Word: nuclear
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...light of these new doubts, the impending showdown at Khesanh raises the disturbing spectre of nuclear warfare. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee early this month. General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated the problem bluntly. If faced with a choice between losing Khesanh and using nuclear weapons, Wheeler reportedly said, the Pentagon would recommend "bringing in the nukes...
Wheeler's statement immediately touched off a spate of "inside" reports, purporting to prove that nuclear warfare was imminent at Khesanh. Claiming that nuclear weapons were already being stored in Thailand, a University of California professor said last week that "for the first time since World War II, the United States is planning to use nuclear weapons in combat...
Other indications have been more subtle. A small Massachusetts newspaper reported that a local man, "a specialist in nuclear research," had been sent to a Marine base "near the demilitarized zone." Time said that a party of nuclear-weapons experts from Columbia had been sent to Vietnam, but added that Dean Rusk denied any connection between this group and nukes at Khesanh...
...Even if the Communists begin to win at Khesanh, there are serious doubts that nuclear weapons would be useful at all. The hilly terrain around the base would seriously limit the effectiveness of nuclear weapons against enemy mortar sites. "This just isn't nuke country," a colonel at Khesanh said. "There are too many damn hills...
...look for Khesanh offers limited encouragement, but the prospects for long-term avoidance of nukes in Vietnam are slim. General Wheeler said two weeks ago that he "doesn't think nuclear weapons will be necessary to defend Khesanh"; but implicit in that statement is the rationale that somewhere else the military might consider them necessary. And if the battle of Khesanh does not end the war, experts see two ways that the "necessary" time could come...