CHAPTER 3

JFK and LBJ Confront China’s Nuclear Program

Prior to his untimely death, President John F. Kennedy seriously considered and planned for a military attack; yet almost immediately after Kennedy’s assassination, President Johnson saw no need for military action. Through archival evidence, this chapter demonstrates that Kennedy and Johnson had significantly different approaches to the Chinese nuclear program; their divergent beliefs led to divergent behaviors. Whereas Kennedy was distressed about the dangers from nuclear proliferation—and specifically frightened by the threat of a nuclear “Red Chinese menace”—Johnson was far less concerned about the Chinese nuclear danger. Instead, he thought that a direct nuclear attack on the US homeland was unlikely and that the Chinese were deterrable even with nuclear weapons. Indeed, the explanation for US counterproliferation decision making vis-à-vis the Chinese nuclear program, and specifically the decision to abstain from preventive military force as a counterproliferation strategy, rests with the change in leadership from Kennedy to Johnson.

Methodological Note

The China case provides an important methodological test for my argument. As the introduction explains, the research design employed requires selecting cases where at least two consecutive administrations confronted the same adversary, limiting the time frame in which the adversary could advance a nuclear program. The study of the Chinese nuclear program is particularly significant in this regard. Unlike most eras in US politics, where the transition from one administration is institutionalized and protracted—due to Kennedy’s assassination, the unexpected transition from Presidents Kennedy to Johnson occurred overnight.¹ Thus, both the US position in the international system and the state of the Chinese nuclear program were unlikely to have changed between the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It is therefore safe to conclude that any change from Kennedy’s to Johnson’s threat perception is likely to originate with the man himself. In addition, an elected president could be selected by characteristics that would make him more or less likely to take significant risks, such as a nonproliferation attack. The fact that Johnson was not elected through the course of normal domestic political processes allows me to conclude that it is Johnson himself, and not implicit voter preferences, that had causal effect.²

The two men hailed from the same party and worked initially in the same administration, whose structure and personnel Johnson inherited. Especially poignant is Johnson’s deliberate focus on maintaining continuity in the aftermath of the assassination. He initially retained all of Kennedy’s cabinet to serve in his new administration, which makes LBJ’s divergent behavior especially remarkable and analytically identifiable. Because the cabinet remained consistent, we can rule out a bureaucratic political explanation for the change in strategy over time. Though LBJ was a generation older, both men served in Congress and were socialized into the same American system. Moreover, the assassination functions as an exogenous shock, allowing for a strong comparison of events both prior to and in its aftermath, yielding a more robust demonstration of causality.

However, evidentiary challenges are presented by Kennedy’s untimely death. Unlike many US presidents who have left a considerable paper trail following their time in office, Kennedy could not offer interviews, memoirs, or an autobiography. Nevertheless, there is still abundant evidence from which research can be conducted and conclusions drawn. Significantly, much of the material comes from Kennedy’s prepresidential period, the period in which I code nuclear beliefs. First, Kennedy wrote multiple books and articles prior to his term in the White House, leaving behind evidence of some of his early thinking. Second, though his total political career was short, he did spend eight years in Congress, so there is a congressional record on which to draw. Finally, given the public fascination with and scrutiny of Camelot and Kennedy in particular, countless biographies and articles provide a rich secondary source environment in which to find germane evidence.

There are also evidentiary challenges related to Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was notorious for not taking notes in meetings or generally writing much down. Thus, relative to other politicians, there is a dearth of information available for analysis. He was also excluded from Kennedy administration discussions of foreign policy, leaving little relevant information from his vice-presidential period. Taken together, and especially relative to Kennedy, who left behind an extensive historical record, there is more limited information available for analyzing Johnson’s beliefs. This scarcity is unsurprising, however, in light of my argument for LBJ’s relative lack of concern for nuclear matters in the first place. The scarcity is further understandable because the relevant time period of the Johnson administration—from LBJ’s assumption of presidential office to the Chinese nuclear test—spanned less than eleven months. Nevertheless, for both Kennedy and Johnson, as well as the other presidents treated in this book, I bring absent, incomplete, or contradictory evidence to the reader’s attention.

The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. First, I present the alternative explanations and their expectations for the China case. Second, I briefly discuss the history of the Chinese nuclear program and early US reactions to it. Next, I explore Kennedy’s key beliefs concerning nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and threats in the international arena and his threat assessment of the Chinese Communists. Subsequent sections describe Johnson’s beliefs on the same issues, focusing on his divergent approaches to them during his early political career. I then compare and contrast Kennedy and Johnson’s beliefs and connect them to their divergent policy preferences.

Alternative Explanations

The first competing explanation for US behavior vis-à-vis the Chinese nuclear program derives from structural theories that focus on the power distribution between states. When one power observes a potential challenger augmenting its capabilities via attempted nuclear acquisition, these theories would expect a preventive attack to occur. That the United States did not attack China’s nuclear program in development immediately calls such expectations into question. More specified structural models allow for the possibility that the difficulty of conducting the preventive operation might stymie an otherwise expected attack. Indeed, both Debs and Monteiro as well as Goldstein might argue that the United States was inclined to attack the Chinese nuclear program, but ultimately opted against it given the difficulty and cost of such a mission.³ While more precise, these models still fall short in obscuring within-country variation. President Kennedy was inclined to pursue a preventive attack against China despite the costs; President Johnson was not. These realities cannot be accounted for by any structural logic.

Looking within the second image or at the state level for explanation, Kreps and Fuhrmann argue that preventive war as a counterproliferation strategy is more likely when a dyad is characterized by a history of violent conflict, contrasting regime types, and divergent foreign policy goals. Force should be expected in the US-China dyad, which meets most, if not all, of these criteria: the two states fought on opposite sides of the Korean War and engaged in repeated conflicts over the Taiwan Straits; the United States and China are respectively democratic and autocratic; and they have historically held competing international preferences. For example, the United States supported Taiwanese retention of the United Nations Security Council seat despite its loss in the Chinese Civil War. That the United States ultimately did not attack China’s nuclear program in formation calls this logic into question.

Finally, the most compelling competing explanation for US behavior toward China’s nuclear program comes from bureaucratic politics. Although I argue that the president is the “decider-in-chief,” US behavior might have been determined by bureaucratic concerns as individual agencies competed to determine strategy.⁴ Indeed, bureaucratic models would expect significant haggling within the bureaucracy or “pulling and hauling” between agencies and individual actors within the agencies as they compete for resources, prestige, and policy preferences.⁵ The evidence does not demonstrate, however, that anyone acted as a policy entrepreneur, within an administration, Congress, or a relevant agency; nor is there suggestion of the “pulling and hauling” characteristic of political bargaining.⁶

It is also possible that key administration personnel exerted determinative pressure and orchestrated their desired outcome. This explanation might be plausible given the skilled individuals composing the cabinet at that time, including Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, and Dean Rusk. However, because the cabinet remained consistent across the Kennedy and Johnson administrations (at least until well after the China episode), this type of bureaucratic alternative cannot explain the abrupt shift that happened when Johnson took over for Kennedy.⁷

Alternatively, one might expect that the representatives of the Department of Defense (DoD), State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and Joint Chiefs of Staff might have driven the decision making in preventive war decisions such as this. We might expect the defense establishment to advocate force and diplomats to prefer negotiations. Yet there was no consensus position regarding force among all relevant individuals, nor were these views consistent over time. First, as a nuclear pessimist, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was concerned about nuclear proliferation generally and favored further consideration of force against the Chinese program.⁸ In a September 30, 1964, interview he said, “The danger to other nations of the world increases geometrically with the increase in the number of nations possessing those warheads.”⁹ Henry Rowen, of DoD’s International Security Affairs Office, offered a more dire assessment, comparing China’s trajectory with nuclear weapons to that of the Soviets, and argued that the negatives associated with a military mission were tolerable.¹⁰ Specifically, he felt that even if the military option offered only a temporary fix, those few years would be consequential. He also argued that though the Soviets would have to criticize US action publicly, he believed they would privately support the US effort. Finally, Rowen believed that any potential Chinese retaliation would be minimal.¹¹

Conversely, Secretary of State Dean Rusk viewed the threat from Chinese proliferation as small and opposed the use of force unless wider hostilities erupted. He even seemed to favor increased proliferation for its deterrent benefits. Prior to the Chinese test, Rusk argued that the detonation of a first nuclear device did not imply a weapons stockpile and modern delivery systems.¹² Later, a 1965 memo for National Security Advisor Bundy described the widespread view that Rusk and others at State were uncommitted to nonproliferation and even favored selective proliferation in certain cases.¹³ During the Gilpatric Committee meetings,¹⁴ Rusk indicated that he was unwilling to sacrifice much for the nonproliferation agenda, as this “was not the overriding element in US relations with the rest of the world.”¹⁵ Nuclear optimism was not limited to State, however, as Deputy National Security Advisor Walt W. Rostow argued that nuclear weapons bring caution to the international system.¹⁶ Robert Johnson, author of the Department of Policy Planning’s assessment of the available US options, critiqued Rowen’s comparison of the Chinese to the Soviets on the grounds that the Chinese were generally weaker, had an immature program, and were likely to cause only psychological implications, rather than strategic or military. In 1963, however, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research argued for the possibility of greater militancy resulting from the Sino-Soviet split, manifesting in continued Chinese regional expansion and belligerence.¹⁷

In light of these diverse perspectives, it is evident that neither a bureaucratic consensus nor a coalition existed to explain US behavior.¹⁸ Especially because the same individuals populated both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, a bureaucratic consensus or coalition cannot explain Kennedy’s serious consideration of the use of force and Johnson’s lack of consideration. Instead, each president and his personal views drove the decision-making process, with their cabinets reasoning along behind them. Thus, while a bureaucratic political explanation may be especially productive elsewhere, it offers little traction in the preventive nuclear context.

This case also raises a potential electoral explanation given LBJ’s well-documented obsessions with domestic politics. Johnson’s behavior might plausibly be explained not by beliefs, but rather by electoral considerations before the 1964 presidential election. However, an electoral explanation for Johnson’s China policy is weak. First, polling information from the fall of 1964 reveals that the US public feared the Communist Chinese more than the Soviets by almost a three-to-one ratio, suggesting conceivable support for proactive action against the Chinese.¹⁹ Second, Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s Republican presidential opponent, had done significant, self-inflicted damage to his chances at securing the Oval Office by seeming ill-informed, ignorant, and dangerously flippant toward nuclear issues. As one example, Goldwater was repeatedly criticized for inaccurate statements about a lack of presidential control over nuclear weapons, despite briefings by the appropriate governmental agencies.²⁰ Johnson could have demonstrated his comparative mastery of the subject, but chose not to.

Finally, surveying the US intelligence community’s assessment of the development and implications of the Chinese nuclear program could yield an alternative explanation of the China episode.²¹ Specifically, chronologically exploring the relevant intelligence evaluations could reveal the extent to which the president was in good company in his perspective at any given time or, conversely, whether the president’s positions regarding China were at odds with those of the intelligence apparatus. Such an analysis can yield important conclusions regarding the productivity of the leader-centric model. As described later, analysis of the intelligence time line highlights the importance of presidential beliefs in explaining preventive war behavior.

Before the Kennedy administration, US intelligence regarding China’s nuclear developments was mostly speculative. By 1960, the Chinese were believed to have a nuclear program underway, but details were unconfirmed. At the start of Kennedy’s term, in June 1961, General Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported that the Communist Chinese nuclear acquisition would have a “marked impact” psychologically, politically, and especially in terms of propaganda potential in Asia. The military consequences remained somewhat far off, however, given the expectation that a deliverable missile capability would not emerge for three to five years. Thus, Lemnitzer recommended that the US should move to postpone the development, lessen its psychological impact on allies, and work with those allies to augment regional deterrence.²²

Subsequently, in April 1962, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 13-2-62 provided more details, describing how the Chinese began their program in the 1950s with Soviet assistance, which ceased in mid-1960. This external assistance and its cessation suggested a Chinese ability to detonate a weapon in 1963; in reality development of that ability might take many more years.²³

By May 1963, a Bureau of Intelligence and Research report expected that despite an eventual nuclear test, the Chinese would behave cautiously, given their continued relative weakness in the international system.²⁴ This report was followed in July by Special NIE (SNIE) 13-2-63 that highlighted the continued gaps in the intelligence that left vague what specific components of the Chinese nuclear program were operational. The SNIE concluded that a nuclear test would come at the earliest in 1964 and was more likely in 1964 or 1965. Still, an eventual test was expected to improve morale and increase Chinese confidence in the region. It was also anticipated that the Chinese would maintain a limited role for nuclear weapons in warfare, given their superiority with ground troops. While this could change, the estimate noted, no major foreign policy changes were expected, the likelihood of Chinese nuclear initiation was low, and open military aggression would not result.²⁵

Finally, a 1964 policy planning report authored by Robert Johnson echoed previous sentiments regarding the fairly limited implications of a Chinese test and described the use of force as “not justifiable.” This conclusion was amplified with persistent intelligence gaps complicating any intervention. A final SNIE confirmed the existence of the Lop Nur test site and described an expected test sometime after 1964.²⁶ The looming test provoked considerable discussion within the State Department and yielded diverse opinions about the test’s implications across the Johnson government. As one example, Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton lobbied to describe the Chinese nuclear development as an “ever increasing threat to freedom and security.”²⁷

The following conclusions thus emerge. First, the United States government had limited specific understanding of the technical capacity and development level of the Chinese nuclear program from its inception through 1964. Second, government officials held conflicting views of the Chinese nuclear development and first nuclear test during the 1960–64 period. While the majority deemed the consequences of a test minor, there was hardly consensus; over time, divergent perspectives remained. Compared to the general sentiment of the intelligence community, Kennedy seemed more alarmed about the Chinese nuclear development. His consideration of military force did not follow directly from the intelligence reports he received. Similarly, Johnson was perhaps less concerned than some intelligence about the looming Chinese nuclear test. Given that ballistic missile capability was expected by the end of the decade, and the inability of the Chinese to target the US mainland was seemingly important to Johnson’s assessment of the situation, his calm is particularly surprising. Overall, the evidentiary picture from the intelligence assessment demonstrates that there was no single view of the Chinese nuclear program and its consequences and that Kennedy and Johnson’s perspectives were not in lockstep with their respective intelligence community’s position. This finding confirms that changing intelligence was not driving US behavior vis-à-vis China during this period.

Simply observing that neither Kennedy nor Johnson used force against China is insufficient for understanding leaders’ role in considering preventive war: until his untimely death, Kennedy took all available steps to seriously consider and plan for preventive action, discussing missions with both allies and adversaries, activating the bureaucracy, and exploring options. Had he lived, he might very well have ordered an intervention, especially in light of his proactive approach to problems and deep concern with Chinese proliferation. Conversely, Johnson minimally engaged with the Chinese nuclear issue and did not consider force. Because consideration must precede intervention, the role of leaders’ beliefs in shaping consideration is consequential. The leader-centric model’s ability to illuminate the decision process and the vital role of nuclear beliefs therein offers a significant contribution. We turn now to explore this proposition.

The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program

In 1960, US intelligence about China was poor, so what little the Americans knew about the Chinese nuclear program was superficial and outdated.²⁸ Five years earlier, Sherman Kent of the Office of National Estimates at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had prepared the first significant memo on Chinese nuclear assets and concluded that China would almost certainly not develop significant capabilities for weapons production within the next ten years, unless it received substantial external assistance.²⁹ Though his time line would prove accurate, Kent’s assessment was based on what little he knew or believed about China’s scientific and industrial capabilities—their inability to produce uranium ore and inexperience in both theoretical and experimental physics. Furthermore, the United States believed China was unwilling to divert significant resources away from the basic economic and military needs of the country, which at the time were substantial. On nearly every count, Kent’s estimations were wrong. Not only was China pursuing both uranium and plutonium paths to the bomb, but the Chinese were also receiving extensive assistance from the Soviets, had worked diligently to import or learn the requisite scientific expertise, and were willing to take whatever means necessary to fund the nuclear program, regardless of other considerations.

Beyond the nuclear context, in the US dialogue, China had been problematic for some time. When the Communists prevailed in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, their leadership immediately targeted the United States as “public enemy number one” and attempted to erase all memory of more than a century of goodwill and friendly relations between the two peoples.³⁰ In May 1958, a National Security Council paper identified “hostile Soviet and Chinese Communist regimes” as a “basic threat to US Security.”³¹ As Secretary of State Dean Rusk described, because of the formerly close relationship and the benevolent attitude of the United States toward the Chinese people, the country’s reaction to the fall of China in 1949 was that of a jilted lover.³²

In addition to the evident hostility and deterioration of the bilateral relationship, Mao Zedong’s behavior in the nuclear realm offered Kennedy and others further reason for concern. Mao had a bizarre view of nuclear weapons, saying that if they were not banned and were used, the “monsters would be destroyed, and [the] victorious people [the Communists] will rebuild a new civilization thousands of times higher than the capitalist system.”³³ Further demonstrating his unconventional perspective, Mao told Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in late 1954 that in the event of nuclear war, the imperialists would be totally wiped off the face of the earth, but the socialist camp would survive.³⁴

Beyond such peculiar statements, the Chinese Communist foreign policy throughout the 1950s and 1960s was aggressive, revisionist, and belligerent, doing little to assuage US concerns about Chinese intentions. China actively used terrorist tactics to support Communist parties throughout Southeast Asia and mobilize Communists into military force in both Laos and Vietnam, pushed Asian solidarity throughout Indochina, and encouraged civil wars using guerilla tactics.³⁵ The Chinese Communists also emphasized the contours of the Cold War, championed the struggle of East versus West, and directly threatened Japan and offshore islands in a series of Taiwan Straits crises.³⁶ During the eight years of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Peking was a “militant, aggressive power … [sending] men across the northeastern frontier of Burma, attack[ing] India, send[ing] agents into northern Thailand, and of course, send[ing] massive supplies and arms to North Vietnam.… Communist China even broke with the Soviet Union over how militant to be in support of world revolution; the Chinese preached extreme militancy, while the Soviets urged more caution.”³⁷

John F. Kennedy

Many familiar with President John F. Kennedy’s legacy would be unsurprised to hear him described as a proliferation pessimist—someone who viewed nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation as dangerous and destabilizing to the international system. Kennedy extolled a logic that focused on nuclear cascades (proliferation begetting proliferation), nuclear accidents or accidental launches by field commanders, the vulnerabilities of new and small arsenals, and their propensity to be used rather than maintained for deterrent value.³⁸ Early in office, Kennedy predicted that the not-too-distant future would feature an ever-increasing number of nuclear weapon states; this idea drove him to pursue nonproliferation upon entering the White House. Dating from his youth and his congressional career, Kennedy also articulated a belief in the need for a strong US military, one that was ready, flexible, and proactive in meeting challenges wherever they might emerge.³⁹ He developed these views while traveling and studying overseas, during his service in World War II, and in the war’s aftermath as a journalist reporting on the postwar environment. Kennedy was also an anti-Communist, but the specific threat he identified emanated from the internal dynamics of the Communist system itself and the threats that communist ideology posed to his liberal and democratic worldview.⁴⁰ In a perspective similar to his early thinking on the Soviet Union, he saw Communist China as an aggressive, cost-insensitive, and revisionist rising power, interested in dominance both in Asia and across the globe. He feared China’s coming challenge to the United States and US interests, and he viewed its successful effort at nuclear proliferation as the most dangerous potential development of the 1960s. In light of these beliefs, the leader-centric theory anticipates that Kennedy would have been very likely to consider preventive war as a counterproliferation strategy, and the historical record of his tenure as president confirms this expectation.

JFK and International Affairs

From a young age, John F. Kennedy was inquisitive about the world and curious about his surroundings. He had a knack for competition and was prone to flouting the rules and challenging his brothers. Though never a diligent student, young Jack demonstrated a consistent interest in international affairs. His family’s wealth afforded him multiple opportunities to traverse the Atlantic, which sparked a wonder about how European affairs affected America and how Europeans interacted with one another. His curiosity about the world, skepticism about common wisdom, and enthusiasm for world affairs would persist throughout his political career. Likewise, the same competitiveness and inquisitiveness became a zeal for foreign policy and global problems that continued throughout his presidency: as a May 1, 1964, memo from National Security Council staffer Robert W. Komer to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy explained, “JFK was unique in his omnivorous devouring of every scrap on foreign affairs.”⁴¹

Kennedy’s early travels to Europe inspired his senior thesis at Harvard University, in which he offered the first glimpses of the pragmatic approach to international affairs that would characterize his career. Writing on Munich and the reasons behind British appeasement, Kennedy was critical of what he perceived as overly sentimental reasoning about world affairs and people who tried to wish away international dangers. Specifically, Kennedy argued that the underlying explanation for Munich rested with Britain’s complacent attitude to early German rearmament efforts and a pacifist popular sentiment.⁴² He criticized Britain as slow to accept the dangers of Germany’s buildup and as naïve in clinging to the League of Nations, whose powers would turn out to be nonexistent.⁴³ Kennedy concluded that while liberal democracy was the preferred form of government, one of its main perils was its slow ability to change, which when dangers arose could lead to vulnerability. As he argued, in the interwar period the British population was slow to recognize the danger of Nazism and Germany’s violations of the Versailles Treaty, and when the British should have been mobilizing for the coming conflict, they were instead dangerously complacent and postponed preparations until almost too late.

This thesis, later published as a book, provides early evidence for the foreign policy approach that Kennedy carried into politics. In particular, Kennedy was critical of Britain’s lackadaisical attitude with danger looming on the continent; this criticism caused him to adopt the view that preparedness was key to combating mounting international threats wherever they emerged. Later, serving in the Pacific theater for an undersupplied US Navy, he made similar arguments about the consequences of the lack of battlefield preparation.⁴⁴ Finally, in 1945, Kennedy called for vigilance at the first signs of the growing rift between the US and the Soviet Union, while the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries were blind to the storm clouds warning of the advancing Cold War.⁴⁵ He repeated this sentiment as a young congressman, cautioning that if the United States was slow to rearm it would lead to war in Europe.⁴⁶ He thus consistently argued that as threats emerge internationally, one must be ready to challenge them proactively, lest one be caught ill prepared to make the required efforts.

The highly active spirit that characterized Kennedy’s youth emerged as a similar activism in his chosen career of politics after the conclusion of World War II. His go-getter spirit was evident in many of the positions he took as a junior congressman and a US senator. Unlike George Kennan, then US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Kennedy described defeating communism, not containing it. He spoke of the need to expand US efforts as necessary to defeat Communism wherever it appeared.⁴⁷ Later, Senator Kennedy warned of the dangers of resting on one’s laurels instead of meeting trouble head on: “Yet, did we not learn in Indochina, where we delayed action as the result of similar warnings, that we might have served both the French and our own causes infinitely better, had we taken a more firm stand much earlier than we did?”⁴⁸

While campaigning for the presidency, Kennedy was critical of Eisenhower for what Kennedy saw as Eisenhower’s complacency and inaction: “For the last eight years we have faced problem after problem, and the solution to each of them has been to appoint a committee. I think it is time for action. I think it is time we met our problems. It takes more than words, hard or soft, more than tours, more than parades, more than conferences. It takes a stronger America.”⁴⁹ Kennedy further criticized Eisenhower for a reactive approach to the challenges facing the United States: “Reacting instead of acting, they [the Eisenhower Administration] usually found themselves at the mercy of events instead of anticipating the danger and shaping a firm and consistent policy to meet it.”⁵⁰

JFK maintained this commitment to activism as president. Kennedy described programs and goals that reflected his image of Soviet and Chinese strategies and tactics: “The adversaries of freedom … have fired no missile, and their troops are seldom seen. They send arms, agitators, aid technicians and propaganda to every trouble area. But where fighting is required, it is usually done by others, by guerrillas striking at night, by assassins striking alone.” He was prepared to confront these challenges wherever they arose, even if indirect or clandestine.⁵¹ Kennedy’s Secretary of State Dean Rusk described a similar activism that permeated the entire administration: “Many of Kennedy’s staffers and the President himself favored a more activist approach. ‘Vigor’ was the word of the day. The Kennedy administration, all of us, had a bias toward taking action, even when doing nothing might better serve American diplomacy and our national interest.”⁵²

General Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation

As a proliferation pessimist, John F. Kennedy was worried about the dangers of the global spread of nuclear weapons to new states in the international system. He was an alarmist in his approach, particularly attuned to the catastrophic dangers of new nuclear arsenals, concerned about the risks of accidental use or launch, and worried about the cascade of nuclear weapons as newly nuclear states inspired others to proliferate. Though multifaceted, his fear was also simple: in 1962, during his speech to the nation on the Cuban missile crisis, he said, “Nuclear weapons are so destructive, and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to the peace.”⁵³ Though this remark is hardly surprising given the nature of the missile crisis and the need to demonstrate strength to US and international audiences, this is but one of dozens of remarks Kennedy made on the topic from his early career through his time as a congressman, his campaign for president, and his tenure in the Oval Office.

