The United States has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. It has the largest number of nuclear weapons deployed outside of its own borders. It is also the only country to drop nuclear bombs on civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945. All of this is well known.
It is less widely known that then-president Dwight Eisenhower authorized the use of nuclear weapons on North Korea
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During the Korean War, the U.S.-led U.N. force dropped more bombs than were dropped in Europe during World War II. More than three million people were killed and all major cities and most villages were destroyed. No building or structure taller than one story was left standing.
Still, the North Korean military, led by the communist Korean Workers Party, and aided by China and the Soviet Union, refused to back down. After 28 months of military stalemate, Washington remained unable to take control of the entire Korean peninsula as they desired.
On May 19, 1953, general Omar Bradley wrote to Eisenhower: “It is the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the necessary air, naval, and ground operations, including the extensive strategic and tactical use of atomic bombs, be undertaken, so as to obtain maximum surprise and maximum impact on the enemy, both militarily and psychologically.”
This was actually the second time the use of nuclear weapons on North Korea had been proposed. The first was in 1950. But at that time, the Pentagon was concerned about reducing its stockpile of nuclear weapons in Europe.
By 1953, its nuclear stockpile had expanded. No longer did the U.S. imperialists have any reservations about dropping nuclear weapons for the third time in Asia.
U.S. and North Korea still at war
At a meeting of the National Security Council on May 20, Eisenhower approved the plan and personally participated in the selection of targets. But the nuclear weapons were never dropped because of the cease-fire agreement established two months later on July 27, 1953.
Although this serious escalation of the war was not carried out, the United States never ended its war against North Korea. Only an armistice agreement exists between the two countries to this day. A peace treaty has never been signed. Legally, the U.S. and North Korea are still at war.
It is of the utmost importance that progressive people everywhere learn this history. The United States is responsible for the real nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula, throughout Asia and internationally.
North Korea has never threatened any other country with the use of nuclear weapons, let alone approved a nuclear strike.
In its Oct. 9 article on the nuclear test, the Korean Central News Agency describes the purpose of the test as “contribut[ing] to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it.”
North Korea is a formerly colonized country facing an ongoing war and escalating threats by the biggest imperialist power in the world. It has an absolute right to develop the same weaponry already possessed by the imperialists and to defend its sovereignty and its people.
Source: Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, “To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s
Secret War Plans,” South End Press, 1986.
