- Operation Giant Lance
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Main article: Cold War
Operation Giant Lance was a secret military operation by the United States that threatened a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union during the Cold War.[1] On October 10, 1969, U.S. President Richard Nixon under the advisement of Henry Kissinger ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race toward the Soviet Union in order to convince the Soviets that Nixon was willing to resort to nuclear war in order to win the Vietnam War. Nixon suddenly cancelled the operation on October 30. Details of the plan remained unknown to the public until Freedom of Information Act requests in the 2000s revealed documents about the operation.[2]
See also
Notes
- ^ http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-03/ff_nuclearwar
- ^ http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB81/
External links
- Australian ABC Radio's "Torn Curtain: The Secret History of the Cold War": Episode 3: The Vietnam War and Richard Nixon's Secret Nuclear Alert
Categories:- Vietnam during the Nixon Administration
- Nuclear history of the United States
- Military operations of the Vietnam War
- Soviet Union–United States relations
- 1969 in the United States
- 1969 in the Soviet Union
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