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WORLD

By FRED WEIR

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States
has used its overwhelming strategic superiority to
threaten, blackmail and cajole both the Soviet Union and
its allies, as well as third world nations who opposed
U.S. designs.

Thanks to the efforts of historians and journalists, a
good number of U.S. Government documents from the
early years of the Cold War and the Korean conflict have
been recently made available. The unfolding record re-
veals that U.S. leaders repeatedly threatened the USSR
with nuclear destruction, in effect holding the Soviet
population hostage to the success of American policy
objectives around the world.

For instance a new book about the Korean War by
Joseph C. Goulden,* based upon recently declassified

.material, shows that the U.S. twice threatened atomic.
devastation during the course of that conflict:

e In December, 1950, despite President Truman’s
protestations that the U.S. would never use nuclear
weapons in Korea, atomic bombs were deployed aboard
aircraft carriers in the Sea of Japan, and U.S. planes
began to make simulated nuclear bombing raids over
Pyongyang and other cities of the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea in preparation for the real thing. Pres-
ident Truman confided to his diary that he intended to
put a ‘‘ten day ultimatum”’ to the leaders of the Soviet
Union: ‘‘Now do you want an end to hositilities in
Korea’, Truman wrote, ‘‘or do you want China and
Siberia destroyed? You may have one or the other,
whichever you want ... You either accept our fair and
just proposal or you will be completely destroyed.”’

e In May, 1953, President Eisenhower and the Na-
tional Security Council decided that Chinese movement
at the bargaining table was too slow. They resolved to
force the Chinese to become more co-operative by ini-
tiating air and naval operations “directly against China
and Manchuria’”’ including ‘‘extensive strategic and tac-
tical use of atomic bombs”’ in order to ‘‘obtain maximum
impact’’. Fortunately the armistice was signed within
the month, and the war ended before the decision was
put into effect.

A report issued by the Brookings Institution in 1978**
details 215 occasions between 1946 and 1976 in which the
U.S. used, or threatened to use military power in pursuit
of foreign policy objectives. Nineteen of those instances
involved a threat to use nuclear weapons. Among them:

e When a U.S. Airforce reconnaissance plane was
shot down by Yugoslavia in 1946, President Truman
threatened the Yugoslavs with atomic reprisals if the
captured crew was not instantly released. Yugoslavia
complied.

e In 1947, Truman sent seven B-29s armed with nuc-
lear bombs to Uruguay, in order’ to demonstrate the
“U.S. commitment to protect the Americas from com-
munist subversion.”’

e Inthe early 1950s the U.S. Airforce prepared a plan
for a pre-emptive strike that would turn the USSR into
“‘a smoking, radiating ruin in two hours’’. During these
years, U.S. strategic doctrine held that any example of
Soviet ‘‘misbehavior’’ around the world could be con-
sidered grounds for ‘‘massive retaliation’? by the U.S.
against the Soviet homeland.

e In 1954 President Eisenhower offered to extricate
French forces from the trap of Dien Bien Phu by drop-
ping tactical nuclear bombs on the surrounding Viet-
namese armies. The French commander-in-chief, Henri
Navarre, declined the offer out of fear of the effect such
weapons might have on his own troops.

e When U.S. Marines invaded Lebanon in 1958, they
brought with them nuclear-tipped ‘‘Honest John’’ mis-
siles to discourage Arab opposition.

e In 1958, Eisenhower threatened China with nuclear
holocaust over the Taiwan issue.

The list continues, including such well-known
episodes as the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962; U.S. plans
to use tactical nuclear weapons in Korea to relieve the
seige of Kaesong in 1968; and the nuclear alert during the
1973 Mideast war. More recently, the U.S. has
threatened to use nuclear weapons to keep the Persian
Gulf open, and there is evidence that nuclear weapons
were deployed to support the abortive hostage-rescue in
Iran in 1980.

_ The incidence of nuclear blackmail, however, clearly

declined during the late 1960s and 1970s as the USSR
attained strategic parity, and arms control and detente
began to reduce global tenaions.

Today the Reagan administration appears to have

| abandoned serious arms control efforts and is single-

mindedly driving to regain America’s lost nuclear,

‘U.S. history of nuciear threats

supremacy. A return to nuclear intimidation on a global Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy began the list of U.S. pres-
scale is what we can expect if they are successful. idents who have threatened te use nuclear weapons to
*Joseph C. Goulden: Korea, The Untold Story of the force settlements to intesnational crisis in their interests.
War Times Books, New York, 1983 Armed Forces As A Political Instrument, The as,

**Barry M. Blechman, et al: Force Without War: U.S. Institution, Washington, 1978

PHOTO — NORRSKENS FLAMMAN

Swedish soldiers for peace

Young Swedish
draftees ignore a
prohibition against
dressing in uniform
while taking part in
public demonstrations.
This contingent of

parade through the

Dec. 12, under their
slogan: “Soldiers
Against Nuclear
Weapons”.

UNESGO pullout aimed at
weakening world opposition

The United States’ formal
notice of withdrawal from the
United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organiza-
tion (UNESCO) last week mir-
rored the increased isolation of
the Reagan administration’s ap-
proach to major international is-
sues from that of the majority of
UN members.

In its three-page letter, the U.S.
listed its displeasure with UN-
ESCO’s two-year study on media
reform which examined such
questions as an international code
of ethics and pro-Western control
of the world’s major news
agencies.

Listed as well was U.S. opposi-
tion to a 4% increase in UNESCO
spending as well as where some of
the funds were spent — $750,000
for peace and disarmament initia-
tives, for example. UNESCO’s
recent. two-year budget was
$374.4-million. The United States
pays one-quarter, or approxi-
mately $47-million per year for
UNESCO activities. By contrast,

the U.S. army last week an-
nounced it will spend $423-million
for a new army battle dress
uniform.

The latest move reflects a pat-

tern of growing U.S. resentment |

with the United Nations and
Washington’s frustration at being
unable any longer to control pol-
icy on key issues. Reagan’s UN
ambassador Jeane - Kirkpatrick
put it in a nutshell: ‘‘The countries
which have the votes don’t pay
the bill, and those who pay the bill
don’t have the votes.”
Repeatedly in recent years —
on the Middle East, South Africa,
Central America, Grenada,
Namibia and other key votes, the
U.S. position has been one of al-

‘most complete isolation in UN

sessions.

This was shown graphically last
month as the UN General As-
sembly overwhelmingly adopted
17 anti-nuclear war resolutions
proposed by the socialist coun-
tries. In virtually every vote the
U.S. opposition was snowed
under by massive world opinion.

Washington, for example, cast
the sole dissenting vote against a
motion opposed to extending the
arms race to outer space. The re-
solution passed 147-1 with Britain
abstaining.

The U.S. and Britain also op-
posed a Soviet resolution calling
for conclusion of an international
test ban treaty. The resolution
passed with 119 yea votes.

Other votes: Three separate re-
solutions on a nuclear freeze pas-
sed 108-18, 124-13 and 124-15. A
USSR-sponsored- resolution to
condemn nuclear war passed
95-19 with 30 abstentions.
Another condemning Israel for
refusing to renounce nuclear
weapons passed 99-2 and a UN
call for a nuclear free zone in the
Middle East passed without a
vote. .

Washington’s pullout from
UNESCO, therefore, should be
seen as one salvo in a U.S. effort
to weaken the United Nations at a
time when the world body is op-
posing American policy all down
the line.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 11, 1984 e 9

soldiers headed a peace
streets of Stockholm, -