In the very first entry of the diary Kennedy kept while traveling abroad during the summer of 1945, he expressed his belief that “the clash with Russia will be greatly postponed … by the eventual discovery of a weapon so horrible that it will truthfully mean the abolishment of all the nations employing it.”⁵⁴ Though at the time the Manhattan Project was still secret, given the circle of military and political leaders with whom Kennedy associated, it is possible he knew about the weapon under development.⁵⁵ Regardless of what particular knowledge Kennedy may have had in early 1945, his fear of the idea of such a weapon was already evident in these early writings. Later, as a member of Congress, Kennedy was quick to identify the spread and existence of nuclear weapons as among the greatest challenges confronting the world at the time. In 1950, Congressman Kennedy introduced for the record a new Atomic Energy Commission report entitled “The Effects of Atomic Weapons.”⁵⁶ That Kennedy felt compelled to submit this report for the record suggests an early awareness and interest in nuclear issues and a focus on the increasingly destructive nature of nuclear weapons, which the report described in detail. Speaking to a student convocation at the University of California, Los Angeles on November 2, 1959, Kennedy said: “No change in a fast-changing world presents a greater challenge—no problem in a world full of problems calls for greater leadership and vision—than the control of nuclear weapons, the utter destruction which would result in their use in war, and the radioactive pollution of our atmosphere by their continued testing in peacetime.”⁵⁷ In December, Kennedy delivered a major address on nuclear disarmament criticizing the Eisenhower administration for the lack of a concerted effort on this topic and reiterating that the nuclear issue was among the most pressing items on the foreign policy agenda.⁵⁸ Together, these remarks reveal a consistent level of concern with and consciousness of the problems associated with nuclear weapons.⁵⁹

Kennedy’s fears of nuclear weapons were not focused on a particular region or on a specific state’s proliferation. Instead he was opposed to both horizontal (additional state) and vertical (within-state) proliferation and made critical remarks regarding nuclear developments in France, China, and West Germany. Likewise, Kennedy consistently addressed the need to rein in the dangerous arms race between the United States and the USSR.⁶⁰ Thus, Kennedy’s nuclear pessimism was both broad and deep—he was opposed to proliferation among US allies and adversaries alike, and he saw the virtues of pursuing nuclear disarmament among the existing nuclear powers and working diligently to lessen the worst characteristics of the Cold War.⁶¹ As he told David Ormsby-Gore, British ambassador to the United States, during the Cuban missile crisis, “a world in which there are large quantities of nuclear weapons is an impossible world to handle. We really must try to get on with disarmament if we get through this crisis … because this is just too much.”⁶²

Kennedy repeatedly expressed concern about the dangers of a nuclear cascade. In his inaugural address, Kennedy spoke of the two superpowers “rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom.”⁶³ He also demonstrated a particular fear of small arsenals, saying that “only when arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”⁶⁴ In July 1962, the dangers of nuclear proliferation consumed Kennedy as he “reckoned that by 1972, twenty more nations would acquire nukes, with China being the first.”⁶⁵ Later, at a March 21, 1963, press conference regarding the Test Ban Treaty negotiations he said, “I see the possibility in the 1970s of the President of the United States having to face a world in which fifteen or twenty or twenty-five nations may have these weapons.”⁶⁶

Likewise, Kennedy worried about the dangers of accidental launch because of command and control failures or the fog of war—both key elements of the proliferation pessimist narrative. Kennedy was alarmed by irrational individuals armed with nuclear weapons, and he was concerned about nuclear blackmail. Speaking in 1959, Senator Kennedy described these fears inherent to a world with more nuclear weapons and nuclear states: “[The] possibilities of accidental war will be enormously increased—the possibilities of a nuclear holocaust being initiated for irrational reasons by a fanatic or demagogue will be tremendously increased—so will the possibilities of nuclear blackmail by any nation that chooses to use its atomic armaments as a diplomatic tool or threat.”⁶⁷ Shortly after taking office, President Kennedy reviewed North American Treaty Organization (NATO) operational procedures given his concern that accidental use of a nuclear weapon could trigger a world war.⁶⁸ Specifically, he fretted about the command and control rules inherited from the Eisenhower administration and, in particular, the fact that any subordinate commander facing Russian military action could launch nuclear weapons. Both issues added to his worries about inadvertent escalation.⁶⁹ Later, after a June 1961 trip to Europe, Kennedy asked for analysis on the consequences of nuclear war between the superpowers. When he wondered how many Americans would die in an all-out nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, the Pentagon’s estimate stood at seventy million Americans, or half the population at the time. Curious about how many Americans would die if just one enemy missile got through and hit somewhere near a US city, Kennedy was told there would be six hundred thousand causalities. He responded, “That’s the total number of casualties in the Civil War, and we haven’t gotten over that in a hundred years.”⁷⁰ What this evidence demonstrates is that the same issues that concerned Kennedy as a young politician motivated his inquiries and investigations when he became president.

Beyond his public statements, both Kennedy biographers and his contemporaries have documented Kennedy’s nuclear apprehensions. Biographer Robert Dallek describes Kennedy’s general opposition to excessive reliance on nuclear weapons and to international proliferation.⁷¹ Dallek notes that at the beginning of his presidency Kennedy expressed that an all-out nuclear war would be “a truly monstrous event in the US—let alone in world history” and that Kennedy found it inconceivable that anyone could speak casually about nuclear war, which some midcentury military and far-right politicians did.⁷² Kennedy’s head of the State Department’s Policy Planning Council, Walt W. Rostow, recalled that nuclear war was Kennedy’s “greatest nightmare.”⁷³

President Kennedy’s fears of nuclear proliferation and the dangers of nuclear weapons made arms control one of the top three items on his administration’s foreign policy agenda.⁷⁴ Arms control also held deep personal interest.⁷⁵ He had promised as much during the 1960 presidential campaign when he critiqued the Eisenhower administration on this issue: “Disarmament planning is the most glaring omission in the field of national security and world peace of the last eight years.”⁷⁶ Policies toward individual proliferation attempts, bilateral efforts with the USSR, and international control regimes demonstrated Kennedy’s commitment to nonproliferation and disarmament.

Kennedy saw disarmament as more than “an idle dream,” and his accomplishments in the arms control arena during his administration were significant.⁷⁷ During his first year in office, Kennedy created the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, whose mission was “to strengthen the national security of the United States by formulating, advocating, negotiating, implementing and verifying effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament policies, strategies, and agreements.”⁷⁸ Later, he began talks with the Soviets that ultimately produced the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear weapons tests or any other nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. Kennedy was a firm believer that the treaty would significantly slow, if not halt, the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”⁷⁹ Even when treaty negotiations were stalling in early 1963, Kennedy maintained that it was necessary to keep moving, “because personally I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970, unless we are successful, there may be 10 nuclear powers instead of 4, and by 1975, 15 or 20.… I regard that as the greatest possible danger and hazard.”⁸⁰ Robert F. Kennedy confirmed his brother’s dedication to the disarmament and nonproliferation agenda, writing that JFK “thought that all of our energies and all of our efforts should be toward getting control over the distribution of the knowledge of making atomic weapons, the construction and the testing of atomic weapons. His greatest disappointment through ’62 and ’63 was the fact that we hadn’t done that, hadn’t been able to get any [agreement]. He was willing to go back and go back and go back—and walk, as he described it, the last mile.”⁸¹

Furthermore, Kennedy laid the groundwork for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that were ultimately signed by President Nixon.⁸² At his first State of the Union address as president on January 30, 1961, Kennedy announced, “I have already taken steps to coordinate and expand our disarmament effort—to increase our programs of research and study—and to make arms control a central goal of our national policy under my direction.”⁸³ This was a promise that Kennedy would fulfill both during his short time in office and through his legacy with the presidents who succeeded him.

Overall, Kennedy’s commitment to arms control and nonproliferation was evident in his significant accomplishments in the nuclear arena, leaving a legacy that influenced US arms control efforts for decades to come. His personal dedication was observed by Glenn Seaborg, then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who came away from Kennedy’s 1961 talks with British prime minister Harold MacMillan with the “distinct impression that in private JFK was considerably more in favor of accepting risks and making compromises in order to achieve a test ban than either he or US negotiators ever allowed themselves to be in public.”⁸⁴ In addition, Kennedy himself expressed the depths of his commitment to these issues. Of the greatest lows he had experienced in office, he said, his greatest disappointment was “our failure to get an agreement on the cessation of nuclear testing, because … that might have been a very important step in easing the tension and preventing a proliferation of [nuclear] weapons.”⁸⁵

Despite his many efforts to lessen the dangers of the nuclear age and regardless of the many arms control agreements that were signed between the Soviet Union and the United States throughout the Cold War, the years after Kennedy’s tenure saw an increase in the numbers of nuclear weapons in the superpowers’ arsenals; advanced technologies (like MIRVs) made these weapons more destabilizing. Though perhaps the most dangerous periods of the Cold War occurred early during the Berlin and Cuban missile crises, the later decades were still worrisome. To that end, biographer Herbert S. Parmet has argued that JFK “would have been profoundly disturbed to know that so many historians would later stress that his contribution to human existence was the extension of the cold war and the escalation of the arms race” rather than a legacy of peaceful coexistence.⁸⁶

In summary, Kennedy was a strong nuclear proliferation pessimist, believing that more nuclear weapons would be worse for the international arena. He was fearful of their rapid spread around the world, as the technological know-how and scientific materials required became cheaper to acquire. Kennedy was especially concerned about new nuclear weapons states—those lacking in strong command and control procedures, vulnerable to external attack, and prone to accidental launch or a “use them or lose them” mentality. This pessimism led Kennedy early on to make commitments to arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament during his time in Congress and, later, to undertake actions and fulfill campaign promises once president. His devotion to these issues applied to allies and adversaries alike, as he worked diligently to prevent the construction of independent deterrent forces on the European continent, sought significant limitations on nuclear testing with the Soviets, and fought to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Communist Chinese.

Probability of Deterring the Proliferator

Kennedy’s general views of nuclear proliferation have just been described. What follows aims to document Kennedy’s views of international threats and compares them to his observation of the Communist Chinese and their pursuit of nuclear weapons. This comparison is useful as it helps assess Kennedy’s larger threat perception. Together, this information offers a portrait of what Kennedy perceived as broadly threatening to US national security and also reveals what danger he believed the communist Chinese nuclear pursuit posed to the United States.

Arguably one of the most important challenges Kennedy confronted during his lifetime was the challenge from imperialism, first from Nazi Germany and later from Soviet Communism. As evidenced by his university thesis, he believed that passivity in the face of a rising challenger was a dangerous strategy, and he therefore articulated the need to meet the Japanese and German problems head-on. His early commitment manifested as enthusiastic enlistment in the US war effort.

Consistently throughout his youth, Kennedy supported a strong effort to prevent the emergence of any hegemon on the European continent lest such a power challenge US national security and interests.⁸⁷ While traveling abroad after the war, he described Hitler’s “boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world.”⁸⁸ In the winter of 1944–45, recovering from his exertions during his military service, JFK authored an article entitled “Let’s Try an Experiment for Peace” in which he took a different angle, warning of the dangers of a destabilizing and expensive arms race with the much larger Soviet Union.⁸⁹ Though the opinion of the article reflects a different view and a less activist approach than earlier commentary, it does suggest an early recognition of the challenge emerging in the Soviet Union. To that point, later in 1945, on behalf of the Hearst News Organization, Kennedy traveled to San Francisco for the inaugural conference of the United Nations. There, distinguishing himself from his many contemporaries who viewed Stalin and the USSR as an ally (if a persnickety one), Kennedy reported on the emerging tensions with the Soviets and advocated a realistic approach to what the new world organization could achieve. Warning against expecting continued good relations with the Soviets, he correctly predicted that conflict with them was forthcoming and that the UN would function as an ineffective peacemaker—the same criticism he voiced about the League of Nations in his collegiate thesis.⁹⁰

By the mid-1950s, Kennedy was firm in his view of the dangers of Communism and its imperial tendencies, and he viewed the Soviets as aggressive in nature and imperialist in perspective. The “single most important test of foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism,” he said at this time.⁹¹ Despite warning about the forthcoming arms race and its negative consequences in 1944–45, in general throughout his political career Kennedy preached a firm support for proactive and strategic decision making and its deterrent effects. In 1945 Kennedy commented, “[The] great issue facing the world today … is Soviet Russia … a slave state of the worst sort … embarked upon a program of world aggression.… Unless the freedom-loving countries [stopped Russia they] would be destroyed.”⁹² Later, upon meeting Nikita Khrushchev for the first time, Kennedy told Hugh Sidey, “I never met a man like this. [I] talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill 70 million people in 10 minutes and he just looked at me as if to say, ‘So what?’ My impression was that he just didn’t give a damn if it came to that.”⁹³ Similar themes would characterize Kennedy’s concerns later when confronting the Communist Chinese.

Later, while running for Senate, a common theme in Kennedy’s campaign speeches was strong defense of the West and Western values against the threatening communist advance.⁹⁴ Once in Congress, he advocated a show of strength against Soviet continental imperialism, as he believed it would discourage Moscow from dangerous future adventurism.⁹⁵ Following the Chinese Civil War, he criticized the Truman administration for its foreign policy failure in the Far East and for having lost sight of the tremendous importance of a non-Communist China; that the United States had not given military aid to the Chinese Nationalists had crippled them in their battle against the mainland Communists, who ultimately emerged victorious.⁹⁶ Later, Kennedy again warned of the rising threat from communism in the aftermath of the loss of the Chinese mainland.⁹⁷ Addressing the 1956 Democratic National Convention, Kennedy spoke of the threats to US national security that the next president would be forced to oppose: “Of overwhelming importance are the ever-mounting threats to our survival that confront us abroad, threats that require a prompt return to firm, decisive leadership. Each Republican year of indecision and hesitation has brought new communist advances—in Indochina, in the Middle East, in North Africa, in all the tense and troubled areas of the world.”⁹⁸ Thus, throughout this period of prepresidential political life, Kennedy consistently demonstrated his view that communism posed a serious challenge to US interests and advocated for a firm and proactive approach to confronting communism wherever necessary.

As the 1950s were waning, Kennedy had identified reasons for optimism when approaching the Soviets. First, early in his Senate term, Kennedy introduced for the record an article that concluded that the Soviets were not interested in attacking the United States.⁹⁹ Later, Kennedy described areas of potentially common interest between the United States and the USSR and used these to push for compromise and progress between the two superpowers. Speaking at the University of Rochester on October 1, 1959, Kennedy said: “For we can discern in Mr. Khrushchev’s speeches the germs of these potential common interests: First, both the US and the USSR would like to be free of the crushing burden of the arms race … Secondly, neither the US nor the USSR wants a nuclear war … Third, neither the US nor the USSR wants nuclear weapons—and the power to initiate nuclear war—to pass into the hands of too many other nations—Red China, France, Sweden, and a host of others now preparing to join the atomic club … These are the real interests we could share in common.”¹⁰⁰ While it is probably going too far to suggest that Kennedy saw the Soviet Union as purely security-seeking, it is possible that these areas of commonality allowed Kennedy to focus on cooperation with the Soviets, especially in the nuclear arena, and to distinguish between the Soviet problem and the rising Chinese Communist threat of which he was acutely aware.

Travelling across Europe as a member of Congress in 1951, Kennedy also began internalizing a belief in the deterrent powers of nuclear weapons—significantly, however, only at certain levels. His trip confirmed that the Russians were unlikely to invade the continent since, as he argued, “the Russians had not attacked before, why should they now when the bomb is still as much a deterrent as it was before?”¹⁰¹ Indeed, Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev both believed that no president or premier was actually going to use nuclear weapons if the enemy had the ability to retaliate in kind, as by then both the United States and the USSR did. In early 1961, for example, in a “Special Message to Congress on Defense Policies and Principles,” Kennedy argued for an increase in US defense spending to guarantee defense through deterrence: “Our strategic arms and defenses must be adequate to deter any deliberate nuclear attack on the United States or our allies—by making clear to any potential aggressor that sufficient retaliatory forces will be able to survive a first strike and penetrate his defense in order to inflict unacceptable losses on him.”¹⁰² Over time, as the logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD) grew in acceptance, the danger from the Soviet arsenal was no longer that of a direct nuclear attack on the US mainland, as both sides’ massive arsenals deterred such recklessness and inspired caution.¹⁰³

At the same time, however, the administration recognized that it was necessary to maintain parity with the Soviets, lest newfound strategic superiority encourage aggressive Soviet behavior.¹⁰⁴ To that end, during the 1962 debate over the resumption of US nuclear testing, Kennedy argued, “and I must report to you in all candor that further Soviet tests, in the absence of further Western progress, could well provide the Soviet Union with a nuclear attack and defense capability so powerful as to encourage aggressive designs.”¹⁰⁵ Thus, while mutual deterrence existed with parity in nuclear arsenals, the absence of such parity bred dangerous instability.

Much of what was threatening to Kennedy about the Soviet Union in 1945—the Soviets’ cost-insensitivity, aggressive tendencies, and proclivity toward imperialism—Kennedy also identified as threatening characteristics of Communist China. He wrote to his friend Lem Billings in 1942, “I don’t think anyone really realizes that nothing stands between us and the defeat of our Christian crusade against Paganism expect a lot of Chinks who never heard of God and a lot of Russians who have heard about him but don’t want Him.”¹⁰⁶ This was just the first time that Kennedy articulated his belief in the dangers emanating from Red China.

At the Cathedral Club in Brooklyn, New York, on January 21, 1954, Senator Kennedy gave an address titled “A Strong and Vigorous Foreign Policy.” In the speech, Kennedy warned of the growing danger of Red China:

Their [Communist China’s] assistance to the forces of Vietminh is thus steadily growing, and they themselves, and this is a most significant fact, are steadily increasing their own military strength. Some observers believe that within 2 years the Chinese Communists will have developed over 150 modern divisions. They will then become, after the Soviet Union and the United States, the greatest single military power in the world, lacking only an atomic arsenal and an industrial capacity to sustain it, to put them in the first rank. This power will be under the direction of a native leadership which has increasingly evidenced aggressive and rapacious intentions toward the countries along their southern border.¹⁰⁷

Thus, already by 1954, Kennedy identified Communist China as a rising power growing in military strength. He highlighted the country’s aggressive and expansive intentions and warned of a declining situation should the Chinese acquire nuclear weapons. By the close of 1959 and with Kennedy’s declaration of his candidacy for president on the horizon, Kennedy again addressed these issues in an interview with Harper’s Magazine: “[The Eisenhower administration] will leave on the next Administration’s doorstep the most critical problems we have ever faced: the growing missile gap, the rise of Communist China … the lack of an arms control agreement.”¹⁰⁸ In a major address on foreign policy and national security in June 1960, Kennedy, then candidate for president, outlined twelve core agenda items to concern the next US president: “We must reassess a China policy which has failed dismally to move toward its principal objective of weakening Communist rule in the mainland—a policy which has failed to prevent a steady growth in Communist strength—and a policy which offers no real solution to the problems of a militant China.… And, … we should not now recognize Red China or agree to its admission to the United Nations without a genuine change in her belligerent attitude toward her Asian neighbors and the world—and regrettably there is evidence that her belligerence is rising rather than receding.”¹⁰⁹ Overall, from his military service to his candidacy for president, Kennedy consistently argued for recognition of the dangers posed by imperialism. After 1949, these fears included a rising Communist China—one with hostile intentions toward the United States and its allies, a record of antagonism toward the Asian region, and a history of aggression, expansion, and menacing behavior toward the noncommunist world.

Significantly, though there were similarities between the Soviet menace and the Chinese one, there was one very important distinction between them in the nuclear arena: Kennedy and his advisers recognized that the same deterrent effect governing the interactions between the United States and the USSR did not translate to new nuclear states or to small and vulnerable arsenals to which the logic of MAD did not apply. Whereas National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy confirmed the administration’s belief in MAD’s deterrent power while discussing the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the constraint that leaders on both sides demonstrated, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara disparaged lesser capabilities, saying that “limited nuclear capabilities, operating independently, are dangerous, expensive, prone to obsolescence, and lacking in credibility as a deterrent.”¹¹⁰ Kennedy himself articulated this same nuclear pessimist logic when describing the dangers inherent to new instances of nuclear proliferation in previously nonnuclear countries: “As these weapons proliferate into other countries, and more and more countries get them which may not have this sophisticated means of control, then the chance of accidental explosion increases.”¹¹¹ This distinction is meaningful; it explains how the Kennedy team would have perceived a significant threat in a potential new and small nuclear arsenal (like the Chinese Communists’) and the deterrent value of the Soviet arsenal during the same era.

Given Kennedy’s nuclear pessimism and his concern over the Communist Chinese, it is unsurprising that the specifically nuclear element of the looming crisis with China was cause for alarm. Furthermore, Kennedy’s remarks about the Chinese nuclear program prior to 1960 reveal that he viewed Chinese proliferation as a dangerous development, one that threatened the safety and security of the United States. Though Kennedy never explicitly addressed it, in 1946 Mao famously satirized the atomic bomb, calling it “a paper tiger” and mocking the power it gave the United States and others. Given Kennedy’s concern with irrational leaders in possession of nuclear weapons, Mao’s cavalier attitude (well known at the time) would likely have unsettled Kennedy. Speaking in 1959 at the University of California, Los Angeles, he identified China as one of a small group of states whose nuclear ambitions would damage US security: “The ability of other nations to test, develop and stockpile atomic weapons will alter drastically the whole balance of power, and put us all at the mercy of inadvertent, irresponsible, or deliberate attacks from many corners of the globe.… For one China, or France, or Sweden, or half a dozen other nations successfully test the atomic bomb, then the security of both Russians and Americans is dangerously weakened.”¹¹²

Speaking on the Senate floor in 1959, Kennedy reiterated his earlier concerns about the incredible growth in Chinese power and highlighted the nuclear element of the Chinese rise: “Within the last year the Chinese have produced their first automobile. Within the next year they may have launched their first earth satellite. Even more seriously, they may well begin to take their place among the select company of nuclear powers.”¹¹³ Furthermore, given both McNamara’s pronouncements about the dangers of small arsenals and Kennedy’s early concerns about accidental launches and the lack of command and control capabilities in new nuclear proliferants, it is unsurprising that Kennedy viewed the small and new Chinese arsenal as destabilizing and highly problematic given that this small arsenal did not offer the deterrent protection of a dyadic relationship governed by MAD. Vulnerable to external attack, nascent arsenals like the Chinese would be poised for use rather than loss to an outside aggressor. Finally, Kennedy explicitly connected China’s attempted proliferation to a negative impact on the balance of states in the international arena. By 1960 he was explicit, saying that “Red Chinese possession of atomic weapons could drastically alter the balance of power.… The Chinese are increasingly important, increasingly menacing, and increasingly impossible to omit from effective international agreements.”¹¹⁴ Kennedy even noted that the Vietnam War was of limited consequence, given the prospects of a nuclear China. He told New York Times columnist Arthur Krock in October 1961 that the domino theory had lost its validity: “China was bound to develop an atomic bomb, and when it did, all of Southeast Asia would fall to the Chinese Communists.” Subsequently, Kennedy tasked the National Security Council (NSC) to “confront and resolve” the “special unresolved problem” of a nuclear-armed China, given its effects “on our dispositions in Southeast Asia.”¹¹⁵

Once president and with the contours of the Chinese nuclear crisis taking shape, Kennedy described how he feared Chinese nuclear weapons and their precipitation of a decline in US foreign policy prowess—making US defense of Asian allies basically infeasible.¹¹⁶ He also consistently recognized and articulated his fears of the threat posed to the world by communist expansion.¹¹⁷ China had exhibited over time a distressing meddlesomeness in the region and had overtly threatened various neighbors, including brazenly attacking India in 1962. These military maneuvers, combined with growth in other metrics of power, caused Kennedy and his cabinet a significant level of concern.¹¹⁸ Furthermore, since the Chinese Revolution, the communists had been extremely clear about making the Americans “enemy number one,” and nuclear weapons would give them the ability to act on this sentiment. Kennedy summarized his fears, saying that a nuclear China “would so upset the world political scene [that] it would be intolerable.”¹¹⁹ Robert F. Kennedy recalled a similar view: “He [JFK] said once, if this continued and the Chicoms got the bomb and went ahead in the direction they were heading, in the seventies this world would be even more dangerous than it was now.”¹²⁰ JFK confirmed these fears in November 1962, telling Bundy that the Chinese program “was the greatest single threat to the status quo over the next few years.”¹²¹

The evidence suggests a clear picture of what Kennedy found threatening. From his early life and career, Kennedy felt imperialism and its insidious global expansion threatened the United States. Furthermore, Kennedy feared nuclear weapons for their destabilizing and dangerous nature. When these issues combined in the form of the Chinese communist pursuit of nuclear weapons, two of Kennedy’s major fears were married in one menacing form. The idea of the most problematic weapons in the hands of an adversary openly aggressive to its neighbors, hostile to the United States, and revisionist in its aims of remaking the world in the Communist image struck Kennedy as a dangerous development in international affairs. Additionally problematic was the fact that the deterrent security of MAD did not apply in the Chinese nuclear context. Given these features, Kennedy felt that the Chinese nuclear situation needed to be proactively dealt with, not just allowed to develop while the world sat idly by.

