Policy Planning Staff Files
Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Nitze)
General Loper of the Defense Department1 came to the State Department today at my request to discuss the question of possible U.S. use of atomic bombs to counter Chinese Communist military action in Korea.
If the bomb were used in Korea it would be for tactical purposes against troop concentrations and artillery support positions. Against such targets it should prove effective. However, such targets would probably not come about normally; they would have to be created by tactical maneuvers of U.N. forces. Very few atomic bombs could be used as few targets could be created. In addition to the purely military [Page 1042] effect, use of the bomb for these purposes might prove a deterrent against further Chinese participation. If the bomb were used for tactical purposes, it is unlikely that there would be large destruction of civilian life.
It does not appear that in present circumstances the atomic bomb would be militarily decisive in Korea, and there is a serious possibility that its use might bring the Soviet Union into the war. Furthermore, its use would help arouse the peoples of Asia against us.
If the bomb should be used for strategic purposes through attacks on such Manchurian cities as Mukden, Fushun, Anshan, Harbin and Dairen, this action would result in the destruction of many civilians and would almost certainly bring the Soviet Union into the war.
If we should consider the use of the atomic bomb in the Korean area, we should keep in mind that the military actions there are under U.N. auspices, that its use would have world-wide repercussions, and that there is a question whether we should use it only with U.N. concurrence. Obtaining U.N. concurrence beforehand might keep the moral forces of the world with us in the use of the bomb, whereas a unilateral decision to use it might leave us in a disadvantageous moral position. On the other hand, the publicity attending debate of this question in the United Nations would be of military value to our adversary.
- Brig. Gen. Herbert B. Loper was Assistant for Atomic Energy, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Logistics, U.S. Army.↩