Thread: Tapes: Nixon wanted to drop nuclear bomb on Vietnam

Nixon White House Considered Nuclear Options Against North Vietnam, Declassified Documents Reveal


Nuclear Weapons, the Vietnam War, and the "Nuclear Taboo"


President Nixon meeting with Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office, February 13, 1969 (Copy from Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Archives)


National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 195

Edited by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball

For more information contact:
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Jeffrey Kimball - 513/529-5121

Posted - July 31, 2006

Nixon White House Considered Nuclear Options Against North Vietnam





Thinking big: Tapes reveal President Nixon discussed using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

Transcript:


Nixon: "I still think we ought to take the North Vietnamese dikes out now. Will that drown people?"

Kissinger: "About two hundred thousand people."

Nixon: "No, no, no, I'd rather use the nuclear bomb."

Kissinger: "That, I think, would just be too much."

Nixon: "The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you? I just want you to think big Henry, for Christsakes.."

Nixon: "The only place you and I disagree ... is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians and I don't give a damn. I don't care."

Kissinger: "I'm concerned about the civilians because I don't want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher."


In a conversation from June, he told domestic adviser Charles Colson..

Nixon: "We want to decimate that goddamned place. North Vietnam is going to get reordered. ... It's about time, it's what should have been done long ago."



USATODAY.com - Nixon had notion to use nuclear bomb in Vietnam

Nixon wanted to drop nuclear bomb on Vietnam - Americas, World - The Independent

USATODAY.com - Nixon suggested nuclear bomb during Vietnam

Things haven't changed much. McBama still won't rule out a nuclear first strike on Iran.

I will tell you what I did during this. We had an ARTEP, we won, our unit, an artillery unit was going to do this. We were shipped to some damned AFB in Texas, the unit was from Ft. Sill. I was a no. one man on a SP 109.

We showed up, loaded and was ready to deploy. Ford took the reigns, he figured that the US can not revert to the use of nukes if we lose a war. He figured that if that were the case then why fight a conventional war. We were sent back. This was in '77 I think, it may have been in '76.

This article has truth, I was there, we trained hard and to my dismay we were going to do it.

Originally Posted by Defensor

Things haven't changed much. McBama still won't rule out a nuclear first strike on Iran.

This just shows you the mindset of these people. This is how they talk internally. Compare this with their public statements. The US is planning on using nuclear weapons to fight wars. The purpose of the missile shield is to expand the domains for freedom of aggression.

Foreign Affairs - The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy - Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press

Originally Posted by Horhey

This just shows you the mindset of these people. This is how they talk internally. Compare this with their public statements. The US is planning on using nuclear weapons to fight wars. The purpose of the missile shield is to expand the domains for freedom of aggression.

Foreign Affairs - The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy - Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press

I love nukes Dad was tasked to Operation Omaha (the invasion of Japan). I just wish the first nuke had been dropped on the Imperial palace and surrounding bureaucracies.

Ya know...it didn't help much to have Goldwater egging Ritchie Nixon on. Goldie said..."I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle."

Originally Posted by Goldwater

Ya know...it didn't help much to have Goldwater egging Ritchie Nixon on. Goldie said..."I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle."

Wasnt he against the war?

Originally Posted by Horhey

Wasnt he against the war?

I'm assuming you're asking about Goldwater instead of Nixon...Goldie was against American troops sacrificed on the ground, but was all for vaporizing Uncle Ho. Having said that, Goldwater changed his mind as frequently as the situation on the ground changed...and to make it more complicated...he refused to agree with anything McGovern said ever at any time.

Goldwater was a ruthless interventionist in foreign policy. Sad to say, he was the bridge between old conservatism and the neocons we have today.

Originally Posted by Defensor

Goldwater was a ruthless interventionist in foreign policy. Sad to say, he was the bridge between old conservatism and the neocons we have today.

Your mean D! Now I wanna write like 10 paragraphs to show how Goldwater was old "Fiscal" Eisenhower Conservatism and suffered watching neocons and the Moral Majority infiltrate the legislative process under Reagan. See...Reagan + Religion = Neocon. I know that's not what wiki says. They think neocons were an answer to McCarthyism. I think McCarthy was the first neocon. Ike and Goldie fought that, and are the old guard religionless fiscal conservatives.

My definition is better D! The whole idea of neocon is derogetory and Goldie and Ike were good guys. Reagan and Bush II were not. Because that's Religion + Bloodthirsty Militarism = 911 Republican.

Oh yea...his whole interventionalist streak was just an Ike inspired post WWII defensive reaction to Krustev and his "We will bury you" rhetoric