Tape details JFK talk on nuking China

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0825kennedy25.html

Glen Johnson
Associated Press
Aug. 25, 2005 12:00 AM

BOSTON - Top advisers to President Kennedy warned him in 1963 that if he pledged to defend India against any attack by China, the United States would likely have to use nuclear weapons to enforce the commitment, according to a newly declassified tape recording.

George Ball, undersecretary of State in the Democratic administration, also warned in what today would be considered insensitive language that a nuclear response could subject the United States to charges of racism following the two atomic bombings of Japan that ended World War II.

"If there is a general appearance of a shift in strategy to the dependence on a nuclear defense against the Chinese in the Far East, we are going to inject into this whole world opinion the old bugaboo of being willing to use nuclear weapons against Asians when we are talking about a different kind of strategy in Europe," Ball told the president during a May 9, 1963, national security meeting in the White House. "This is going to create great problems with the Japanese - with all the yellow people."

A six-page summary of the top-secret meeting was released in 1996, but a tape of the conversation was made available only after it was subjected to a national security review based on updated federal guidelines.


JFK tape debates nuking China

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1759907,00.html

Boston - Senior defence aides warned President John F Kennedy in 1963 that any guarantee to defend India against Chinese attack would require a commitment to use nuclear weapons.

On a declassified tape recording, released on Thursday, the then-defence secretary Robert McNamara and chair of the joint chiefs of staff General Maxwell Taylor urge Kennedy to look beyond India and take a broader view of how to deal with any substantial Chinese aggression.

In particular, they caution that before any substantial commitment is given to India, the United States should recognise that nuclear weapons would have to be used in a defence of the region.

The tape, released by the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, was a recording of a national security council meeting from May 9 1963.

[newscott]

1. They working for * now too?

Love the timing of this information.

I guess we've got cover to nuke Iran now.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. A terribly misleading headline

that suggests nuking China was ever on the table, and by extension provides faulty precedent for Bush to do the same with Iran.

The story describes Kennedy and his advisors cautiously mulling over the consequences of extending a guarantee of defence to India. Cautious mulling - well, they just don't do that anymore.

[sasha031]

3. Kennedy would never have gone for it

It's crap, I would not be surprised if he wasn't approached, they wanted to nuke everybody back then ( military industrial complex) he knew they were mad.

[Just Me]

4. No shit!!!

:wtf:

[bemildred]

5. Defending things with Nukes is an oxymoron.

Turning stuff to rubble and green glass is not defending it.
Nukes are and always have been about revenge.

[Lerkfish]

6. this timing is SUSPECT. why talk about this NOW, unless...

Bushco is wanting to justify nuking Iran?

[bribri16]

7. The proof is in the pudding....JFK did nothing of the kind. n/t

[daleo]

8. It sounds like another case where Kennedy was trying to avoid nuclear war

It seems like they were thinking ahead, to scenarios that could escalate to nuclear warfare and trying to make sure they didn't find themselves painted into such a corner. Kennedy shows good sense here, as usual.