Re: 43 U.S. Troops Have Died in Afghanistan Since Gen. McChrystal Called for Reinforc
So Truman should have let MacArthur drop A-bombs on China in the 1950's?
Seemed as if Truman was considering using them himself...nice try though-
US threat of atomic warfare
In The Origins of the Korean War (1981, 1990),
US historian Bruce Cumings reports that in a 30 November 1950 press conference, President Truman's allusions to attacking the KPA with atomic bombs “was a threat based on contingency planning to use the bomb, rather than the faux pas so many assumed it to be.” The President sought to dismiss Gen. MacArthur from theater command because his insubordination demonstrated his political unreliability: A US Army officer who might disobey his civilian Commander in Chief about using or not using atomic bombs.
Also on 30 November 1950, the USAF Strategic Air Command was ordered to “augment its capacities, and that this should include atomic capabilities.” In 1951, the US escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea, because the PRC had deployed new armies to the Sino-Korean frontier, thus, at the Kadena USAF Base, Okinawa, pit crews assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, “lacking only the essential nuclear cores.”
On 5 April 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic-bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there.
The President ordered transferred nine Mark-IV nuclear capsules “to the Air Force’s Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ...
[and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets”—which he never transmitted, having out-witted the JCS to agreeing to sack the insubordinate Soldier MacArthur (announced 10 April 1950), and because neither the PRC nor USSR likewise escalated the war.[44][verification needed]
Moreover (and contradictorily),
President Truman also remarked that his government were actively considering using the atomic bomb to end the war in Korea (implying that Gen. MacArthur would control it), but that only he—the US President—commanded atomic bomb use, and that he had not given authorization. For the matter of atomic warfare was solely a US decision, not the collective decision of the UN—hence his 4 December 1950 meeting with UK PM Clement Attlee (and Commonwealth spokesman), French Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about Korean atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion.
The Indian Ambassador, Panikkar, reports, "that Truman announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat ... The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid Korea to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities
