US Considered Nuclear Strike on China in 1958 Over Taiwan, Documents Show
Former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg posted online the classified portion of a top-secret document on the crisis that had been only partially decl
Editorial Staff
US Considered Nuclear Strike on China in 1958 Over Taiwan, Documents Show
US military planners pushed for nuclear strikes on mainland China in 1958 to protect Taiwan from an invasion by Communist forces, classified documents posted online by Daniel Ellsberg of "Pentagon Papers" fame show. US planners also assumed that the Soviet Union would aid China and retaliate with nuclear weapons -- a price they deemed worth paying to protect Taiwan, according to the document, first reported by the New York Times. Former military analyst Ellsberg posted online the classified portion of a top-secret document on the crisis that had been only partially declassified in 1975. Ellsberg, now 90, is famous for his 1971 leak to US media of a top-secret Pentagon study on the Vietnam war known as the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg told the Times that he copied the top-secret Taiwan crisis study in the early 1970s, and is releasing it as tensions mount between the United States and China over Taiwan. Had an invasion taken place, General Nathan Twining, the chairman of the Joint Ch…
