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When Richard Nixon became president in 1969, the Vietnam War was in its 14th year,
and the recent Paris peace negotiations with North Vietnam had not shown promising results.
Several of the President’s advisers believed a nuclear blast was a plausible option to terminate
the conflict, and according to declassified documents, National Security Adviser Henry
Kissinger might have considered the matter more seriously than other administrations
when he created the September Group to organize a nuclear plan codenamed Operation Duck Hook.
Secretary of Defence Melvin Laird thought it was a: (QUOTE) “laughable thing,”
and asked Kissinger to forget about it. But the Secretary recalled that for Kissinger:
(QUOTE) “Nothing was out of consideration.”
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A Means To An End
America had a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons,
and making threats was part of the atomic diplomacy of the 1960s.
During the first year of Richard Nixon’s presidency,
his advisors revisited the possibility of a nuclear deployment to end the Vietnam War.
Previous administrations had discussed the option as a way to deal with crises, influence
negotiations, and terminate conflicts. But ethical and practical considerations always prevailed.
Top officials were aware of the destructive effects of massive nuclear weapons
and the disproportionate consequences of using them to end a local conflict. In addition,
this devastating act of war would undoubtedly open a more significant conflict with the Soviet Union.
Still, by mid-1969, Nixon’s main concern was to end the war in Vietnam as soon as possible,
but in terms that favored his administration. He and his national security advisor,
Henry Kissinger, supported a strategy that combined international diplomacy with open and
direct threats and use of force. The United States needed to bend the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Many warnings were given to the leaders in Moscow and Hanoi during July and August.
If by November 1 the North Vietnamese hadn't compromised to the American terms,
there would be: (QUOTE) "measures of great consequence and force."
In case Moscow failed to persuade Hanoi to compromise, a second phase of
military escalation would be launched with multifaceted campaigns in North Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Kissinger and his staff began developing a contingency plan codenamed Duck Hook,
and a special National Security Council
planning committee known as the September Group was created.
Kissinger stated that: (QUOTE) "I refuse to believe that a little fourth-rate power
like North Vietnam does not have a breaking point. It shall be the assignment of this group
to examine the option of a savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam.”
He then asked for a military plan
that would inflict maximum impact on the enemy and force a definite conclusion.
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh gave a secondhand account of the planning process
and said that when asked directly by a staff member if nuclear weapons should be considered,
Kissinger responded: (QUOTE) "the policy of this administration [was] not to use nuclear weapons."
However, he added that the possibility of using a nuclear device to block a key railroad pass
to China was not altogether excluded, should it prove the only way to proceed.
Roger Morris, a member of the September Group, later reported that he had glimpsed plans for
at least two targeted sites in North Vietnam for nuclear blasts. And in 1970, Special Counselor
Charles Colson asked Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, about the contingency plan. He allegedly
responded that: (QUOTE) "Kissinger had lobbied for nuclear options in the spring and fall of 1969."
Winston Lord, an aide to Kissinger, refuted these claims and insinuated that it was a preposterous
accusation, as he couldn’t fathom that they would think of going forward with such a plan.
Still, he added that there was a possibility the Vietnamese would worry about a nuclear attack,
and: (QUOTE) “we wouldn't go out of our way to allay their fears about that.”
Two Documents
Classified documents about the events were finally disclosed in 2005 with the annual
declassification release of the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the National Archives. In it,
two documents explicitly questioned the deployment of nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
The first, a September 29 memorandum, was written by Kissinger aides Roger Morris and Anthony Lake
to Captain Rembrandt Robinson, director of the Chairman’s Staff Group of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff at the Pentagon and the National Security Council’s liaison unit in the White House.
Both men were directly involved in preparing the Duck Hook plans.
It was through Robinson that the National Security Council, or NSC,
could tap military planning advice and evade Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird,
whom Kissinger regarded as an adversary on Vietnam matters.
At the White House’s request, Robinson then prepared an outline of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff’s plans to attack North Vietnam, a document that still remains classified.
Dissatisfied with the document, Morris and Lake appealed to Robinson in their September 29 memo to
rework it and present: (QUOTE) "clearly and fully all the implications of the Duck Hook action,
should the President decide to do it."
The September Group believed that the operation had to be
brutal and sustainable while also self-contained,
and the President had to be prepared to merge these vital operational concepts.
They claimed that it was the President’s obligation
to settle: (QUOTE) "the fateful question of how far we will go.
He cannot, for example, confront the issue of using tactical nuclear weapons in the midst
of the exercise. He must be prepared to play out whatever string necessary in this case."
The second document, dated October 2, comprised two cover memos from Kissinger to Nixon.
In it, Kissinger introduced a report by the NSC staffers
on the current state of the Duck Hook operation. The report explained
that the operation's objective was to coerce Hanoi to compromise.
The delicate matter demanded a balance between causing enough damage in the country and crushing
the nation or its regime, which assuredly would: (QUOTE) “invite major outside intervention.”
The strategies held by previous administrations needed to be redefined.
President Lyndon Johnson’s bombing had been spasmodic and limited,
and there was a necessity for intense air and naval attacks of short duration to have a lasting
effect on the Vietnamese military and economy while having a lasting psychological impact.
Aerial mining would focus on quarantining North Vietnam’s ports, while aerial bombing
would strike strategic targets like the levee system in the Red River Delta.
The nuclear issue was raised in the attachment entitled ‘Important Questions,’
which openly queried: (QUOTE) "Should we be prepared to use nuclear weapons?"
Unresolved Business
Sporadic references about the potential use of nuclear weapons are not enough
to unequivocally claim that Nixon or Kissinger requested plans to deploy them.
But the documents give insight into the first year of Nixon’s presidency and how several
advisors brought up the matter and suggested that it be raised with military planners.
Still, despite all the threats directed at Hanoi and the ongoing development of the operation,
Nixon pulled the plug in early October.
There were many concerns around the operation, including a foreseen lack of support from
the public towards a months-long military escalation. In addition,
three major anti-war demonstrations were scheduled around the launch of Duck Hook,
which could expand into larger protests and weaken the confidence in his leadership.
Nixon also realized that North Vietnam had remained unmoved by the threats and
that enemy-initiated fighting in South Vietnam had decreased.
On top of that, diplomacy had failed to leverage Soviet cooperation concerning North Vietnam,
narrowing the entire operation’s prospects for success.
Nixon then stated after the cancellation that: (QUOTE) "it was important that the Communists
not mistake as weakness the lack of dramatic action on my part in carrying out the ultimatum."
A New Plan
The Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test was set in motion to compensate for Duck Hook’s
cancellation. This elaborate and secret global military exercise was carried out in late October
and was a tantamount nuclear alert. The genesis of this idea is implicit in the
declassified documents, which read: (QUOTE) "What military actions should we undertake concurrently,
e.g., should we alert our strategic and/or the various theater forces?"
The exercise was one of the largest military operations in American history,
including readiness positions like the stand down of training flights, Strategic Air Command
ground alerts and maintenance procedures, heightened postures for overseas air units,
increased naval activity and surveillance of Soviet ships heading for North Vietnam,
and a nuclear-armed B-52 as a display of force over Alaska.
However, the Soviets and the North Vietnamese were not intimidated,
and the nuclear alert did not serve its purpose to tilt the negotiations in favor of the Americans.
The nuclear option was brought up once again after the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive in 1972.
While discussing the upcoming US aerial counterattack known as Linebacker,
Nixon expressed interest in using a nuclear bomb as an alternative to bombing North Vietnam’s
dike system, causing fewer casualties and making a more powerful statement.
Kissinger and several advisers had reservations, and Nixon backed off, settling for merely implying
their possible use as an intimidation tactic. The leaders in Hanoi were aware of the threats,
but still unafraid. Le Duc Tho, Hanoi’s chief negotiator, claimed that: (QUOTE) "We have been
subjected to tens of millions of bombs and shells. The equal of [...] 600 atomic bombs [...] The
simple truth is that we will not submit and reconcile ourselves to being slaves. So your
threats and broken promises, we say, that is not a really serious way to carry on negotiations."
While Nixon and Kissinger may have been more serious about deploying nuclear weapons than
previous administrations given their infatuation with the madman theory,
the truth remains unknown and could be unearthed when further documents are disclosed.
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