Eisenhower Stopped the Push for Nuclear War over Taiwan in 1958

May 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—In following up the explosive publication by Daniel Ellsberg last week, of the classified evidence that leading members of the military, and then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, were pushing President Dwight Eisenhower to use nuclear weapons against China over the 1958 conflict over two Taiwan-controlled islands near the mainland coast, EIR’s Carl Osgood has reported that a 2008 Air Force document, published in their Archive, also noted that Eisenhower had stepped in to stop the madness.

Osgood reports:

“The Air Force initially wanted to use atomic bombs at the outset of a U.S. military intervention but Eisenhower ruled that out, ordering the Air Force and the Navy to prepare for conventional operations instead. Atomic bombs would only be used if the conflict escalated. According to one of those studies, Eisenhower ‘forced U.S. military planners to review their attitude concerning nuclear war.’ Thus, Air Force leaders began to rethink their earlier opposition to limited war as well as to find practical means to support future presidential decisions by supporting development work on high explosive weapons (such work had stopped during the mid-1950s) and by developing overseas stockpiles for fighting non-nuclear war, reported the Archive.”

Ellsberg’s announcement of the leak last week went virtually unreported outside of EIR. The publication of the full story by the New York Times on May 22, however, broke the blackout, as it is now being reported by the major press around the world—except in the U.K.!