U.S. Agencies Weighed Atomic Attack on China in 1950s 38~PWKt
Secrets: CIA documents say weapons use could have shown Western determination in Korean War. lWWP03er!
October 01, 1993|JIM MANN, TIMES STAFF WRITER V<8 K@/n@
f1mHN7hxW
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies weighed seriously the possible impact of using nuclear weapons against China during the Korean War and after the French defeat in Indochina, according to newly declassified CIA files. O L'P]=U
& D ]p,
"If atomic weapons were used, the Communists would recognize the employment of these weapons as indicative of Western determination to carry the Korean War to a successful conclusion," the CIA and other intelligence agencies concluded in June, 1953. G @g h#[b
|uI?ySF
This dispassionate analysis of a possible U.S. nuclear attack is contained in a series of files that the CIA made public Thursday. H}Ucrv:
igD G}q3jG
The release was the initial step in the agency's effort to open up to historians and the American public a few of its archives from the early days of the Cold War. fc@'9- pt
w u)Wg-dT
Overall, the documents demonstrate that during the tense Cold War period of the late 1940s and early 1950s, American intelligence was sometimes prescient and sometimes wildly inaccurate. o#>a 5
;+ azeW ^
The CIA was able to predict accurately Soviet behavior in the Middle East during the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. 4KXc~eF[M"
%-+j
Soviet officials had suggested that Moscow might intervene militarily in response to the invasion of Egypt by Israel, France and Britain. A hurried U.S. intelligence estimate concluded, correctly, that the Soviet Union would not attack Britain or France and would not send its forces to the Middle East. $&hN*7Ts
@x1 %)1
Agency officials also suggested the possibility of a Sino-Soviet split several years before it occurred. [4*1}}gW%5
!K cWH9
The study warned, however, that the Soviet Union and China would stick together through the period of the early 1950s--as in fact they did. !aPD}xCH#
RRADg^}l|"
But American intelligence also had notable failures, the files show.
`0bP0^w
FJeiY#us
It failed to predict the outbreak of war in North Korea in a study completed just before the conflict began. The CIA said only that North Korean forces "have a capability for attaining limited objectives in short-term military operations against southern Korea." The Pyongyang regime launched its devastatingly successful invasion of the south six days later, and the war lasted until 1953. ]f8L:=c
^T6S()G
In the wildest miscalculation of all, the CIA gazed into its crystal ball in 1953 and hazarded a guess on the future course of the Cold War. In many ways, U.S. intelligence officials concluded, "time must be said to be on the Soviet side."
