipated that it will be necessary to re-establish the BW activities at some other location.”

“In order to accomplish this in the most expeditious manner, the availability of certain designated personnel…is deemed essential.”

The “letter serves as notification that you have been selected as a member of this group which is to be evacuated”  to get the biological weapons program up and running again.  As you can read in the clickable version of the document, there are directions about what top do and when to do it.  There is no mention of family.  My read is that this is Endgame stuff, end of civilization as we know it, and that this was the Darwinian sweep of necessary people.  Or is it Dr. Strangeloveian?  I get the two confused.

Suffice to say that Fort Detrick, which had been established in 1943 (constructing and delivering anthrax bombs by 1944) as Camp Detrick, already had a fairly full career before it was up-named to “Fort” in 1956.  It was the recognized home/collecting node  for the American Chemical and Biological Weapons programs until Richard Nixon, of all people, disbanded that capacity at Detrick in 1969.

It is interesting to note that the person to whom this letter was addressed was actually in aerolized particle release, and at the time, in 1957, was working on Operation Large Area Concept, which simulated and studies a very large airborne attack over thousands of mile of land.  It was an obvious two-sided study about how-to and how-to react to a mass scale biological attack.

1957 was about the height of the Cold War. According to the ticking Doomsday Clock of the venerable Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the minutes-to-midnight–with the stroke of midnight being the Big One, the ultimate attack, the carnal release of all nuclear power, The End–was set at about two (two minutes to midnight) from 1953 to 1960.  The clock admittedly was set very close to that mark anyway, starting out life at seven minutes to midnight in 1947, but it was probably accurate at how close we all were, our toes stuffed into  Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove’s bitterly polished shoes, to walking (finally!) towards the explosive closing roll of the movie.

I might have been overstating the “Get out of Hell Free” aspect of this letter.  Probably it was a “Survive Many Aspects of Hell at Not-Understandable Personal and Societal Costs” card , but it doesn’t have the snap of the former, though it is more factual.

The letter tells the recipient to keep it on his person at all times for use in an emergency.  I don’t think you’d need to be told that twice.