US considered roping in India to abort China's N-plan

US considered roping in India to abort China's N-plan
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

WASHINGTON, JANUARY 14: The Kennedy administration actively considered incapacitating China's emerging nuclear programme by bombing it or using commandos and renegades. It also looked at the possibility of stationing nuclear missiles in India, Japan and Taiwan, and also assisting India's nuclear programme in an effort to counter Beijing.

These startling facts are now coming to light with the gradual declassification of documents from the Kennedy era and their scrutiny by scholars in various strategic affairs journals.

In the latest study titled ``Whether to Strangle the Baby in the Cradle: The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960-64,'' published in a Harvard University journal, International Security, two American scholars detail the option weighed by the Kennedy administration to cap China's nascent nuclear programme.

According to the documents cited by the scholars, China's rapid progress towards the making of the bomb began to worry Pentagon officials as early as February 1961. Air Force planners said a CIA estimate that China could have the bomb as early as 1963 was too conservative -- and predicted bomb testing as earlier as that year.

In April of that year, the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared a document examining all available options -- from blockading China and infiltrating and sabotaging the programme, through air attacks on the facilities, backing a Taiwanese invasion of China and undertaking a tactical nuclear attack.

But the options were considered too risky and the administration also decided that direct force was unlikely to wipe out the Chinese nuclear capability. In fact, the conclusion was that that any attacks, covert or overt, would probably spur Chinese aggression. Instead, the administration considered cooperating with the Soviet Union and Britain to contain the Chinese threat through diplomatic activity, for instance, by offering the Chinese economic assistance as a disincentive to developing the nuclear programme.

Stemming from this, Washington also considered arming and assisting India with nuclear weapons. In an account published earlier in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, researchers said that as early as 1961, air force planners advocated a wide-reaching U.S-sponsored military build-up in Asia. The proposal called for stationing offensive missiles in Australia and encouraging Japan, India, Taiwan and possibly other nations ''to arm themselves with U.S offensive nuclear missile systems provided through sales or grants.''

The researchers say a year later a less ambitious proposal made its way to the Secretary of State Dean Rusk. George McGhee, director of the Policy Planning Council, wrote in a memorandum to Rusk that one way to reduce the political impact of a Chinese bomb was to encourage, or even assist India, whose own nuclear effort was ``sufficiently advanced'' that it might test a device first. A non-Communist Asian state might then ``beat Communist China to the punch.''

McGhee's scheme had support, but there was also opposition, and it was narrowed down to the suggestion that White House Science Adviser Jerome Weisner should explore the nuclear issue with India during an upcoming trip to South Asia. Weisner, it was suggested, could meet with the Chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission and ask what effect a Chinese nuclear weapons capability might have on India's nuclear programme, which might then lead India to request assistance.

This less ambitious proposal was approved by Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles (who had been ambassador in India). Rusk, however, vetoed the plan.He was not convinced that ``we should depart from our stated policy that we are opposed to the further extension of nuclear weapons capability.''

The idea of using force to knock out China's nuclear facilities did not go away. Walt Rostow, McGhee's successor at Policy Planning, asked staff expert Robert Johnson to study the feasibility of disrupting the Chinese nuclear effort by force. Johnson examined four options -- an overt non-nuclear air attack by the United States, an air attack by Taiwan, covert ground attacks employing agents in China, and an air-drop of a 100-man Chinese Nationalist sabotage team.

Johnson concluded that an unprovoked attack would entail heavy foreign policy costs. Moreover, even if the Chinese successfully tested a nuclear weapon, he believed they were likely to act prudently -- a judgment that was shared by the CIA.

The debate continued to rage within the administration even after the first Chinese test in October 1964. In a paper dated Dec. 14, 1964, George Rathjens, an official of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, argued that Johnson's reports ignored the danger ``that relatively weak powers will be able to inflict very great and totally unacceptable damage on much stronger ones if they acquire nuclear capabilities.''

Rathjens counsels ``further consideration of direct action against Chinese nuclear facilities,'' including a policy of assassinating Chinese nuclear officials. ``For a longer term effect it would be necessary to destroy research facilities and personnel,'' he says. But Lyndon Johnson, who had become President following Kennedy's assassination, opted for the moderate Robert Johnson line.

A little known fact the newly declassified documents have thrown up is that the U.S intelligence agencies used India as a base for spying on China's nuclear facilities. American U-2 planes flew two or three missions out of Charbatia in eastern India in the Spring of 1964 to spy on the Lop Nor nuclear testing range.