John F. Kennedy was deeply concerned with nuclear proliferation and its negative consequences for the United States and the world. His threat perception focused on the dangers of imperialism, Communism, and expansion, all of which manifested in Communist China. Given China’s aggression toward its neighbors, overt hostility toward the United States and its interests, and pursuit of nuclear weapons, the leader-centric argument predicts that Kennedy, a pessimist lacking confidence in deterrence, would have been highly likely to consider preventive military force as a counterproliferation strategy. The model expects him to have requested military options and feasibility assessments from his military and intelligence apparatus, and to see manifestations of such requests in the administration’s decision-making records.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Though a product of an earlier generation, Lyndon B. Johnson was also a cold warrior focused on the defense of the US homeland. However, his views about nuclear proliferation were fundamentally different from Kennedy’s, suggesting that LBJ was a mild nuclear optimist. Despite believing that nuclear war posed a grave danger, he was much less of an alarmist than President Kennedy. Whereas Kennedy spent much of his early life thinking about international affairs and world politics, as a young man, Johnson paid much more attention to the challenges of domestic poverty, racial inequality, and domestic politics. Like Kennedy, Johnson worked diligently in Congress to advocate preparedness and a strong national defense. Whereas for Kennedy these preparations at home were a means toward proactive strategy abroad, Johnson believed that domestic preparedness would on its own deter attacks on the homeland. While Kennedy saw communist ideology as threatening, Johnson instead worried about communism’s expansive aims and the likelihood of a direct attack against US interests.¹²² While Johnson perceived some danger emanating from China, he believed that the threat was not nearly as imminent as Kennedy warned, as the Chinese did not have a near-term ability to deliver any nuclear weapons produced in the 1960s. Nor did Johnson believe the Chinese were likely to attack the US in the first place. Given this mild nuclear optimism and relative confidence in deterrence against Chinese nuclear weapons, the theory argued here predicts that President Johnson would be unlikely to consider the use of preventive military force.

LBJ and International Affairs

Though early portrayals described Johnson as ignorant of foreign policy, newer scholarship suggests considerable exposure to foreign affairs.¹²³ Rather than being ignorant, Johnson is better described as somewhat disinterested—keen to focus on domestic rather than international matters. This is not to say, however, that he ignored international issues or stumbled through foreign policy choices; in fact, Vietnam dominated Johnson’s time as president. Waldo Heinrichs confirms Johnson’s involvement on the issues, contending that Johnson was very well informed as president and maintained the details of what he read.¹²⁴ A May 14, 1965, diary entry from Lady Bird Johnson confirms Johnson’s dedication: “It’s odd to hear people like Adlai Stevenson and many, many columnists say that the President, alas, is not as interested in—does not give as much time to foreign affairs as he does to domestic affairs. Foreign affairs devour his days and nights. It’s just that the problems are harder to solve than domestic affairs. True, he takes less joy in them, but whatever bad happens in them, it’s not for lack of trying.”¹²⁵ Johnson himself confirmed this prioritization, writing in 1964, “I am spending more time on foreign affairs than on any other subject.”¹²⁶

Though certainly anti-Communist and a strong supporter of US military strength, Johnson held simplistic views of international affairs, favored a cooperative approach to challenges, and often reflected the perspectives of the Eisenhower administration and Eisenhower-Dulles foreign policy. Johnson’s brand of internationalism lacked nuance, despite extensive exposure to the many foreign policy challenges of the twentieth century. Indeed, Johnson’s congressional service included participation on the House Naval Affairs and Armed Services Committees, as well as on the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. In the Senate, Johnson served on the Armed Services Committee and chaired the Preparedness Subcommittee. While Johnson had been instrumental in ending the McCarthy era in US politics, he did not share Kennedy’s more aggressive, proactive foreign policy approach to combating challenges where they emerged. Nor did Johnson have many fine-grained or complex views on international affairs. Early in his presidency, he wrote of his approach to problem-solving in the international arena to Brazilian president João Goulart, “I believe that all these problems are soluble if approached within a framework of expanding international cooperation.”¹²⁷ Though in this letter the two are discussing economic issues specifically, the cooperative attitude carries over to security and nuclear issues as well.

Perhaps these differences are unsurprising given the distinct backgrounds and natural proclivities of Kennedy and Johnson. Johnson, a southerner, was drawn toward local issues, focusing on the difficulties he encountered in the isolation of the Texas backwoods. He had a natural affinity for improvement—for himself, his family, and society at large—that was understandable largely as a product of his small-town background.¹²⁸ He quickly identified a role for the federal government in achieving this improvement and would champion both the New Deal under Franklin D. Roosevelt and later LBJ’s own Great Society. What arms control represented for Kennedy, racial discrimination and poverty alleviation were for LBJ. Therefore, while Johnson was certainly knowledgeable about foreign affairs, especially given his long experience in politics, he lacked personal zeal or pressing interest.

Johnson’s congressional service put him in Washington while many key foreign policy challenges and the US role in the world were being debated. Johnson emerged as a leading advocate for defense spending because he believed that a strong and prepared America would counter any mounting external threats. Though frequently voting with FDR on defense measures, like most Americans Johnson was reluctant to see the United States become too heavily enmeshed abroad. These positions reflected that Johnson was highly sensitive to external threats and of the opinion that military expenditures were meant for defense as opposed to offense.¹²⁹ Unlike those who advocated for defense spending and supported strategies to compel challengers to back down—Kennedy among them—Johnson’s view reflected a preference for a strong defense at home to dissuade challengers from threatening in the first place. For example, whereas some of his contemporaries were quick to advocate US involvement in World War II, Johnson only supported US entry into the war once Great Britain was under siege. He was concerned for Britain and also feared that by not acting, the United States would encourage the Nazi thirst for global conquest and become vulnerable to direct attack.¹³⁰ This view is consistent with Johnson’s overarching fear of external aggression, imperialism, and direct territorial attacks.

While overseas with a congressional delegation, Johnson became more aware of the threat of communist expansion across Europe and the need to challenge such outward enlargement. Solutions, LBJ thought, could be found through collective, international effort. Johnson saw NATO as “essential to containing the Soviet Union and dealing with … Germany’s … nationalist tendencies.” NATO would also help defend Europe through trade liberalization.¹³¹ This same spirit echoed in his Vietnam policy years later when he argued that American failure to act would allow a communist takeover throughout much if not all of Southeast Asia.¹³² For many of the same reasons, Johnson supported Lend Lease, the Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan.¹³³ Consistently over time, Johnson feared that the rest of the world would end up behind an iron curtain if the United States failed to act to counter the expansion of communism.¹³⁴ As an internationalist, Johnson found it sensible to spend money on peace.¹³⁵

In 1961, as Kennedy’s vice president, Johnson was sent to South Asia to assess the regional situation. His report gave a standard recounting of domino theory—the Eisenhower-Dulles strategy that claimed that if one state succumbed to Communism, the surrounding states would soon fall like a line of dominoes—and argued that the United States must stand strong on communism in South Asia or be prepared to take up arms to confront it eventually at home. This sentiment is unsurprising coming from Johnson, who was afraid of Communism’s expansion, not of the system itself.¹³⁶ Taken together, this evidence suggests that LBJ perceived global threats acutely when the US homeland was directly threatened by territorial or imperial expansion.

General Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation

LBJ held different nuclear views than his predecessor. Like Kennedy, Johnson was aware of the tremendous costs of nuclear war. At the same time, he was not nearly as alarmist as Kennedy about the high likelihood of a nuclear detonation or accident. Nor was LBJ as nuanced in his perceptions of the specific dangers of nuclear weapons, instead focusing simply on “avoiding a nuclear holocaust.”¹³⁷ In the aftermath of World War II, Johnson advocated for a cooperative and liberal agenda. In 1946, speaking to the League of Women Voters, Johnson followed FDR’s collaborative spirit and suggested giving the Soviet Union the secret of the atomic bomb.¹³⁸ As a member of Congress in 1946, Johnson introduced an address on the subject of atomic energy and world cooperation. Cognizant of the dangers of nuclear war, this address offered a cooperative solution to the atomic problem, which Johnson supported.¹³⁹ As a senator discussing the situation in Korea, Johnson expressed his certainty that the United States would use nuclear weapons as if they were any other weapon: “Discussions about whether we should use the Atomic Bomb are elementary by comparison. I am sure that we will use the Atomic Bomb—if and when it can be used to stem the tide of aggression.”¹⁴⁰ Significantly, when Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont introduced a resolution calling on the United States to work toward universal disarmament, Senator Kennedy was one of thirty-three amendment cosponsors. Senator Johnson was not.¹⁴¹ While president in June 1964, Johnson wrote a memorandum approving further nuclear sharing, this time within the NATO alliance.¹⁴²

More broadly, Johnson believed in international organizations, supported the ill-conceived Baruch Plan for international atomic cooperation, and had high hopes for the peaceful abilities of the nascent United Nations, both in the nuclear arena and elsewhere.¹⁴³ During the 1964 presidential campaign Johnson articulated details about the unique destructiveness of nuclear weapons that suggest he understood their grievous nature. In light of MAD and the decline in US nuclear superiority, Johnson felt that nuclear weapons could be used only for deterrence, not for war fighting or for preemption.¹⁴⁴ To that end, in September 1964, he told a Seattle audience that “our nuclear power alone has deterred Soviet aggression,” suggesting that he had more confidence in deterrence than JFK did.¹⁴⁵

Upon becoming president, Johnson declared, “A nuclear war will be the death of all of our hopes and it is our task to see that it does not happen.”¹⁴⁶ However, Johnson’s belief that nuclear war was not a high-probability scenario allowed him to pursue other priorities.¹⁴⁷ Thus, while on the one hand Johnson understood the devastating nature of nuclear weapons, his support for nuclear sharing with both the Soviets and NATO allies and his belief in the deterrent power of nuclear weapons suggest a weak nuclear optimist position. While this perspective does not extend to the view that more weapons will necessarily be better, it does suggest a belief in a lower likelihood of nuclear war and a strong deterrent ability inherent to nuclear weapons, which together yield a lower likelihood of finding significant threats emerging from nuclear issues. Furthermore, LBJ’s early comments about the usability of nuclear weapons suggest at least an initial belief that there was nothing particularly special about them. Taking this evidence collectively reveals that Johnson’s beliefs about nuclear weapons were radically different from Kennedy’s proliferation pessimism.

The limits of Johnson’s nuclear optimism are evident in the context of the Cuban missile crisis. This event in particular reveals that Johnson was hardly passive or ignorant of the potential dangers in the nuclear age. Early in the crisis, Johnson took a hawkish view, advocating for the use of force against the Soviet missile sites under construction in Cuba.¹⁴⁸ Johnson disagreed with Kennedy’s implementation of a naval blockade. According to Director of Central Intelligence John McCone, Johnson viewed the blockade as “locking the barn after the horse was gone,” since missiles were already in Cuba.¹⁴⁹ This position is unsurprising given the significant Soviet arsenal, their ability to target the US with ballistic missiles, and their increased chances of success given the missiles’ proximity to the US mainland from the Cuban island. As Johnson saw the Soviet menace as much more acute and the danger of missiles in Cuba as severe given their proximity to the US homeland, his advocacy for force aligns with his wider threat perception, focusing on external attack. By contrast, the Chinese nuclear episode did not hold similar salience for Johnson. Unlike the missiles in Cuba, which posed an immediate threat to the United States—one backed by the Soviet adversary—the Chinese nuclear program was nascent, far away, and backed by a relatively weak military power that was unable to realistically target the United States.

Johnson believed in arms control though he lacked Kennedy’s “effervescence and contagious enthusiasm for it” and never took a strong personal interest in the subject.¹⁵⁰ Nuclear issues were among the top three agenda items of the Kennedy administration. For Johnson, though he viewed “the spread of nuclear weapons [as] one of the great dangers to peace,” arms control was hardly an administration priority.¹⁵¹ Like Kennedy before him, however, Johnson had a variety of arms control successes. On December 17, 1963, Johnson highlighted in an address to the United Nations his desire to prevent the dissemination of nuclear weapons to states without them. He called for a continuation of the arms control and reduction measures instigated under President Kennedy.¹⁵² To that end, Johnson presided over a mutual cutback in fissionable material production by the United States and the USSR and signed an Outer Space Treaty, which prohibited the stationing of nuclear bombs on the moon, the planets, or anywhere in outer space. He supported the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though for political reasons the Soviets declined to actually sign until the Nixon administration began in 1969.

How can we explain the successes Johnson oversaw in the nuclear arena given his lack of enthusiasm for the issues? Johnson was adamant about the need to keep continuity with the JFK administration in the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination. This desire extended to Kennedy’s many pending initiatives both on racial equality (which was also personally important to LBJ) and on the nonproliferation agenda. To that end, Johnson not only supported the many nonproliferation and arms control efforts spearheaded by his predecessor and championed deals with the Soviets wherever they emerged, but also moved forward with his own initiatives, calling on President Kennedy’s legacy to encourage additional support.

