Beating Plowshares Into Swords: An Alternate History of the Vietnam War (7 page)

Originally the Neutron bomb was designed to be a tactical nuclear weapon, officially labeled an “enhanced radiation weapon” for use on small scale battlefields. A warhead is mounted on a missile or artillery shell, that when detonated, releases up to 8,000 rads of lethal radiation, enough to instantly kill anyone within a 1/2 mile radius of ground zero. Anyone within a mile radius will die anywhere from a day to a month later. Even though it releases deadly radiation, the Neutron bomb has only 10% of the blast of a thermonuclear weapon. After 24 hours the radiation would dissipate and allow the area to be occupied. A prototype was built and tested in the desert north of Las Vegas in the summer of 1963 and when we began the buildup in Southeast Asia in the summer of ‘65, it was rushed into production for use in Europe in case the Warsaw Pact decided to take advantage of America’s mounting foreign commitments and send its tanks into West Germany. The existence of such a weapon was not acknowledged to the public, but we made sure that the Soviets knew we had it, just in case they got any ideas.

The Neutron was originally not considered applicable to environments like the jungles of Vietnam, but as the war progressed, more than one expert in the Pentagon suggested that it could be used on specific military targets in the North, for as much as a terror weapon as for its strategic value. By the spring of 1967, without any one source pushing it, the Neutron Option had emerged as the chief alternative to any further escalation in Southeast Asia. Yet even at this late date, nobody in either the military or civilian branches wanted to take the onus on themselves for going nuclear or all that it would entail. Then came the March on the Pentagon the third week of April.

It had been the stated purpose of these protesters to shut down the operations of the Defense Department, so at the Secretary’s direction, everyone was expected to be at work that day; many of us had come in the night before and had napped on hastily procured cots in our offices. Our victory would be the fact that we carried on as usual and conducted business despite the fact that there were a half a million screaming fanatics outside, blocking every exit. It was shocking that we had descended to this level of mob rule in America so quickly. There were assurances that there was adequate backup in case things turned ugly, which of course it did, but not before there occurred an incident that was completely overlooked at the time, but one which I believe had enormous consequences for the course of the war.

Despite the presence of the protesters outside, we were determined to conduct business as normal on the inside. Secretary Nixon refused to even acknowledge their presence even though Mr. Haldeman would whisper into his ear an update on the situation every half hour. In some ways it seemed ridiculous since we could easily hear their obscene chants through the closed windows. Sometime after lunch I was in the Secretary’s second floor office reviewing aerial reconnaissance photos of bombing sights. The mob was just below the window and even though the blinds were drawn, we were certainly aware of the rabble’s close proximity only a few feet below us. We were discussing the wording in the report with an Assistant Secretary when some kind of projectile exploded against the window glass. In an instant I had pulled the Secretary to the floor, where, along with everyone else in that room, we hugged the carpet with the roar of the crowd outside filling the air, certain that some gunman outside had us in their crosshairs; although it was determined later in the day that it was something vile like a bottle filled with urine. Aides quickly ushered us to safety and the Secretary seemed to be only momentarily flustered, but he made sure that not a word about the incident leaked to the newspapers.

The nearest analogy that I can make to this occurrence is when the Confederate shell struck a porch column at Union Headquarters that General Hooker was leaning against during the battle of Chancellorsville. Yet instead of losing his courage, like the stunned Hooker did, Secretary Nixon’s nerve steeled; overnight he became the biggest proponent of using the Neutron bomb in Vietnam. “We are losing control of the situation, more and more we are doing nothing but simply reacting to Hanoi, and now we have fight those spoiled bums right here in America. It’s becoming a two front war and we must regain the initiative right away.” That was how he explained his thinking to me a few days after the “riot.” In less than a week he had put together a proposal for using the Neutrons and took it to the White House, where it was hotly debated in the National Security Council. There was a lot of opposition from some of the civilian advisors, as expected, but we were able to line up the Joint Chiefs behind us. Most of our opponents were in a bad position to start with, since they had originally been opposed to any further widening of the war, and now they were arguing against a plan to end the war quickly and in our favor if we were willing to take the risk.

