Code-named Fracture Jaw
October 6, 2018 9:49 AM   Subscribe

In 1968 general Westmoreland asked for nuclear weapons to be sent to Vietnam. The story was contained in a cable declassified in 2014, but only now being written about in a new book. (SLNYTimes)

"The White House national security adviser, Walt W. Rostow, alerted President Lyndon B. Johnson of plans to move nuclear weapons into South Vietnam on the same day that Gen. William C. Westmoreland had told the American commander in the Pacific that he approved the operation."
posted by doctornemo (7 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm watching PBS's The Vietnam War and I'm not surprised at all. What an obstinate man that Westmoreland was :(
posted by Captain Fetid at 10:14 AM on October 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Daniel Ellsberg revealed that the president was not in charge of the decision to launch, either. And probably still isn’t. Ellsberg is a national hero, if not a world hero, for changing the US nuclear engagement rules to include only Russian military targets in retaliatory action. Never mind the Pentagon Papers leak. Troubling that Russian rules for retaliation includes cyberattacks as a triggering event now.
posted by metasunday at 12:22 PM on October 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


Some of the most alarming moments in the Nixon tapes are where he, practically frothing at the mouth, talks about nuking Vietnam and Henry Kissinger - HENRY FUC*ING KISSINGER - has to talk him down.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:28 PM on October 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


spraying agent orange did equivalent damage
posted by brujita at 5:52 PM on October 6, 2018


1967 was famously the Summer of Love. 1968 was the year it all started to turn sour. This is just more evidence of the death rot at the core of the system that has proved to be more viral than the ideals of hippie idealism.
posted by kozad at 8:03 PM on October 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is just more evidence of the death rot at the core of the system that has proved to be more viral than the ideals of hippie idealism.

Those two things have converged to make a new and very different culture than that of 1968, though - the counterculture was not a monolith, genuine radicals were a minority of participants, and the lifestyle capitalism that emerged in the 70s and now defines large swaths of our economy is a direct descendant. The history of Silicon Valley, particularly its early history, makes an instructive case study. Some of the ideas of the more libertarian end of the 1960s counterculture have proved extremely durable and viral.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:37 AM on October 7, 2018 [2 favorites]


spraying agent orange did equivalent damage

Maybe in terms of lives directly lost. Going nuclear would almost have certainly greatly destabilized the situation and made a nuclear response from China non unlikely. That could go very pear-shaped very quickly.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:18 PM on October 7, 2018 [1 favorite]


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