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General Omar Bradley, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the earlier part of the Korean War, stated in his memoirs that the U.S. military was more worried about massive Soviet intervention than Chinese intervention. Of course they turned out to be wrong, as it was the Chinese who intervened in a major way, but judging the intentions of closed societies is a difficult business. MacArthur had assured them that the Chinese would not come in; in his vainglorious arrogance he claimed to understand the "oriental mind", although he knew no oriental languages, which in my view would be a prerequisite to understanding the oriental mind. MacArthur ignored early signs of the Chinese move, just as he had ignored intelligence during World War II which contradicted his pre-formed opinions.
It may be one view, but MacArthur was fired for a number of reasons, not just a dispute over this. Here are some of the things that got him fired:
1. He told President Truman that the war was over in 1950 after we recaptured Seoul and were advancing up the Korean Peninsula. He assured the President that China would not intervene in the conflict and that if they did our air power would stop them cold. In fact, its estimated that as he spoke these words that over 50,000 Chinese troops were in Korea waiting to launch a counter-offensive against American soldiers.
2. After the Chinese did intervene, he sent a telegram to the President demanding extraordinary powers, including the powers to bomb communist China and stated publicly that every moment we waited would be "paid for in American and United Nations blood".
3. He made speeches to groups and issued press releases articulating what was his own foreign policy which were not approved by the President, the Joint Chiefs, or the State Department.
4. He publicly criticized orders not to bomb Communist China. These orders were an attempt by President Truman to limit the scope of the Korean War and prevent it from turning into World War III.
5. His invasion of Inchon was a success and turned the war around. But many commanders who assessed it afterwards stated it was an extremely reckless action by MacArthur that could very easily have failed and cost thousands of American lives.
In short, MacArthur violated the most cardinal rule of all for a military commander and that is that it is the President and civilians who run the military in this country--not the generals. We follow this policy precisely because we don't want to end up like the Roman Empire--a military dictatorship.
And instead, we've ended up like the Soviet Empire: trapped in a quagmire in Afghanistan which our brilliant presidents and other civilians insisted that our military fight -- while simultaneously building a stable democracy using illiterate tribal chieftans and warlords, protecting the poppy fields without which the international price of heroin would soar, and not bringing about any egregious civilian casualties.
MacArthur was nearer right than the Truman apologists dare to admit. He wanted to cut short the hegemony of Chinese communism, while Truman's softness toward the Chinese and Soviets, and his willingness to renege on the promises of the allies to people like Ho Chi Minh, sowed the seeds for the Vietnam war and the rise of the anti-colonial feeling which was engendered by the European imperialists and transferred to the truly stupid American "liberals" who accepted its burden and visited its consequences on us and our succeeding generations.
Like I said in a earlier post...I was in North Korea in 1952 and there is nothing but a lot of hills and small mountains in that part of the country...it would have done NO damage.
Like I said in a earlier post...I was in North Korea in 1952 and there is nothing but a lot of hills and small mountains in that part of the country...it would have done NO damage.
A Hiroshima-sized atomic weapon would have done damage to the hills, mountains, flora and fauna. However, it would have done no consequential damage. (If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?)
Flora and Fauna? ...give me a break. There were very few bushes let alone any trees to speak of. Barren land with NO sign of any bldgs that would/could have been used for war needs .
Would a person pay $100 to have a small weed pulled out of the ground?... I seriously doubt it.
Just think of how hated we would be in the worlds political arena if we deployed a Nuke. Back in the cold war there was the concept of MAD, that gave a sense on safety if you will, that Nuclear war would not begin. With MAD mostly out of the formula we have the safety of international trade and monetary compensation.
If we were to conduct a war on that scale with an under armed nation even our allies would declare us a destructive nation and end there association with the US. Literally we would be hated and outcasts.
A Hiroshima-sized atomic weapon would have done damage to the hills, mountains, flora and fauna. However, it would have done no consequential damage. (If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?)
-- Nighteyes
This then raises the question of whether a nuclear weapon is a deterrent at all. If a war is being fought against an enemy who depends on highly industrialized sources of munitions or weaponry, perhaps a nuke would be marginally more effective at knocking out the central source of supply. But if it's a guerrilla war, fought with hand-held devices carried over mountains on pack animals (as more and more future wars seem like they will be), what is the relevance of a nuclear capability?