In the end only the President’s opinion mattered and the Secretary made it plain to him that using the Neutrons was worth setting the dangerous precedent of using tactical nuclear weapons for the first time and risk facing the firestorm of criticism that was sure to follow. Again and again he made it clear to the President that only a swift bold move now would avoid a stalemate that would force us into a negotiated settlement that would be seen as a victory by the Communists. And a triumph by the Communists after all the men that sacrificed their lives in Southeast Asia would mean the end of both men’s political reputations. “Dick, it looks like I’m going have to step in shit no matter which way I go.” The President said after a series of meetings in the Oval Office, “but this is going to raise one hell of a Goddamn stink.”

“Mr. President,” the Secretary replied, “our enemies are trying force us into a corner where we will be forced to accept their terms for ending the war. I propose we knock a hole in the wall and get out of that corner and settle this conflict on our own terms.”

In the end, and with much trepidation, the President accepted the Secretary’s recommendation with some reservations. Twenty-five warheads would be assembled and ready at Edwards Air Force Base in California by May 15, they would then be dispersed and flown to Clark Field in Philippines. From there they would be ferried out to the Task Force attached to the Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea and attached to the proper SSMs, where they’d await the final orders of the President. Humanitarian concerns demanded that we make at least a token effort to reach a cease fire with the North Vietnamese before we used such a devastating weapon, but we knew that it was a waste of time before it was even tried, but the President made a public statement announcing that it was time for the Communists to come to terms or face “dire consequences.” All we got from Hanoi was silence, although we later learned from the surviving members of Ho’s inner circle that there was a sizable minority in the Communist leadership in the spring of ‘67 who believed they were losing too much on the battle field and that it was time open negotiations with us. Unfortunately we were totally in the dark about what was happening in Hanoi and we couldn’t exploit the situation to our advantage.

I flew to Saigon on May 24 to brief Gen. Westmoreland and observe the situation from that vantage point. With no change in the North Vietnamese position, the President authorized the use of the Neutrons the next day. Starting on May 26, and for the following five days, we hit selected military targets in North Vietnam with a series of Neutron warheads mounted on the proper missiles; their targets would be ammunition dumps, supply depots, anti-aircraft batteries, rail terminals, and airfields-anything that would disrupt their ability to wage war and demoralize their will to fight. I saw the first aerial reconnaissance photos of the attack sites and knew the operation had been a complete success. They showed empty buildings surrounded by scores of dead bodies; we had taken them by total surprise.

There was no announcement from the U.S. Government or the Saigon Command concerning the Neutron attacks, a controversial decision in light of later claims that American soldiers were needlessly exposed to radiation in forward areas, but it was done with the intention of not tipping our hand to the enemy. The story did not break until a French reporter, based in Hong Kong, visited one the bombing sites and filed a report that was picked up by the AP on June 3rd. Within days every headline in the country was screaming about Nuclear War in Nam. Resolutions of condemnation were introduced in Congress, the President and Secretary Nixon were denounced as war criminals on every major campus, luckily for us the majority of students had gone home for the summer by then, and only their fellow traveling professors were left to spit poison. Still, on the second Sunday in June, over 100,000 marched in San Francisco protesting “US Nuclear Imperialism,” and there were similar demonstrations in London and Paris. A number of our fair weather friends recalled their Ambassadors. The foreign reaction we watched the most was in Moscow; they made fulsome noises about “nuclear terrorism” and there were reports in TASS of young Communists volunteering to go and fight with their socialist brothers in North Vietnam, but that was about it. Their real reaction wouldn’t come until later in the year.

We took the heat because we were monitoring the situation on the ground in North Vietnam from the first Neutron attack. The last series of Neutron attacks on June 4-6 were directed at targets in the Hanoi-Haiphong area, the most heavily populated section of the country. When the reports began coming in about the roads north of Hanoi being choked with fleeing refugees, desperate to get to safety in China, Secretary Nixon was finally able to say out loud that the war was all but over. The North was swept by a sudden fear of radiation sickness and in the face of this, even the hardest Communist discipline crumbled.

With their nation falling apart internally, the North came crawling to the negotiating table; on June 13, they formally asked the French to mediate and delegations were requested to come to Paris. President Johnson immediately accepted this offer and named his old Washington crony, Clark Clifford, to represent the United States in the these negotiations; on the same day, as a gesture of our good intentions, the President grounded the B-52’s and halted all bombing of North Vietnam. I can state for a fact that Secretary Nixon was opposed to not only the appointment of Clifford, whom everybody in the Pentagon felt was there to represent the President’s political interests over the country’s, but also the bombing halt because it was letting up on the enemy right at the time when we should have been ratcheting up the pressure. The Secretary also felt that we should have pressed for even tougher terms, but the President insisted that Clifford stick to the three basics: an immediate cease-fire, withdrawal of all North Vietnamese forces from the South, and an end to all support for the Viet Cong. Overnight the Secretary’s elation over the success of his gamble with the Neutrons evaporated and was replaced with concern that the President would be so eager for the war to be over that he would sign any agreement. Overshadowing the Peace talks in Paris was the Six Day War in the Mid East and even more ominously, intelligence reports that Army units in southern China had been put on alert.

In the end our fears proved to be premature; on the afternoon of July 6, I was at the White House where I stood in a group that included most of the National Security Council and watched as President Johnson announced to the nation that a cease-fire agreement in Vietnam had been signed in Paris earlier that day and would go into effect at midnight local time on July 8. I must admit to a feeling of great satisfaction when I heard the President say “The struggle for freedom in South Vietnam has been won. All Americans should be proud of our brave boys who beat back the voracious beast of Communist aggression.” After the speech everybody retired to the East Room for an impromptu reception, where the President personally thanked us all for what we had done. He looked more relieved than triumphant; the war had aged him 10 years. The most exultant man in the room was the Secretary, “I showed those sons of bitches” he said to me at one point, “They wanted us to lose, they cheered for the Communists and spit on the flag, they said Nixon was finished. Well who’s finished now?” How right he was.

One thing I have never apologized for was our use of the Neutron Bomb in Vietnam despite all of the criticism it has generated over the years, I believe it was the right and honorable thing to do under the circumstances-it saved the lives of American servicemen and ended the conflict and if anyone wants to disagree, I’ll be glad to give them an argument. I categorically reject the contention that because we set the precedent of using battlefield nuclear weapons, we are therefore responsible for what happened during the Sino-Soviet War two years later.

Two weeks after the cease-fire Mao’s Red Army pushed across North Vietnam’s northern border and within a matter of days had reached Hanoi. The pretext for this move was to restore order and stem the tide of refugees fleeing into China’s southern provinces. The real reason was to settle scores with an ancient enemy and to make sure there would be no Soviet ally on China’s southern flank, Mao and Chou were clearly thinking ahead. The Chinese made a few cynical statements about protecting “their beloved Socialist brothers in Vietnam.” and promptly arrested most of the North Vietnamese leadership and put the country under martial law. I’ve always said that the real winner of the Vietnam War was Red China. It certainly wasn’t the Soviets, because one of their satellites had been brutally defeated by the hated American imperialists and then to add insult to injury, they had been stabbed in the back by their equally hated Communist rival; when the shakeup in the Kremlin came in January of ‘68, nobody should have been surprised when Stalinist hard-liners took over. It was one of the unanticipated consequences of our victory; and let me say, Yuri Andropov made us really long for Khrushchev.

Travis Smith
: As the weeks went by and April became May, a real sense of despair come over us as the fighting drug on with no end in sight. Nobody had to tell us that another great plan by the desk top warriors in Washington had turned to shit and we were paying the price. From all the news we could pick up from the rest of the war, it looked as though the whole thing had degenerated into a bloody stalemate and it made no difference how many kids they drafted and sent over here or how many bombs and napalm they dropped on the North. Call it what they wanted-Battle Fatigue, Shell Shock-we had it and our effectiveness suffered a lot. If your mind has gone numb then you’re not much use to anybody, most of the time our lives depended on how fast we could dive for cover when Charlie opened fire, life or death was a matter of seconds.