Moreover, the evidence from within the Johnson administration and elsewhere reveals that the Chinese nuclear test itself had a significant impact on Johnson personally and the nonproliferation agenda, lending newfound urgency to the nuclear problem and efforts to combat it.¹⁵³ At the November 23, 1964, meeting of the Committee of Principals, participants discussed the formation of a group to evaluate US positions on nuclear matters, the Gilpatric Committee, and the need to “investigate the desirability of a nonproliferation policy.”¹⁵⁴ This suggests that such a policy did not exist previously. Indeed, Johnson asked the committee to “explore the widest range of [nonproliferation] measures the United States might undertake in conjunction with other governments or by itself.”¹⁵⁵ Later, a draft of the Gilpatric Committee report explained that “the Chinese explosion has had an immensely catalytic effect upon national nuclear decisions … it has lent urgency to the problem everywhere.”¹⁵⁶ A New York Times article on December 2, 1964, confirmed the impact of the Chinese test, highlighting the committee’s creation and the administration’s recognition that others could follow the Chinese and acquire the bomb, too.¹⁵⁷ Additionally, a memorandum for the president prior to his meeting with the Gilpatric Committee in January 1965 described how nuclear proliferation was a threat requiring attention, given an approaching point of no return in controlling the spread.¹⁵⁸ Finally, a memo from Robert W. Komer to McGeorge Bundy describing the postelection agenda for the Johnson administration in 1965 listed nuclear proliferation as an important agenda item: “Pending Chicom test forces us to face up to the issue. Of course, we are in fact the greatest promoters of proliferation when we sell reactors, know-how, etc., all over the world, at the same time when we’re trying desperately to forestall it via arms control. I’m a realist here and maybe best thing is to carry water on both shoulders. But let’s do so consciously at any rate.”¹⁵⁹

In the end, Johnson’s varying positions are understandable. He supported later nonproliferation efforts, while opposing prevention of China’s program given his limited perception of its negative consequences for US security. The point is not that LBJ failed to prioritize nonproliferation; rather, it is that he was insufficiently threatened to pay the costs associated with military intervention. Furthermore, the bulk of his effort occurred after the China episode.¹⁶⁰

Probability of Deterring the Proliferator

Johnson’s prepresidential period also offers evidence of the threats he perceived internationally. From his youth, Johnson developed a particular approach to enemies, bullies, and threats he confronted. Johnson learned early that if you ran from a bully, “he is going to wind up charging you right out of your own house.”¹⁶¹ Indeed, Johnson conveyed this sentiment in 1964 when he asked, “What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me?” He then answered: “Of course, if you start running from the Communists, they may chase you right into your own kitchen.”¹⁶² This need to confront an enemy head-on, lest the enemy capitalize on one’s weakness, characterized Johnson’s approach to Vietnam in particular. In a conversation with Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen on February 17, 1965, Johnson said, “That we know, from Munich on, that when you give, the dictators feed on raw meat. If they take South Vietnam, they take Thailand, they take Indonesia, they take Burma, they come right on back to the Philippines.”¹⁶³ That Johnson did not attach a similar logic to the communist Chinese nuclear program suggests that he did not see this situation as dangerous for the United States. If he had, we can speculate that LBJ would have felt compelled to meet the threat directly, given the danger he perceived would result from backing down.

What worried Johnson most consistently was US vulnerability to external attack. Specifically, he feared Communist imperial expansion and sought a strong and secure United States through significant military buildup, an effort he began as a congressman. Johnson’s work toward preparedness was not designed to permit a US military offensive; rather, the effort was directed at fostering peace abroad through readiness at home. Similarly, Johnson’s favorable view of international institutions suggested a liberal and cooperative spirit of engagement abroad. On both counts, Johnson stood apart from Kennedy, who saw the internal characteristics and nature of the Communist system as inherently threatening and who viewed international organizations as weak and unhelpful for confronting global challenges.¹⁶⁴ Moreover, whereas Kennedy raised the alarm about the dangers posed by the Soviet Union as early as 1945, Johnson was much slower to reclassify the Soviets from complicated ally to dangerous threat. So while the two men agreed about the need for a military second to none, their end games were different. Johnson saw strength at home as fostering deterrence and security; Kennedy saw domestic military strength as a means of combating problems abroad wherever they should arise.

As a congressman, Johnson voted consistently with the Truman and Eisenhower administrations on defense measures, but like most Americans in 1940 he “was reluctant to see the United States become enmeshed in foreign affairs. He was sensitive to protecting against external threats, but he saw military expenditures as meant for defense and not offense.”¹⁶⁵ By the summer of 1941, he believed it essential for the US to enter the war quickly before it was too late to assist the British and stem the tide of Nazi occupation. Later, he saw Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union as evidence of the need to combat the Nazis’ plans for world conquest.¹⁶⁶ These views suggest that what concerned Johnson was not the Nazis per se, but rather their desire to digest the European continent and then the United States. Later, Johnson was shaken by the Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb and the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. He was motivated to work with President Truman, who shared Johnson’s concern for augmenting US capacity to combat the Communist threat.¹⁶⁷

Johnson’s approach to international challenges was consistent as time progressed and he supported US entrance into Korea. He thought that the North’s attack on the South represented a challenge to the free world, reminiscent of Hitler’s aggression against Czechoslovakia in 1938; Johnson saw the attack as part of an imperial design for world domination.¹⁶⁸ Once again, it was the threat of external aggression and conquest that compelled Johnson to act. Significantly, this view did not extend to the early years in the war in Vietnam, given that the communists had no power to directly injure the United States.¹⁶⁹ This suggests that while LBJ believed communist expansion was threatening, the crucial element was an enemy’s ability to directly target the United States. As articulated in a constituent letter penned while vice president, China did not pose this kind of threat; though hostile to the United States, China threatened only its neighbors.¹⁷⁰ In 1964, he noted, “We face an ambitious and aggressive China, but we have the will and the strength to help our Asian friends resist that ambition.”¹⁷¹ Thus, while Johnson did not ignore the nuclear problem in Communist China, he was much less focused on it, given the limited ability of the Chinese to attack the United States. He was also focused on thwarting Communist expansion already under way in Southeast Asia.

Contributing to Johnson’s feeling of security was the fact that the US military apparatus had grown significantly early in Kennedy’s administration. Kennedy and Johnson had campaigned against years of Republican irresponsibility that allowed postwar US military dominance to wane, and they prioritized defense preparedness accordingly. By 1964, Johnson articulated a sense of security in light of newfound US strength, focusing on the deterrent value of the strategic arsenal. In January 1964 in his first State of the Union address, Johnson said, “We must maintain … that margin of military safety and superiority obtained through 3 years of steadily increasing both the quality and the quantity of our strategic, our conventional, and our antiguerrilla forces.”¹⁷² Later, Johnson articulated the deterrent logic: “We can only be free to pursue our passion for peace behind a shield so powerful that no aggressor dares try its strength against America. I am here to say to you and to them that America has created such a shield. In the past 3 years, we have more than doubled our Minuteman missile program.”¹⁷³ In June, he connected this increase in strength to nuclear deterrence: “In every area of national strength America today is stronger than it has ever been before. It is stronger than any adversary or combination of adversaries. It is stronger than the combined might of all the nations in the history of the world. And I confidently predict that strength will continue to grow more rapidly than the might of all others. The first area of this increasing strength is our ability to deter atomic destruction.”¹⁷⁴

In September 1964, just prior to the first Chinese nuclear test, Johnson repeated his perception of a strong US military as the pillar of US policy: “First is the effort to persuade our adversaries that any attack upon us would immediately bring their own destruction.… Our strength is our surest shelter against war.”¹⁷⁵ Even years later, Johnson took comfort in the arsenal and was confident that it could deter any deliberate Chinese attack.¹⁷⁶ This attitude suggests that, as the US military grew, Johnson perceived additional layers of security that would deter any potential aggressor contemplating attack, including the Communist Chinese, whose nuclear program Johnson did not view as threatening.

Given that the weight of the evidence points toward Johnson’s weak proliferation optimism, a threat perception focused on imperial expansion and direct attacks on the United States, and limited early concern for China relative to the Soviet Union, the leader-centric argument expects little commitment from President Johnson to pursuing a counterproliferation strategy centered on the use of preventive military force against the Chinese nuclear program. Because Johnson saw this as a low-threat environment (one with limited consequences of nuclear proliferation generally and a high likelihood of deterring the Chinese), the theory does not expect specific military studies at Johnson’s request and therefore no consideration of preventive military force. The theory, however, expects Kennedy’s consideration of force and would assume that as president, Johnson might have to confront the planning that Kennedy put into place. Such activity would not undermine the theoretical expectations for Johnson, as this activity would not be at Johnson’s request, but rather a legacy of the Kennedy period.

The Kennedy Administration and the Chinese Nuclear Program

When President Kennedy took office, he ruled out any changes to US China policy and maintained a one-China approach with the Nationalists occupying the Chinese seat at the United Nations.¹⁷⁷ Early contacts with Peking were not promising, according to Secretary Rusk, who thought the communists showed little interest in improving US-China relations and instead acted violently toward Americans abroad.¹⁷⁸ China’s foreign policy indicated that the Chinese sought to play a strong role in the world, have a large voice in international affairs, and attempt to dominate all of Asia, driving the US and its interests back across the Pacific.¹⁷⁹ Kennedy’s team viewed China as an “aggressive and expansionist power, intent on usurping American influence in Asia.”¹⁸⁰ Furthermore, perceptions of the threat increased as China demonstrated its willingness to use force to achieve its interests.¹⁸¹

Although there was broad consensus at the surface, administration members held contrasting views of communist intentions and the consequences of their nuclear acquisition. In June 1961, for example, a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) report concluded that the impact of a Chinese nuclear capability would be significant for US security globally and in Asia.¹⁸² The CIA, by contrast, did not believe that explosion of the first Chinese bomb or even acquisition of a limited nuclear weapons capability would result in a “general policy of military aggression or even [Chinese willingness] to take significantly greater military risks.” Rather, such a step would reemphasize to the Chinese their limited capabilities and lead to caution.¹⁸³ At the State Department, Director of Policy Planning George McGhee argued that the effect would be political and psychological rather than pose concrete military implications: states in the region might opt to band together with the Chinese, seeing communism instead of capitalism and democracy as the wave of the future.¹⁸⁴ McGhee further suggested that the way to deal with this development was to encourage Indian proliferation. Rusk vetoed this idea immediately, saying that it would contradict the administration’s policy of opposition to further extension of nuclear weapons around the globe.¹⁸⁵ Later, in February 1963, former Atomic Energy Commission chairman and new CIA director John A. McCone met with McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy’s national security advisor, and described the president’s fear that a nuclear China “would so upset the world political scene [that] it would be intolerable.” Bundy confirmed that Cuba and China’s nuclear program were the “two issues foremost in the minds of the highest authority and therefore should be treated accordingly by the CIA.”¹⁸⁶

Despite different assessments within his administration, President Kennedy remained focused on the dangers of China’s nuclear program and led the charge to confront it: “I’ll go to the last mile to try to prevent new testing of nuclear weapons … and to find a way to prevent China from developing its first nuclear bomb.”¹⁸⁷ A memorandum to National Security Council secretary Bromley Smith from Bundy documents JFK’s initiative to this end when he asked for a dedicated NSC meeting to investigate the Chinese Communists and their agenda.¹⁸⁸ Repeatedly and especially during the lead up to the Test Ban Treaty negotiations, Kennedy articulated that his greatest fear was Chinese nuclear weapons. “Any negotiations that can hold back the Chinese communists are most important,” he said at an NSC meeting, “because they loom as our major antagonists of the late 60’s and beyond.”¹⁸⁹ He viewed the Test Ban Treaty as potentially able to rein in Chinese development of nuclear arms and had an “almost romantic attachment to the idea that, somehow, the Americans and the Russians could combine to block China’s nuclear programs.”¹⁹⁰

The intensity of Kennedy’s concerns soared in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis. He perceived the Chinese nuclear issue as a wedge to further dismantle the fracturing Sino-Soviet alliance. By early 1963, JFK was practically obsessed with the Chinese nuclear project and its dire implications for US security. “We’ve won a great victory,” Kennedy told Congressional leaders after the missile crisis: “We have resolved one of the great crises of mankind.… There will be another one—when and if the Chinese get the hydrogen bomb.”¹⁹¹

In the first months of the Kennedy administration, a memorandum from the secretary of defense to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the significant political and military implications of Chinese nuclear acquisition and endorsed an interagency study to analyze the problem, its consequences, and potential steps to counteract it.¹⁹² In the fall of 1962, prior to a visit to the United States by General Chiang Ching-Kuo (Chiang Kai-Shek’s son, sent to discuss US-Nationalist military cooperation against the communist nuclear program), Secretary of State Rusk penned a memo to Kennedy describing how Rusk expected Chiang to want to discuss a potential sabotage operation to target the nuclear installations on the mainland. Rusk suggested keeping all available options open.¹⁹³

On September 11, 1963, President Kennedy asked the JCS about conducting a commando operation to target the Chinese nuclear facilities. The plan was to use three hundred to five hundred men traveling by air to target distant locations. Kennedy was specifically concerned with the likelihood that the planes conducting the operations would be shot down. Though Chiang maintained that the operation was feasible, Kennedy was skeptical. This skepticism was understandable given his recent experience with the failure at the Bay of Pigs.¹⁹⁴ On the other hand, on November 18, General Maxwell Taylor, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told his colleagues that they would be discussing options for how to delay or prevent the Chinese from succeeding in their nuclear development. He said that the Chinese nuclear effort was fraught with scientific, technological, and industrial troubles, so that a coordinated program of covert activities designed to intensify those troubles could cause significant delay.¹⁹⁵

Additionally, a policy planning report commissioned at this time, though not released until after Kennedy’s death, described four military options for consideration. Included were an overt nonnuclear air attack, a bombing campaign executed by the Nationalists, a covert ground attack with agents inside China, and an airdrop of Nationalist sabotage teams.¹⁹⁶ That JFK asked for military and intelligence assessments of the Chinese nuclear program’s progress and options to target the program are evidence to support his high threat assessment. That he also contemplated and discussed options involving US allies indicates serious consideration of preventive force.

