USSR planned nuclear attack on China in 1969

The Telegraph ^ | 5/13/2010 | Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Peter Foster in Beijing

[bruinbirdman]

The Soviet Union was on the brink of launching a nuclear attack against China in 1969 and only backed down after the US told Moscow such a move would start World War Three, according to a Chinese historian.

The extraordinary assertion, made in a publication sanctioned by China's ruling Communist Party, suggests that the world came perilously close to nuclear war just seven years after the Cuban missile crisis.

Richard Nixon in Moscow with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1974

Liu Chenshan, the author of a series of articles that chronicle the five times China has faced a nuclear threat since 1949, wrote that the most serious threat came in 1969 at the height of a bitter border dispute between Moscow and Beijing that left more than one thousand people dead on both sides.

He said Soviet diplomats warned Washington of Moscow's plans "to wipe out the Chinese threat and get rid of this modern adventurer," with a nuclear strike, asking the US to remain neutral.

But, he says, Washington told Moscow the United States would not stand idly by but launch its own nuclear attack against the Soviet Union if it attacked China, loosing nuclear missiles at 130 Soviet cities. The threat worked, he added, and made Moscow think twice, while forcing the two countries to regulate their border dispute at the negotiating table.

He quotes Soviet ministers and diplomats at the time to bolster his claim.

On 15 October 1969, he quotes Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin as telling Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev that Washington has drawn up "detailed plans" for a nuclear war against the USSR if it attacked China.

"[The United States] has clearly indicated that China's interests are closely related to theirs and they have mapped out detailed plans for nuclear

[JRandomFreeper]

Only Nixon could go to China.

/johnny

[Tribune7]

China probably owes us more than any other nation. We kept it from being divvied up by Europeans in the 19th century, we saved it from the Japanese and we kept them from being nuked by the Soviets.

[Mr. K]

No Wonder they let Nixon into China...

They must have known about this

[James C. Bennett]

[Spok]

Remember when the president was a man? I wonder how things would turn out today.

[Navy Patriot]

I call BS, too many places this does not fit.

[Deaf Smith]

Wasn't a Tactical Nuke used in '69? Or was that 1970?

It has been mentioned in several threads over the years.

[buccaneer81]

Just Google “Yalu River.”

[Skooz]

I referred to this incident in a post years ago and was attacked by some know it all freeper as an an idiot.

Wish I could remember his name. I’d ping the guy, I tell ya’.

[delapaz]

We should have let MacArthur have his way with them. He wanted to launch an invasion of China directly with National Chinese out of Taiwan.

Which might have been a bluff, but I bet it would have gotten the ChiCom's to back down out of Korea at the very least.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks bruinbirdman. This story came out via a different source, sometime around 1980, possibly shortly after Breschnev kicked off. He invited Nixon to participate in a preemptive nuclear strike on China, to eliminate the threat of a nuke-equipped power which wasn't part of the Test Ban Treaty or Non-Proliferation. Nixon declined the offer, and was chilled when the Soviet leader suggested the USSR was going to go ahead and do it anyway. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[buccaneer81]

We should have let MacArthur have his way with them.

Absolutely. And Curtis LeMay should have been allowed to knock off North Vietnam. Real Americans don't fight wars based on re-election polls.

[edpc]

In all likelihood, had MacArthur had his way, we wouldn't have had a Soviet bloc Eastern Europe, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Chinese entanglement in the US economy, and a troublesome North Korea right now.

Ah, what could have been......

[bruinbirdman]

"This story came out via a different source, sometime around 1980,"

Did that story have a ChiCom confirmation?

yitbos

[bunkerhill7]

USSR planned nuclear attack on China in 1969 but shelved the idea because Ping Ping was still in the Moscow Zoo

[buccaneer81]

If we could only go back and change it all...

[buccaneer81]

Only Nixon could go to China.

Vulcan philosophy.

[JRandomFreeper]

Actually, it was one of the newsweeklies back in the '70s. You know, back before they were all socialist mouthpieces.

/johnny

[buccaneer81]

LOL! Now we know what the screenplay writers were reading ;-)