Thread by @KyleWOrton

In Dec. 1950, U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur requested that the authority for the use of tactical nuclear weapons be handed to him as battlefield commander. All indicators are he planned to use them in areas of North Korea and Red China. Truman refused and fired him in April 1951.

(It's not entirely clear what MacArthur proposed to hit with nuclear weapons in Korea and China: he did at some point publicly deny he ever intended their use. Other documents suggest he wanted to create a line of nuclear fallout to sever the Korean Peninsula from China.)

What MacArthur had got right, strategically, which Truman and the State Department had not, was that Communist China was not simply a satellite of the Soviet Union but its own entity, and an American attack on the Peking regime was not akin to an attack on the Soviets.

Eisenhower replaces Truman in Jan. 1953 and is determined to end the Korean War. In May 1953, his Sec. State John Dulles relays a message to Red China through India that if peace talks break down nukes are on the table. An armistice is signed in July 1953. nyti.ms/2LY7cJR

The Eisenhower administration also agrees in December 1953 that if South Korea is attacked again, a total war, including nuclear weapons, will be launched against Communist China. #pt

In March 1955, as Red China is threatening to overrun Formosa, the Eisenhower administration says the island will be defended, with nuclear weapons if necessary. The Communists back down; the ceasefire resumes between Peking and Taipei. jstor.org/stable/2538996…

When another crisis erupted over Taiwan in August 1958, with the Communists threatening to destroy the Nationalist government, the U.S. military had assumed Eisenhower would order tactical nuclear strikes on the Chinese mainland. He refused. wapo.st/2LUrm7v

Red China decided sometime in 1955, it seems convinced by the U.S. threats during the first Formosa crisis, to which the Communists had to accede, that it had to develop nuclear weapons. Peking knew it couldn't become a strategic threat like the Soviets, but it could add leverage

The Chinese already had a nuclear infrastructure from 1944, assisted by the Soviets, and that lasted until the expulsion of Soviet technicians in 1961, after which Red China raced for the bomb, detonating an [undeclared] test on 16 Oct. 1964. www-jstor-org.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/stable/2643520…

Communist China declared its first nuclear test in June 1967 as Mao retook the reins as part of the Cultural Revolution. Apparently "conservative" scientists had wanted to wait, but the "progressive" Maoists had bested them. Another test the same year, undeclared, failed. #pt

It is believed China was threatened with nuclear weapons for the fourth and final time on 11 Sept. 1969 by Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin during a meeting to settle inter alia the border after the clashes along the Ussuri in March 1969. jstor.org/stable/2643560…

// End of random Saturday evening thread.