“Shocking Revelations: U.S. General Considered Nuclear Strike in Vietnam War – What Changed?”
Wikimedia CommonsArmy General William C. Westmoreland.
The commander planned to move the nuclear weapons so that they could be readily available should the United States and its allies find themselves on the losing end of the battle for the base at Khe Sanh.
The secret operation, code-named “Fracture Jaw,” was approved and orchestrated by General Westmoreland and already in action when Johnson’s national security adviser, Walt W. Rostow, alerted the president via a White House memo.
Feb. 10, 1968, notice by Gen. William C. Westmoreland that operation “Fracture Jaw” be set in motion.
The battle for Khe Sanh would prove to be one of the more ferocious battles in the war’s history. But just two days following Westmoreland’s call for arms, President Lyndon B. Johnson vetoed the plan and ordered to have the nukes turned back around.
“When he learned that the planning had been set in motion, he was extraordinarily upset and forcefully sent word through Rostow, and I think directly to Westmoreland, to shut it down,” the president’s special assistant Tom Johnson said in an interview.
On the same day that General William C. Westmoreland had told the American commander in the Pacific that he approved the operation, White House national security adviser, Walt W. Rostow, warned the president.
He added that the president feared a larger conflict might take place should nuclear weapons become involved.
Johnson had pressured his generals to make sure that a defeat at Khe Sanh was out of the question. But clearly, he didn’t expect for one of his generals to pursue the nuclear route. The president was reportedly furious that such a plan was set in motion when he ordered its complete shutdown.
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