Nation: The Nuclear Rumble

The Nuclear Rumble The controversy over Viet Nam was raised several megadecibels by widespread speculation that the Johnson Administration was considering use of tactical nuclear weapons in the war. Though high Administration officials repeatedly and categorically denied in private that the U.S. has either stored nukes in Viet Nam or even considered using them there, their public statements have been less than convincing. The series of dusty answers given by the President and his top aides set off alarums and warnings from London to Peking.

British Prime Minister Harold Wilson warned, during a CBS television interview, that nuclear escalation in Viet Nam would be “sheer lunacy.” Red China’s Premier Chou En-lai promised North Viet Nam nuclear weapons if the U.S. uses them. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a formal query to Secretary of State Dean Rusk asking if there was any truth to the nuke talk.

Ill-Considered Insinuation. The rumors were apparently touched off by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Eafle Wheeler in a Feb. 1 closed-door appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In response to a hypothetical question from Republican Hawk Strom Thurmond, according to leaked reports, Wheeler said that the Pentagon would indeed recommend use of nukes if the outcome of the Khe Sanh battle depended on their deployment. He had emphasized earlier, however, that he believed Khe Sanh could be held without their use. Moreover, he did not suggest that the President would permit their use even if it was recommended.

The rumors were whipped up by an anonymous telephone call four days later to one of William Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee staffers. The caller urged the committee to investigate the reason why Columbia University Physicist Richard Garwin and several other nuclear-weapons experts had been sent recently on a secret mission to Viet Nam. Hence Fulbright’s letter to Rusk—who brusquely denied that the Garwin mission had anything to do with nuclear weapons.

Though the Administration could have doused the rumors then and there with a prompt, forthright denial, it grew emotional. White House Press Secretary George Christian, commenting on Presidential Candidate Eugene McCarthy’s claim that demands had already been made for the deployment of nukes, declared that such speculation “is false and also unfair to the armed forces. I might add that irresponsible discussion and speculation is a disservice to the country.” Rusk later repeated Christian’s ill-considered insinuation that such inquiries were unpatriotic.

Gaping Loophole. Skeptics were quick to point out that the Administration had merely denied reports that it had been asked by parties unknown to deploy nuclear weapons; no one specifically repudiated gossip that their use was under consideration by the Pentagon. Nor did General Wheeler ease the skeptics’ concern when he was asked at a press conference about using tactical nukes in Viet Nam. Sidestepping the broad question, he repeated: “I do not think that nuclear weapons will be required to defend Khe Sanh.” The implication, to many, was that nukes were at least available as a last resort.

The President himself was finally confronted with the rumors at a White House press conference at week’s end. “As far as I am aware,” said Johnson, “they [the J.C.S.] have at no time ever considered or made a recommendation in any respect to the employment of nuclear weapons.” By implying that he might not be “aware” of such considerations, Lyndon Johnson left a gaping loophole of doubt.

Wrong Terrain. There was, in fact, logic to the Administration’s public ambiguity. By refusing to rule out flatly the use of nuclear weapons in Viet Nam (or Korea), the Administration sought to keep the Communists guessing. Unfortunately, it also kept some Americans worrying about whether Viet Nam’s onetime guerrilla war was now in danger of escalating into World War III. That fear seemed ill-founded. Tactical weapons have only a limited blast area, and as far as Khe Sanh is concerned, a high officer in the field pointed out that the hilly terrain would minimize their range and thus their usefulness. Said he: “Khe Sanh is not nuke country. It’s too mountainous. And you face the obvious problem of destroying your own troops in a Khe Sanh situation. We have never given any thought to it.”

Still, with U.S. fighting forces spread thin by the demands of Viet Nam, it is conceivable that nuclear weapons would be employed if a second front opened in Korea; they would surely be used in the event of a surprise nuclear attack against the U.S. itself. Thus when the Soviet Union protested last week against routine patrols by U.S. B-52s armed with H-bombs, an Administration spokesman left no doubt that they would continue. “The threat posed by Soviet nuclear forces,” he said, “makes the B-52 flights necessary.” Even with all of America’s missiles—1,710 of them—poised in submarines and land silos, nuclear-armed B-52 patrols offer an added threat that forces the Russians to mount a more complex and costly defensive system than one that might prove effective against IBMS alone.