Washington: Former US president Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry A Kissinger, had contemplated using nuclear weapons power against North Vietnamese at the peak of the Vietnam War, recently declassified documents revealed.
Eager to end an unpopular war that killed thousands of US troops, Nixon and Kissinger discussed the option of using tactical nuclear weapons as part of preparations for Operation Duck Hook.
The operation was scheduled to be launched against North Vietnam in early November 1969, according to the senior scholar at the National Archives William Burr and Professor Emiretus of History Jeffrey Kimball of the Miami University of Oxford, Ohio.
According to the researchers, a memorandum from Kissinger aides Anthony Lake and Roger Morris to Pentagon military planner Captain Rembrandt Robinson said that the President would need to decide in advance "how far he would be willing to go".
Among the "Important Questions" mentioned in another planning document Kissinger probably forwarded to or discussed with Nixon was this one, "Should we be prepared to use nuclear weapons?"
Although Nixon finally decided against going the Nuclear route in 1969 and abandoned Operation Duck Hook, the issue surfaced in 1972.
The set of top secret documents released by the National Archives last year, according to the two scholars, have brought to the fore several serious and pertinent questions about the planning in the White House and Vietnam.
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