U.S. Agencies Weighed Atomic Attack on China in 1950s Q @[gj:w
Secrets: CIA documents say weapons use could have shown Western determination in Korean War. 5{#s<%b.
October 01, 1993|JIM MANN, TIMES STAFF WRITER I9m9`4BK
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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. I
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"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. eiXl"R^
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This dispassionate analysis of a possible U.S. nuclear attack is contained in a series of files that the CIA made public Thursday. 3V7WIj<
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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. b I`JG:^b
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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. }Q@~_3,UJ
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The CIA was able to predict accurately Soviet behavior in the Middle East during the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. 3hxV`rb
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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. @4MQ021(
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Agency officials also suggested the possibility of a Sino-Soviet split several years before it occurred. A }}dc:$C
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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. 8I Ip,#%v
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But American intelligence also had notable failures, the files show. n`@dk_%yI
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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. Q*M(d\V s
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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."
