USSR planned nuclear attack on China in 1969

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.

Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Peter Foster in Beijing
Published: 6:09PM BST 13 May 2010

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.

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 war against us," Kosygin is said to have told Brezhnev.

That same day he says Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to Washington, told Brezhnev something similar after consultations with US diplomats. "If China suffers a nuclear attack, they (the Americans) will deem it as the start of the third world war," Dobrynin said. "The Americans have betrayed us."

The historian claims that Washington saw the USSR as a greater threat than China and wanted a strong China to counter-balance Soviet power. Then US President Richard Nixon was also apparently fearful of the effect of a nuclear war on 250,000 US troops stationed in the Asia-Pacific region and still smarting from a Soviet refusal five years earlier to stage a joint attack on China's nascent nuclear programme.

The claims are likely to stir debate about a period of modern history that remains mired in controversy.

Mr Liu, the author, admits his version of history is likely to be contested by rival scholars. It is unclear whether he had access to special state archives but the fact that his articles appeared in such an official publication in a country where the media is so tightly controlled is being interpreted by some as a sign that he did have special access.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2513065/posts

Only Nixon could go to China.

/johnny
2 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:32:12 AM by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: bruinbirdman
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.
3 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:33:09 AM by Tribune7 (It is immoral to claim the tea parties to be racist)
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To: JRandomFreeper

No Wonder they let Nixon into China...

They must have known about this

4 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:34:27 AM by Mr. K (This administration IS WEARING OUT MY CAPSLOCK KEY!)
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To: bruinbirdman

5 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:37:20 AM by James C. Bennett
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To: bruinbirdman

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

6 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:38:45 AM by Spok (Free Range Republican)
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To: bruinbirdman

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

7 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:40:59 AM by Navy Patriot (Sarah and the Conservatives will rock your world.)
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To: bruinbirdman
Wasn't a Tactical Nuke used in '69? Or was that 1970?

It has been mentioned in several threads over the years.
8 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:41:13 AM by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, you know chances will be taken that's for sure.)
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To: bruinbirdman

Just Google “Yalu River.”

9 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:45:53 AM by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: bruinbirdman

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’.

10 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:47:40 AM by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
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To: buccaneer81
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.
11 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:50:23 AM by delapaz
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To: bruinbirdman; Fred Nerks; Swordmaker
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·


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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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12 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:52:07 AM by SunkenCiv ("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
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To: delapaz
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.
13 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:57:23 AM by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: buccaneer81
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......
14 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:01:52 AM by edpc (Those Lefties just ain't right)
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To: SunkenCiv
"This story came out via a different source, sometime around 1980,"

Did that story have a ChiCom confirmation?

yitbos
15 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:08:19 AM by bruinbirdman ("Those who control language control minds.")
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To: bruinbirdman

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

16 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:13:44 AM by bunkerhill7
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To: edpc

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

17 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:14:30 AM by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: JRandomFreeper
Only Nixon could go to China.

Vulcan philosophy.
18 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:16:34 AM by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: buccaneer81
Actually, it was one of the newsweeklies back in the '70s. You know, back before they were all socialist mouthpieces.

/johnny
19 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:19:57 AM by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: JRandomFreeper

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

20 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:21:26 AM by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: bruinbirdman

Back when we had men like Richard Nixon as President. I can’t imagine Carter, Clinton or Obama doing that.

21 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:21:39 AM by plain talk
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To: bruinbirdman

A very bad mistake,should have let the Russians nuke them.

22 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:37:35 AM by Cheetahcat (Zero the Wright kind of Racist! We are in a state of War with Democrats)
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To: Navy Patriot
This has been reported before by US sources. The description of this episode by the Chinese is likely intended for their domestic public as part of a more open discussion of nuclear security issues from the Chinese national perspective.