We have already used the Hiroshima International Genocide Expo to show what such a weapon can do, and the potential enemy has over the next half-a-century shown us the work-around. The nuclear era may have come and gone. Which of our potential adversaries could today be significantly mitigated by a nuclear attack?
Allow me to apologize up front for not having read this entire topic. With that said, please elaborate -- on WHAT, exactly, could we have dropped an atomic bomb? China? And what would the consequences of that have been?
Talk of using nukes in Korea began almost from the start of the conflict. On June 25, 1950, President Truman asked Air Force Chief of Staff, General Hoyt Vandenberg, if the United States had the capability to destroy Soviet air bases near Korea. Vandenberg replied in the affirmative, though he qualified the statement by saying it could only be done with the use of nuclear bombs. An “Atomic Target Analysis” prepared by the United States Far East Command on September 15, 1950 recommended the dropping of a 40 kiloton bomb on Pyongyang, or more specifically an area about a mile outside the city. This site was chosen because the North Koreans had concentrated a large number of troops and supplies there. General MacArthur made repeated requests starting in July 1950 for 26 to 30 atom bombs to be used against “invasion forces”, “critical concentrations of air power”, and “critical enemy installations and industrial concentrations”. His list of targets included the cities of Antung, Mukden, Peking, Tientsin, Shanghai, and Nanking. MacArthur’s last request came on March 10, 1951 when he asked for nuclear strikes to be launched against Chinese troops amassed at the Korean border and Soviet bombers located at bases in Manchuria. And as mentioned in a previous post, in February 1953, President Eisenhower suggested the use of nukes against the city of Kaesong.
The types of targest chosen are really key to understanding the limitations of using nuclear weapons at that point in time. The United States nuclear arsenal was confined to large, Hiroshima type bombs and the number available was quite small. Since their main role was to deter Soviet aggression, widespread use in the Korean theater was not considered entirely feasible unless they could be used against targets big enough to positively improve the battlefield situation for American forces. In fact, many within the U.S. civilian and military leadership believed that Korea was a Russian inspired distraction designed to force the U.S. to expend it’s limited nuclear weapon stockpiles, thus leaving Western Europe open to Soviet attack. Unless and until enough bombs could be produced that would give the U.S. the ability to use such weapons in Korea and deter Soviet aggression in Europe at the same time, it was deemed imprudent to deploy any nukes unless absolutely necessary.
In January 1951, a group of scientists based at Caltech were asked to undertake a study of the role nuclear weapons could play in the event of a Soviet ground attack in Europe. The scientists of “Project Vista”, as it was called, advocated the deployment of small, “tactical nukes” that would range in size from one to fifty kilotons. They argued that such weapons would be far more effective and efficient on the battlefield as opposed to the current stock of bombs or the hydrogen bomb then under development. While not its intended purpose, the conclusions drawn in the study seemed to many in the military establishment to have practical applications for the situation in Korea. This however, did not end talk of atom bomb use against North Korean or Chinese targets. In September 1951, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered the U.S. Far East Command, with assistance from the Strategic Air Command and Pacific Command, to conduct simulated atomic strikes in Korea. Codenamed “Operation Hudson Harbor”, the simulation took place in October 1951 and consisted of four practice bombing runs flown by Japan based B-29’s which dropped dummy as well as conventional bombs to test the effectiveness of using nuclear weapons in support of ground troop operations. The results of the test clearly demonstrated that use of the currently available nuclear bombs would be largely ineffective in such a role, primarily because “timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare”, basically validating the findings of the “Project Vista” scientists.
By 1953, the U.S. had succeeded in producing what was considered a sufficient number of bombs to effectively deal with the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea all at once. This, in addition to the development of the “W9” nuclear artillery shell and the “Honest John” nuclear capable, battlefield rocket, opened up the very real possibility of there being a “nuclear solution” for the war. However, by the time both weapon systems were successfully tested and battle ready, peace negotiations were fully underway, essentially ending any thoughts of using nukes on the Korean penninsula.
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