Under any scenario, no military agency could guarantee an operation’s military feasibility. Despite this uncertainty and the competing administration perspectives on using force, Kennedy forged ahead with the pursuit of various military options. For example, Kennedy, although he was aware of arguments by both the CIA and George McGhee, under secretary of state for political affairs, against a rising Chinese challenge once in possession of nuclear weapons, nevertheless told CIA director McCone and National Security Advisor Bundy in January of 1963, “we should be prepared to take some form of action unless they [the Chinese] agreed to desist from further efforts in this field.”¹⁹⁷ The evidence never suggests that any potential risk of retaliation or difficulty conducting the military campaign would prevent Kennedy from attempting to destroy or delay the Chinese nuclear program. Similarly, there is no indication that the risk of either domestic political costs or international condemnation interfered with his deliberation over available options. Together, these notions intimate that feasibility (IV3) concerns would not alone have deterred Kennedy from progressing.

JFK told the NSC that “the Chinese nuclear program was a principal driving force behind his quest for a test ban,” designed “to halt or delay the development of an atomic capability by the Chinese Communists.”¹⁹⁸ It remains unclear precisely why Kennedy placed such hope for preventing Chinese proliferation in the test ban, which would limit atmospheric and underground nuclear testing. The Chinese were unsurprisingly uninterested in agreeing to such a ban. Nevertheless, with the test ban as one piece of his approach, in 1963 Kennedy seriously contemplated other schemes for “removing the potential capability” or “action to deny the ChiComs a nuclear capability.”¹⁹⁹ In the lead up to US-Soviet negotiations over the Test Ban Treaty, Kennedy instructed US representative and former ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman to push Khrushchev on cooperating to prevent the Chinese nuclear development.²⁰⁰ Once Harriman had traveled overseas for the meeting, and even after Khrushchev had rebuffed the idea, remarking that it would be many years before the Chinese could be considered a true nuclear threat, Kennedy repeated his desire to discuss potential options with the Soviets. He sent Harriman a telegram emphasizing Kennedy’s original points and rearticulating his call to action.²⁰¹ “Your report is encouraging on limited test ban.… I remain confident that Chinese problem is more serious than Khrushchev suggests and believe you should press question with him in private meeting.… Consider that relatively small forces in hands of people like Chicoms could be very dangerous to us all. You should try to elicit Khrushchev’s view of means of limiting or preventing Chinese nuclear development and his willingness either to take Soviet action or accept US action aimed in this direction.”²⁰²

The US-Soviet cooperative action described in Harriman’s briefing books was but one option considered by Kennedy and his administration for preventing China from developing nuclear weapons. William Bundy, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, tasked the JCS with developing a contingency plan for a conventional attack designed to cause “the severest impact and delay to the Chinese nuclear program.²⁰³ The JCS proposed exploring a nuclear option. An unconventional warfare program code-named BRAVO described paramilitary action for consideration. The Chinese Nationalists sought US assistance in attacking the Chinese nuclear program as a means of returning to power. Chiang Kai-Kuo discussed a commando raid with the CIA’s Chief of Station William Nelson and later with National Security Advisor Bundy. Bundy told Chiang that the United States was very interested in a plan that could “delay and prevent” nuclear growth in China.²⁰⁴

The evidence, therefore, reveals that serious consideration of preventive force took place from the start of JFK’s administration until its sudden end. JFK held discussions with allies and adversaries alike; he ordered intelligence assessments, feasibility studies, and pursued all available options. The reports by the JCS and the Department of Policy Planning, and discussions with both the Chinese Nationalists and the Soviets, are the observable manifestations of this effort, driven by President Kennedy’s desire to prevent the Chinese nuclear program from becoming a reality.

It is apparent that the threats Kennedy perceived early in life from both nuclear proliferation and international aggressors continued through his presidency. The threats converged with an aggressive Communist China’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and caused him to seriously contemplate preventive military action. But for his assassination, Kennedy might very well have ordered an intervention. While this difficult counterfactual is beyond the scope of analysis here, this case nevertheless demonstrates the decision-making process and the role of nuclear beliefs: Kennedy’s nuclear pessimism and lack of confidence in deterring a nuclear-armed China led him to consider the use of force to forestall Chinese proliferation.²⁰⁵ With his threat perception guiding his assessment of the situation, Kennedy requested feasibility studies and military plans and discussed options with both allies and adversaries. Despite the abrupt conclusion to the Kennedy period, the evidence nevertheless shows the leader-centric model at work.

The Johnson Administration and the Chinese Nuclear Program

As 1964 began, the CIA reported that the Chinese test was likely forthcoming sometime during the calendar year. Reports surfaced that Premier Zhou Enlai told the premier of Mali that the test would happen in October, but many inside the CIA and the State Department discounted the rumors. US intelligence collection had steadily improved since 1960, and between July 1963 and July 1964 multiple Corona intelligence-gathering satellites had flown into Chinese airspace. In April, satellite imagery revealed a tower at Lop Nur, though most analysts discounted its relevance to the looming nuclear test. By August, intelligence confirmed that the suspect facility was indeed the nuclear test site while also suggesting that the site would not be operational for at least two months, reflecting the misguided US assumption that the Chinese were using plutonium rather than uranium.²⁰⁶

Also in April, Robert Johnson of the State Department’s Policy Planning Council authored a report describing four options for forestalling the program. First, the United States could conduct an overt nonnuclear air attack, which would require a heavy attack to destroy the facilities. The report assumed that the United States would have the capability to conduct a conventional attack and eliminate the Chinese nuclear sites.²⁰⁷ Second, inadequate capabilities ruled out bombing by the Republic of China. Similarly, a lack of inside assets removed from consideration a covert ground attack by mainland China. A final option required an airdrop of Nationalist sabotage teams. The report determined that a one-hundred-man team could overwhelm the security forces at the relevant installations and damage the facility and also noted that the mission, while difficult, was receiving further consideration within the agency.²⁰⁸ The same report noted that destruction of the fissionable materials would last only five years; for something more permanent, it would be necessary to destroy the research facilities and personnel.²⁰⁹ Ultimately this report concluded that military action was not justifiable based on technical feasibility, the impermanence of the effect, the political difficulty, and “arguments to the effect that the near and medium term consequences in Asia of a Chinese nuclear capability will be small, and that the direct threat to the US will be very small.”²¹⁰

Conversely, a US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) paper that August undermined the more optimistic nature of earlier reporting, warning of additional proliferation to balance Chinese capabilities. Echoing Kennedy, the report warned: “If we do not solve this problem … we will soon be faced with a world in which there are ten and then possibly twenty states having national nuclear capabilities. This would be a world of the greatest danger and insecurity.”²¹¹ Shortly thereafter, a December 1964 extension of the original State Department report questioned its sanguine conclusions and noted how even a small Chinese offensive investment could do great damage, especially considering the relative vulnerability of a comparatively smaller US population.²¹² The report also noted important demonstration effects to other countries pursuing nuclear weapons that might themselves reconsider following a preventive attack. Finally, the later addendum criticized the report’s underestimation of the medium- and long-term effects of Chinese weapons on the US-Chinese confrontation and the near-term antiproliferation effects of destroying the Chinese capabilities. Collectively, these reports demonstrate not only the variety of military efforts under consideration in 1964, but also the diversity of opinions even within the State Department itself.

By September, the issue was ripe for presidential decision, with the CIA reassessing the agency’s earlier reports and State Department China specialist Allen Whiting saying that the test was imminent. National security officials repeatedly discussed the issue at Tuesday lunchtime meetings, though without forging consensus. On September 15, 1964, a memorandum for the record confirmed a meeting between McCone, McNamara, Rusk, and Bundy occurring at Rusk’s State Department dining room.²¹³ There they heard McCone’s estimation that a test was imminent, echoed by Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin to US ambassador Llewellyn Thompson. The group concluded that they opposed an unprovoked military attack but decided that in the event of hostilities it would be advisable to target the Chinese nuclear program. When they took the issue to the president, Johnson concurred with their assessment and concluded that it would be best to allow the Chinese to test rather than to conduct unprovoked unilateral action against them. Attacks, Johnson argued, would only be possible in the aftermath of military hostilities.²¹⁴

In the end, how can we understand Johnson’s decision to stop the consideration of preventive military force against the Chinese nuclear program and to accept it as a reality? First, Johnson demonstrated calm in the face of little perceived threat from the Chinese nuclear development. Recall that Johnson was sensitive to dangers of external attack on the US homeland, such as during the Cuban missile crisis, with Soviet military might immediately offshore.²¹⁵ By fall 1964, given US deterrent strength and the lack of Chinese delivery vehicles, LBJ considered a Chinese nuclear attack as a low-probability scenario. Indeed, when the test occurred, the president’s statement declared that “its [the nuclear test] military significance should not be overestimated.… The Chinese Communist nuclear detonation is a reflection of policies which do not serve the cause of peace. But there is no reason to fear that it will lead to immediate dangers of war.”²¹⁶ In a news conference, President Johnson downplayed the test’s strategic impact and emphasized the United States’ deterrent capacity, which made the nation safe from potential aggression: “Secretary McNamara reported in detail on the US defense plans and deployments which take full account of the Chinese effort now and for the future. He emphasized as well the enormous cost to all mankind of any nuclear holocaust, and he showed how the heavy strategic superiority of the United States deters, and will continue to deter, all possible opponents.”²¹⁷ That said, Johnson did not view the test as a positive development, remarking in a report to the American people, “The lesson of Lop Nor is that we are right to recognize the danger of nuclear spread; that we must continue to work against it, and we will.”²¹⁸ Moreover, Johnson noted that the threat was localized. Following a meeting with the president of the Philippines, Johnson said, “the two presidents recognized that the aggressive intentions and activities of Communist China continue to present an imminent threat in the Far East and in southeast Asia.”²¹⁹

These statements reveal that prior to the first Chinese nuclear test, Johnson did not perceive the situation as dangerous for immediate US security. Given Johnson’s nuclear optimism, he believed that the overwhelming strength of the US arsenal would deter any aggressor, including the Chinese. Because of China’s lack of ballistic missile capabilities, there was no way for the Chinese to directly target the US homeland, making for a very low likelihood of nuclear attack against the United States.

Combined, these factors made President Johnson relatively unconcerned for the safety of the United States in the immediate aftermath of a Chinese nuclear test. For this reason, Johnson did not request additional military assessments confirming the theoretical expectations that he would be unlikely to consider preventive military force. Indeed, Johnson’s weak proliferation optimism and confidence in US deterrence generally, and vis-à-vis China specifically, yielded no administration activity beyond definitively ruling out the consideration of force that Kennedy had put into motion. While the JFK period was characterized by alarm over the Chinese nuclear program and the consideration of how best to confront it, the LBJ period was focused elsewhere.

In the aftermath of the Chinese nuclear test in October 1964, President Johnson described it as not a great surprise and said that he had been expecting it for some time. “Nonetheless, the fact that a large country with a hostile government had mastered the technology of nuclear explosives was necessarily a source of worry.”²²⁰

I was not concerned for the immediate future. A long and expensive road separated setting off a nuclear blast and developing the powerful and accurate missiles to carry nuclear weapons across seas and continents.… Some future President would have to face the question of how to deal with this situation.… [The] problem was not just a matter of China. It was a question of how to deal with a great many nations … equipped with nuclear weapons. All I could do was to move as fast and as far as possible during my Presidency to slow the arms race, to achieve international agreements on their control, and to prevent the continuing proliferation of weapons that could mean the end of civilization.²²¹

Though materials from an individual’s memoirs must be approached skeptically, the view articulated here is consistent with Johnson’s complacency about the Chinese nuclear program seen elsewhere. White House tapes from 1964, for example, document Johnson’s attitude toward the nuclear bomb both before it was tested and in the immediate aftermath. First, in a discussion between National Security Advisor Bundy and President Johnson on September 24, 1964, Bundy said to the president, “You—or, if not you, then the Secretary of State—should call attention to what we now estimate is a real possibility that the Chinese may do a nuclear test on their anniversary, which is the first of October.”²²² Johnson responded, “Hmm” and the conversation abruptly concluded.²²³ Given the mounting evidence about the looming nuclear test, Johnson’s lack of real response stands in stark contrast to Kennedy’s hypersensitivity to the same issue only months earlier. The disparity between Johnson and Kennedy is even clearer after the test itself: a mere eleven days later, on October 27, Johnson met with his speechwriter Richard Goodwin to discuss the content of the speeches the president would be making in the coming days and weeks. During the brief conversation, Johnson mentioned Alexei Kosygin’s succession to the Soviet premiership and noted, “The last good piece of news I’ve had, I guess, was … the Chinese Bomb.”²²⁴ Though the conversation between Johnson and Goodwin was quite short, even this brief remark about the Chinese nuclear test suggests a casual attitude. While it could be possible that Johnson’s comment was intended to be sarcastic, even still, in contrast to President Kennedy, who never joked about nuclear proliferation, Johnson shows an attitude that is surprising for its jovial and seemingly lackadaisical nature.

Explaining the Divergent Perspectives

How can we understand the significant contrast between Kennedy’s alarmist approach and intense personal dedication to finding a solution to the Chinese nuclear situation and Johnson’s more complacent and much less worried perspective? In the last weeks of his life President Kennedy pushed for action; just days later, President Johnson showed remarkable calm toward the identical development.

One potential explanation is that President Johnson received new intelligence upon assuming office that President Kennedy did not have access to before he died and that if Kennedy did indeed have access to that information he would have behaved identically to Johnson. One possibility is the 1964 State Department report penned by Robert Johnson arguing that the Chinese would behave more peacefully in a successful test’s aftermath. The report described how the minimal capability was unlikely to be an umbrella for aggression and that the Chinese would be additionally deterred by US nuclear superiority.²²⁵ Robert Johnson further argued that among the consequences of the test would be more psychological weakening of Washington’s regional political influence as others flocked to the Chinese model. Though perhaps compelling, there is no concrete evidence to demonstrate that President Johnson saw the report or was swayed by its contents.²²⁶ Furthermore, the view espoused in this report was not a novel one, as others within the administration had made similar arguments in the months prior to the report’s release and while JFK was still alive.²²⁷

Moreover, the CIA’s special intelligence estimates throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administration do not demonstrate any radically changing assessments. While there was growth in the Chinese infrastructure as well as continuously improving US intelligence that revealed additional program details, as well as an improved ability to target the facilities directly, as described earlier in this chapter, the intelligence community maintained a fairly consistent belief from 1963 onward that China would not behave recklessly.²²⁸ Arguably, too, the 1964 ACDA report described a worsening situation, making President Johnson’s calm even more striking. Consequently, the most compelling explanation for the divergent behaviors rests with two presidents viewing the situation in fundamentally different terms.

Subsequent to the China episode, during the war in Vietnam, Johnson described a desire to avoid actions that would lead to a wider war with China; Richelson argues that this desire probably also influenced LBJ’s thinking on prevention. Given his desire to avoid escalation in the Vietnam context, it is plausible that similar fears motivated Johnson’s decision to forgo preventive force against China. While evidence of such logic in the Chinese nuclear context is not identifiable, it would be unsurprising in light of Johnson’s threat perception. Recall that Johnson was specifically concerned with external aggression and direct attacks on the homeland, while Kennedy perceived threats emanating from the internal characteristics of Communism.²²⁹ Consequently, a preventive strike against China’s nuclear program with potential to incite a retaliatory attack risked provoking the aggression that Johnson specifically perceived to be problematic in the first place. Thus, for Johnson, who perceived a limited threat from the Chinese nuclear program, the treatment was worse than the original problem.²³⁰ Absent direct evidence, assessments to this effect remain conjecture. However, they are understandable in light of Johnson’s general nuclear optimism and assessment of the Chinese nuclear program as largely deterrable. The leader-centric argument thus offers a perspective consistent with this reasoning.

In this light, it is evident that Johnson’s nuclear optimism, focus on the deterrent strength of nuclear weapons, and low perceived threat of nuclear war particularly with a now nuclear-armed China made Johnson much less anxious about these issues than his predecessor. Furthermore, unlike Kennedy, Johnson made no public comments about China’s nuclear program prior to the Chinese test, let alone discussing publicly actions to destroy it. This fact also lends credence to the existence of divergent threat perceptions and divergent beliefs about the risks of nuclear war in general and with the Chinese in particular, yielding divergent approaches to the Chinese nuclear program. Historian Michael Beschloss confirms this disjuncture in describing the day of the test: “On Friday, [October 16, 1964,] the Chinese detonated their first nuclear weapon. Unlike his predecessor, Johnson remained calm. From a CIA briefing, he knew that the Chinese would have to travel a long and expensive road before they developed accurate ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles]; some future President would have to deal with that problem.”²³¹

It is also worth noting that once the USSR expressed no interest in joining the US effort, any proposed military action became unilateral. We know from his preferences in earlier foreign policy crises that Johnson favored multilateral efforts to solve most problems. The lack of Soviet cooperation, or at minimum the Soviets’ refusal to even tacitly support US military action, probably also weighed on Johnson’s mind. As William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson argue, Johnson was rhetorically more cautious about China. He argued against military action absent global opinion or Beijing directly menacing its neighbors (and the United States). Burr and Richelson conclude that “President Johnson was troubled enough by the implications of a nuclear China to approve an overture to Moscow, but his rejection of unilateral action suggested that he saw no ‘intolerable’ threats if Beijing successfully tested a weapon.”²³²

Indeed, on September 25, 1964, National Security Advisor Bundy met with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin for what Bundy described as “a long and cordial lunch … in which we touched lightly on a large number of topics of only casual interest.” Following discussion of the upcoming 1964 presidential campaign and the Multilateral Force Treaty, the conversation turned to Chinese communist nuclear weapons. Bundy notes in the memo of the conversation that he “made it plain that we would be ready for private and serious talk on what to do about this problem if there were any interest in the Soviet Government. The Ambassador gave no direct reply, but he gave me clearly to understand that in the thinking of the Soviet Government the Chinese nuclear capability was already, in effect, taken for granted.”²³³ While this could be construed as an overture by the United States to assess the willingness of the Soviets to support an effort to engage the weapons development issue, the nature of that effort remains ambiguous. Moreover, the fact that this conversation occurred a mere twenty-one days before the Chinese nuclear test, and that the topic of Chinese nuclear capability was, in Bundy’s own words, “of only casual interest,” suggest that this conversation is not evidence of serious consideration of preventive military force. Without the attendant indications of the surrounding administration activity that one would expect to precede a military intervention, only limited conclusions are appropriate in light of the available evidence. The conversation is anomalous when placed in context of the rest of Johnson’s own beliefs and behavior and his administration’s actions.

Though at least in theory the United States had the military wherewithal to target the Chinese program, having Soviet cooperation might have improved their likelihood of success and would have also probably lessened the likelihood of a wider war. Given Johnson’s personal sensitivity to this escalation risk, we can imagine that the Soviets had already accepted a nuclear-armed China and further lessened Johnson’s already weak enthusiasm for prevention.

Finally, on the day after the Chinese nuclear test, President Johnson tasked the NSC with a full study of the Chinese communist weapons program.²³⁴ This move supports earlier claims from both within and beyond the administration that the test itself ushered in a new period of commitment to the nonproliferation agenda and a focus on nuclear issues.²³⁵ The action also confirms that the Chinese nuclear issue was not a high priority on Johnson’s radar until the program had already come to pass.

That LBJ did not prioritize this issue is confirmed by his national address on October 18, 1964.²³⁶ First, Johnson reiterated the details of the test itself and reaffirmed its limited significance: the US knew the test was coming, accounted for it in security planning, and remained much stronger than China, especially in nuclear terms.²³⁷ Maintaining calm, LBJ also repeated a central notion of his threat perception—that a long and hard road separated a first nuclear test from a significant deliverable arsenal. Second, Johnson pivoted to the test’s implications and stated, perhaps for the first time, that the lesson from the Chinese test was that nuclear proliferation undermined the cause of peace. The United States would work to stop nuclear spread going forward.

Taken as a whole, the available historical record of US decision making regarding China’s nuclear weapons program demonstrates the utility of exploring a leader’s early beliefs about nuclear proliferation and threats in the international arena because they can serve as predictive guides to future preventive war behavior. Indeed, understanding of both President Kennedy and Johnson’s actions against the Chinese nuclear endeavor begins with an exploration of their early beliefs about deterring threats in the international arena, nuclear proliferation generally, and the challenges confronting the United States.

Two Historical Footnotes

AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY

It is impossible to know precisely how Kennedy would have acted had he lived through the successful Chinese nuclear test. Certainly, his personality inclined him to tackle challenges in a proactive and sometimes risky manner, suggesting that the culmination of this proactive approach might therefore have been a unilateral and preventive attack on China’s nuclear facilities. Especially given Kennedy’s clear statements regarding the serious threat posed to US national security by the Chinese nuclear program, as well as the program’s implications for both proliferation and East Asian stability, his threat perception further supports this conclusion. Though Kennedy was fully aware that it “may take some years, maybe a decade, before they become a full-fledged nuclear power,” he was also explicit in an August 1963 press conference that “we would like to take some steps now which would lessen that prospect that a future President might have to deal with.”²³⁸ In this context, his request to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for military options demonstrates his seriousness on the subject and his desire to know what options were realistically available. Furthermore, Kennedy told the French minister of culture, André Malraux, that China was “the great menace in the future to humanity, the free world and freedom on earth. The Chinese would be perfectly prepared to sacrifice hundreds of millions of their own life [for] their aggressive and militant policies”; this statement further supports an expectation for the use of force.²³⁹

Nevertheless, the Chinese nuclear experience might have turned out similarly to the Cuban missile crisis, with Kennedy first advocating military force but later preferring a less aggressive option. Indeed, Kennedy himself explained this change of heart: “First, there was no certainty that an air strike would destroy all missiles now in Cuba. We would be able to get a large percentage of these missiles, but could not get them all.… We were not certain that our intelligence had discovered all the missiles.… An air strike would involve an action comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”²⁴⁰ It is possible that the Chinese case could have ended similarly, with President Kennedy considering the use of force early on, only to rule it out later. That said, there is no evidence indicating that such a change of heart took place regarding the Chinese problem. For the present purposes, my argument is simply that based on his prior beliefs about nuclear proliferation and deterrence, Kennedy should have been highly likely to consider the use of preventive military force, and he indeed did. A senior Kennedy adviser recalled JFK saying that “the Chicom nuclear explosion [was] likely to be historically the most significant and worst event of the 1960s.”²⁴¹ But for his untimely death, Kennedy might have been highly likely not only to consider but also perhaps to use preventive military force as a counterproliferation strategy against the Chinese nuclear program. Had Kennedy’s vice president been someone other than Lyndon Johnson, with nuclear beliefs more similar to Kennedy’s own, the China case might have ended differently still, with Kennedy’s successor assuming the mantle and ordering the attack to destroy China’s nuclear program in formation.

THE ROLE OF CUBA

The Cuban missile crisis appears repeatedly in this narrative. This crisis was not only a critical event in the Cold War and in the history of US national security but also a central episode in the history of the atomic age. As such, the episode is an important source of information regarding both Kennedy and Johnson’s nuclear beliefs. Indeed, we learn from the missile crisis that both men took a fairly hawkish and aggressive position regarding the Soviet placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, at least initially. Kennedy repeatedly made explicit during the thirteen-day period that nuclear weapons were destructive, dangerous, and threatening to international peace. He concluded that as the number of nuclear weapons and nuclear states globally grew over time, there would be an increase in danger, with the rise in potential for nuclear-armed conflict. During the crisis itself, however, Kennedy moderated his position as the risks of military attack—both the risk of failing to destroy 100 percent of the nuclear weapons and the likelihood for escalation to nuclear war with the Soviets—emerged. Johnson by contrast, took a hawkish position early during the crisis, given the proximity of Soviet nuclear missiles to the US mainland. Johnson opposed Kennedy’s selection of a naval blockade, viewing it as too little, too late to address the problem of missiles in Cuba.

Moving from the Cuba episode to the China case, it is evident that characteristics of Cuba were salient in the later period for both men. For Kennedy, nuclear weapons in the hands of Communist China posed similar dangers. In contrast, Johnson perceived less danger to the United States, given the geographic distance separating the United States and China and the lack of intercontinental ballistic missile capability that would allow the Chinese to target the United States directly.

It is beyond the scope of this book to investigate why the two men learned different lessons from the same experience during the Cuban missile crisis. It is also impossible to know whether Kennedy, had he lived, would have experienced a similar moderation of position over time regarding China. Nevertheless, what remains clear is that earlier, critical nuclear events were influential in shaping how two US presidents thought and acted vis-à-vis nuclear weapons. For this reason, among others, the use of history is significant inasmuch as it can help teach us about both the present and the future.