Being widely despised by the Chinese people for corruption and lack of democracy and rule of law, and with economic performance faltering, the communist regime must inevitably emphasize nationalistic themes as a basis of legitimacy. The depiction of foreigners as dangerous and untrustworthy is a long established element of Chinese nationalism.
23 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:45:32 AM by Rockingham
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To: bruinbirdman

It wouldn’t have turned into World War 3. We should have let the USSR do it. China wouldn’t be what it is today and the Soviet Union would have been badly wounded as well.

24 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:50:55 AM by MissesBush (Stay angry--right through November)
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To: bruinbirdman

Is Tricky Dick flashing gang signage at Leonid B?

25 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:51:30 AM by rahbert (Only a poor snake charmer blames his snake..)
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To: ASA Vet; BIGLOOK; LonePalm

Dang, I sure missed some inresting intel, er stuff, after I became a full time civilian.

26 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:01:59 AM by Grampa Dave (ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS DESTROYING AMERICA-LOOK AT WHAT IT DID TO THE WHITE HOUSE!)
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To: bruinbirdman

ping

27 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:07:50 AM by gura (If Allah is so great, why does he need fat sexually confused fanboys to do his dirty work? -iowahawk)
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To: Tribune7
As someone who has lost a job to Chinese outsourcing (I personally trained 3 Chinese engineers to do my job) I have a few words to say about this.

Not to mention the fact that they have literally stolen most of American industry's intellectual property such as the integrated circuit, personal and super computers, and all kinds of RF\communications technology.

Additionally, their (communist) spies have stolen our rocket technology which cost hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars to develop and other military technologies such as the W-80 nuclear warhead, stealth technology, and many others.

Now they say we OWE them almost a TRILLION dollars.

I say we send them a big fat bill and slam the door shut on their prison labor produced goods.
28 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:10:01 AM by just-have-faith-in-God
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To: buccaneer81
There is NO WAY Richard Nixon was by ANY means a Conservative as the lib-tards want us all to think.

Not only did he open trade with communist China, he took the Dollar off the Gold standard.

Now his Grandson (another globalist) thinks that he can slither into our government because of his name?!?!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i64Yhb0y27o-nDRcsgfesrHMR8BwD9FL1ODG0

Don't we have enough problems with the legacy of Kennedy, Clinton, and Bush political thought ingrained in our government?!

I say HELL NO! We are on the brink with all of this global crap!
29 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:10:01 AM by just-have-faith-in-God
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To: Rockingham
I should have been more clear.

I do not dispute the USSR considered and planned a nuclear strike on China, I dispute Nixon threatening a US retaliatory strike.

Your analysis of current Chinese communist motivation is highly likely to be spot on. There is little new in the Chicom political playbook.
30 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:13:40 AM by Navy Patriot (Sarah and the Conservatives will rock your world.)
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To: just-have-faith-in-God

The Nixon name means as much as the Taft name.

31 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:15:00 AM by TypeZoNegative (Pro life & Vegan because I respect all life, Republican because our enemies don't respect ours.)
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To: Grampa Dave

I’m having another of those November Charlie moments.

32 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:20:01 AM by ASA Vet (Natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. De Vattel)
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To: just-have-faith-in-God
There is NO WAY Richard Nixon was by ANY means a Conservative

No kidding. Wage and price controls did it for me.
33 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:32:27 AM by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: 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.

So you let a commander who twice, through gross incompentence, was egregiously surprised, start running U.S. foreign policy?

First, his air force in the Phillipines gets destroyed on the ground TEN HOURS AFTER PEARL HARBOR.

Second, despite numerous warnings and intelligence about Chinese infiltration into North Korea, his forces are completely surprised and in several cases almost surrounded and annihilated when they do attack?

Most overrated general in U.S. military history.

34 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:50:34 AM by Strategerist
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To: just-have-faith-in-God
I say we send them a big fat bill and slam the door shut on their prison labor produced goods.

I'll go for that!
35 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 9:50:12 AM by Tribune7 (It is immoral to claim the tea parties to be racist)
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