Top Secret Report released! -US planned atomic war on Russia and China

U.S. Had Plans for “Full Nuclear Response” In Event President Killed or Disappeared during an Attack on the United States

Both USSR and China Were To Be Targeted Simultaneously, Even If Attack Were Conventional or Accidental, and Regardless of Who Was Responsible

LBJ Ordered Change in Instructions in 1968 to Permit More Limited Response, Avert “Dangerous” Situation

Newly Declassified Document Expands Limited Public Record on Nuclear Predelegation

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 406

Posted – December 12, 2012

Edited by William Burr

Washington, D.C., December 12, 2012 – As late as 1968, the U.S. government had plans in place to fire an automatic “full nuclear response” against both the Soviet Union and China in the event of the death or disappearance of the President in the course of an attack against the United States, but President Lyndon Johnson changed that policy in October 1968, according to a previously Top Secret document published today for the first time by the National Security Archive. (see Document 5A)

Prior to President Johnson’s decision, instructions for the emergency use of nuclear weapons that both he and his predecessors had previously approved stipulated a full-scale nuclear counter-attack even if the initial strike were conventional, or the result of anaccident, and both Communist giants would be targeted regardless of whether either of them had launched the first strike.

This new information is contained in a record of a meeting between President Johnson and his top national security advisers on 14 October 1968. At the meeting, Johnson’s military and civilian aides unanimously recommended that the standing orders, known by the code-name “Furtherance,” be revised substantially in order to reduce the inherent risks involved. The changes included providing instructions to commanders to respond to a conventional attack with conventional weapons—an implicit “no-first use” nuclear policy. At the session, speaking of the new approach, National Security Advisor Walt Rostow advised Johnson: “We think it is an essential change. This was dangerous.” The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff concurred.

The meeting record, marked “Eyes Only for the President,” was released to the National Security Archive in late November 2012 under a Mandatory Declassification Review appeal to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), nine years after the filing of the original request. The declassified transcript offers important insights into the still-heavily shrouded subject of predelegation of nuclear weapons use. The meeting record is accompanied in today’s posting by several related items that provide contemporary context to the subject matter.

* * * * *

On 14 October 1968, while holding intense meetings on Vietnam War policy, President Lyndon Johnson’s civilian and military advisers temporarily changed the subject when they recommended changes in changes in standing top secret instructions to senior military commanders on the emergency use of nuclear weapons. Since the Eisenhower administration, U.S. presidents had secretly approved instructions to military commanders authorizing or “predelegating” them to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack if the president was killed or otherwise unavailable. The changes in the instructions that President Johnson was considering were designed to prevent what national security adviser Walt W. Rostow called a “dangerous” situation that could inadvertently lead to nuclear weapons use on a catastrophic scale. The next day, Johnson approved the changes that Rostow had deemed “essential.”

Recently declassified by the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) in response to a mandatory review appeal by the National Security Archive, the record of the meeting shows that President Johnson considered recommendations to revise the “predelegation” instructions, codenamed “Furtherance,” by removing a perilous element of inflexibility from them. Instead of a nearly automatic “full” nuclear strike against both China and the Soviet Union in the event of a surprise attack, top commanders could initiate a “limited response” against the appropriate country. That would be all the more necessary in the event of a “small-scale or accidental attack.” Moreover, in the event of a nuclear response to a conventional forces attack “as is now in the plan,” the retaliation would be non-nuclear-a step toward a no-first use policy. With the revised instructions, commanders had explicit direction to avoid a nuclear holocaust.

Continue reading →

December 14, 2012 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Article by Kitagawa Takashi on nuclear realities in Japan -Spotlight on Ichiro Ozawa

“…One more Fukushima, Japan Collapse….”

Article posted by Kitagawa Takashi

December 14, 2012 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment