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Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War Author(S): Roger Dingman Reviewed Work(S): Source: International Security, Vol Atomic Diplomacy during the Korean War Author(s): Roger Dingman Reviewed work(s): Source: International Security, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Winter, 1988-1989), pp. 50-91 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2538736 . Accessed: 23/05/2012 23:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Security. http://www.jstor.org AtOmiCDiplomacy RogerDingman During the Korean War In January1956, Life magazine published an article that purportedlyexplained how the Eisen- hower administrationhad ended the Korean War. Secretaryof State John Foster Dulles revealed that he had conveyed an "unmistakablewarning" to Beijing that the United States would use nuclear weapons against China if rapid progress toward a negotiated settlementwas not made. He asserted that it was "a prettyfair inference" that this nuclear threat had worked. Dulles made this claim in defense of the notion that nuclear weapons were useful, indeed essential, tools of statecraft:When nuclear capability was combined with communicationof intentto use it if necessary, deterrence- and even compellence-worked.1 Dulles spoke in response to partisan criticsat the beginningof an election year, but his words influencedpolicy and historylong afterthe 1956 contest ended. They defined the parameters of a debate about the political and diplomatic utility of nuclear weapons generally and the outcome of the Korean War in particular.2However, the secretaryof state's claim was doubly deceptive. It focused analysts' attentionon the six months of Republican conflictmanagement, to the neglect of the preceding two and one-halfyears of Democraticstewardship. Moreover,Dulles's claim prompteda debate over This essay was prepared for a conferenceon the study of nuclear weapons held at Columbia Universitywith the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. I am especially indebted to Roger M. Anders, Dennis Bilger, William H. Cunliffe,David Haight, BrigadierGeneral JohnW. Huston, USAFR, and Edward Reese forarchival guidance; to Robert Jervis,Franklin D. Mitchell, and colleagues at the School of Modern Asian Studies, Griffith University,Brisbane, Australia, for comments on earlier draftportions of the manuscript;and to the U.S. Naval War College and the Departmentof History,University of SouthernCalifornia, for financingmy travels to necessary archives. I alone bear responsibilityfor the arguments advanced herein. RogerDingman is AssociateProfessor of Historyat the Universityof SouthernCalifornia. He has also servedas Professorof Strategy at the U.S. Naval War Collegeand is DistinguishedVisiting Professor of Historyat the U.S. Air ForceAcademy for 1988-89. 1. JamesShepley, "How Dulles Averted War," Life,January 16, 1956, pp. 70-72ff. 2. Edward C. Keefer, "President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the End of the Korean War," DiplomaticHistory, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Summer 1986), pp. 267-268, summarizes the historiographical debate triggeredby Dulles's claim. A recentrestatement of Dulles's argument,based primarily upon published sources, is Daniel Calingaert, "Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War," Journal ofStrategic Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 177-202. InternationalSecurity, Winter 1988/89 (Vol. 43,No. 3) ? 1988 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology. 50 AtomicDiplomacy | 51 the effectsof Washington's atomic diplomacy that deflectedattention from its substance and character.The resultwas to reinforcean essentiallypartisan interpretationof what occurredand to leave unconsidered more fundamental questions as to how, when, and why the United States tried to use nuclear weapons to its advantage in managing a limitedwar. This articleattempts to answer those basic questions. It focuses on Wash- ington's attemptsto derive political and diplomaticrather than tacticalmili- tary advantage from the possession and deployment of nuclear weapons. What follows differsfrom earlier explorations of this subject in three vital respects.First, it reviews the entirewar to demonstratethat atomic diplomacy was an element of American statecraftthroughout the conflictand not just in its concluding months. Secondly, the story rests upon a deeper and broader documentaryfoundation than earliertreatments of this subject. The availabilityof previously top-secretdocuments fromthe papers of key indi- viduals, the several armed services, the State and Defense Departments,the National Security Council (NSC), and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) permits a more detailed analysis of Washington's attempts to use nuclear weapons as tools of conflictmanagement.3 Finally, the examination goes beyond words to deeds. By tracingmilitary and diplomatic actions as well as parsing political intentions,the narrativethat follows seeks to provide freshinsight into the historyof United States Korean War policies and the evolution of American thinkingabout the utilityof nuclear weapons. Attitudesand Assumptions American statesman and militaryprofessionals brought three basic assump- tions about nuclear weapons to the task of conflictmanagement during the Korean War. They believed thatthe United States enjoyed clear,but qualified nuclear superiorityover the Soviet Union. They assumed that such superi- orityought, somehow, to be usable. They also thoughtthat the combination 3. Two sortsof previouslyunavailable archivalmaterials proved most useful in the development of thisessay. The papers of senior U.S. Air Force and AtomicEnergy Commission (AEC) officials, most notablythose of General Curtis E. LeMay, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, and AEC Chair- man Gordon A. Dean, include not only individual diaries but also officialpapers unavailable elsewhere. Many of the personal daily schedules of ranking officials-most notably those of Dean G. Acheson, Omar N. Bradley,J. Lawton Collins, Louis A. Johnson,and Hoyt S. Van- denberg-contain notations of visitorsand telephone conversations.When used in conjunction with departmentaldocuments, these materialsfacilitated detailed reconstructionof patternsof decision and action. InternationalSecurity 13:3 j 52 of restraintand resolve in atomic diplomacy during the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49 had worked and could prove effectivein futurecrises. Because these three ideas profoundly influenced the decisions of both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations,they deserve furtherexplication. In June 1950, Washingtonhad a clear but qualified nuclear advantage over Moscow. America had nearly three hundred atomic bombs in its stockpile, and more than two hundred sixtyaircraft capable of puttingthem on Soviet targets.4The Soviet Union had exploded its firstnuclear device only ten months earlier and could strikethe United States only by one-way bomber missions or by smuggling nuclear weapons into American harbors aboard merchantvessels.5 While both powers dramaticallyincreased their nuclear stockpilesand improved theirdelivery systems during the Korean War, this balance favoringthe United States did not change fundamentallybetween 1950 and 1953.6 But American decision-makersrecognized that their nuclear superiority was qualified in two respects. First, despite flaws in enemy delivery capa- bilities, the grim truth was that Moscow's ability to strike the American heartland was growing.7 Secondly, Washington acknowledged real limita- tions in America's abilityto put nuclear weapons on enemy targets.Although 4. David Alan Rosenberg, "U.S. Nuclear Stockpile 1945 to 1950," Bulletinof the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 38, No. 5 (May 1982), p. 26. 5. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Intelligence memorandum 323-SRC, August 25, 1950, intelligencefile, president's secretary'sfile (PSF), Box 250, Harry S Truman papers, Truman Library,Independence, Missouri (hereafter"Truman papers, HSTL"). 6. Executive Secretary,National SecurityCouncil (NSC), to Chairman, AEC, December 6, 1950, NSC atomic weapons file, PSF, Box 202, Truman papers, HSTL; Briefing:Air Estimate of the Situation,1951-1954, U.S. Air Force Commanders' Conference,October 30, 1951, item 168.7026- 9, Charles Cabell papers, Simpson HistoricalResearch Center,Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama (hereafter"Cabell papers"). The briefingdocument puts Soviet nuclear strengthat less than half the estimatedAmerican stockpileas of January1951. New YorkTimes, October 2, 1951; Officeof the Historian, StrategicAir Command (SAC), Developmentof StrategicAir Command,1946-1976 (Omaha: U.S. Air Force SAC, 1976), pp. 20, 27, 33, 35, 38; Secretaryof Defense to Executive Secretary,NSC, June8, 1953, Officeof Special Assistantfor National SecurityAffairs (OSANSA), NSC subject file,atomic energy series, Box 1, Dwight D. Eisenhower papers, Dwight D. Eisen- hower Library,Abilene, Kansas; Office of the Historian, StrategicAir Command, Status of StrategicAir Command, January-June1953, Volume 1, frame 0481, reel K4263, Office of Air Force History,Bolling Air Force Base, Maryland. 7. President Truman publicly acknowledged American vulnerabilityto Soviet attack in April 1951; Public Papers
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