The New York Times reported on the 22nd that Daniel Ellsberg, a 90-year-old former U.S. Army analyst, disclosed undeclassified 1966 U.S. Army research data, saying that when China shelled Kinmen in 1958 (823 artillery war), the U.S. Army was motivated to attack mainland China with nuclear weapons, and also “accepted “The risk of a Soviet counter-attack that would have killed millions of people shows how dangerous the situation in the Taiwan Strait was and how the U.S. was more determined to defend Taiwan than the outside world had perceived.
Ellsberg had exposed classified DoD research documents on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1971 and quietly made the first classified DoD research documents on the Taiwan Strait crisis public on the Internet in 2017, but did not feel the need to spark more discussion until the U.S. and China confronted each other again over the Taiwan issue.
The document states that after the outbreak of the 823 gun battle in Kinmen, Laurence S. Kutner, commander of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces, argued that once armed conflict broke out across the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. should take the lead in dropping atomic bombs on mainland China, but only on air bases, arguing that this would not cause opposition from war-weary members of the U.S. government. At the same time, U.S. officials at the time did not deny that such a move would most likely lead to a nuclear counterattack by China’s ally, the Soviet Union, but U.S. military officials would rather do so than risk losing Kinmen.
Nathan Twining, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said that if an attack on a Chinese air base failed to deter Chinese military action, the U.S. would have to increase its nuclear attack options, including Shanghai in the far north. He admitted that doing so would inevitably make Taiwan, and even Okinawa, the target of a nuclear attack, but if U.S. national policy is to defend the outlying islands, it must accept the consequences.
Then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles also told the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time that the fall of the outlying islands would mean a further step for the Chinese Communist Party.
Ultimately, then President Eisenhower rejected the generals’ recommendations and decided to use conventional weapons first. However, since the U.S. government at the time no longer wanted to fight a traditional war like the Korean War, U.S. officials were unanimous in their belief that unless the Communist Party stopped its efforts to seize Kinmen, the U.S. military would next resort to nuclear countermeasures.
Odd Arne Westad, a Yale historian who specializes in the Cold War and China, argues that the classified information is not only historically valuable but also significant to the current situation, showing that in 1958, “the United States was closer to using nuclear weapons than I had previously believed” and that the overall decision-making mechanism was “more complex than it had been before. The document shows that in 1958, “the United States was closer to using nuclear weapons than I had previously believed,” and that throughout the decision-making mechanism, “there were more explanations attached to it than originally thought by outsiders.
In addition, the document notes that even back then, the United States still had many hesitations about whether it could successfully defend Taiwan with conventional weapons alone. Therefore, Wen Anli does not shy away from saying that as China’s conventional military power grows significantly and also possesses nuclear weapons, if China now intends to invade Taiwan, U.S. policymakers will be under enormous pressure when thinking about ways to deploy nuclear weapons.
Harvard historian Michael Szonyi also affirmed the document’s reference value, describing how the slightest movement across the Taiwan Strait could make the situation worse, and that officials of the current dynasty would inevitably have the same doubts as officials back then.
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