Nixon’s atom bombshell
QUESTION Did the US consider dropping a nuclear bomb during the Vietnam War? TAPE recordings of conversations between Richard Nixon, the 37th US president, and some of his top advisers during the first six months of 1972 found him musing openly about dropping a nuclear bomb on North Vietnam.
‘We’re going to do it,’ he said. ‘I’m going to destroy the goddamn country, believe me, I mean destroy it if necessary. And let me say, even the nuclear weapons if necessary. It isn’t necessary. But, you know, what I mean is, what shows you the extent to which I’m willing to go.
‘By a nuclear weapon, I mean that we will bomb the living bejeezus out of North Vietnam and then if anybody interferes we will threaten the nuclear weapons.’
In 2002, about 500 hours of Nixon’s discussions were released by the US National Archives and they showed this was not a one-off remark. They included this exchange with national security adviser Henry Kissinger.
Nixon: ‘I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that ready?’
Kissinger: ‘That, I think, would just be too much.’
Nixon: ‘A nuclear bomb, does that bother you? I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ’s sake! The only place where you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about civilians, and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.’
Kissinger: ‘I’m concerned about the civilians because I don’t want the world to be mobilised against you as a butcher.’
James Coleman, Radstock, Somerset. AS the Vietnam War escalated in 1966, a Pentagon official to President Lyndon B. Johnson was heard by mathematician Freeman Dyson to say: ‘It might be a good idea to toss in a nuke from time to time, just to keep the other side guessing.’
Dyson assembled a team to perform a so-called JASON study, where an independent group advised the US government on tactical nuclear weapons use in South-East Asia. The project was led by Dyson, chemist Robert Gomer, quantum physicist Steven Weinberg and particle physicist Courtenay Wright.
Seymour Deitchman, of the Institute for Defence Analysis, said: ‘There had been not-infrequent talk among military people that “a few nukes” dropped on strategic locations, such as the Mu Gia Pass through the mountainous barrier along the North Vietnamese-Laotian border, would close that pass (and others) for good.’
The 55-page study concluded that a nuclear attack on Vietnamese insurgents would ‘offer the US no decisive military advantage’. Rather, the political effects ‘would be uniformly bad and could be catastrophic’. Paul Johns, Malvern, Worcs. QUESTION When did satellite television first come to Ireland and who were the providers? SATELLITE television started to be seen by a small number of viewers in Ireland through the panEuropean satellite service launched in 1985.
When British Satellite Broadcasting was launched in 1990, it was the first generally available satellite service in Ireland, although the Irish take-up during the 1990s was very slow.
When British Satellite Broadcasting was launched, it was primarily aimed at the UK market, but also covered Ireland. Later in 1990, it and Sky Television, which had been launched the previous year, 1989, merged to form British Sky Broadcasting.
Throughout the 1990s, the Sky service had limited customer numbers in Ireland, because the Sky Digibox was so expensive, costing around IR£450.
Not until subsidies were introduced for those Digiboxes in Ireland in 2000, from Sky itself and British Interactive Broadcasting, did the cost of set-top boxes for customers start to fall and customer numbers began to rise. The following year, 2001, terrestrial channels in both Ireland and the UK became available to satellite viewers for the first time.
Sky remains by far the biggest satellite provider in Ireland. In February 2013, BSkyB launched its broadband and phone product in Ireland, and this has made good progress here as one of the few triple-play products. But not all its innovations have been successful here. From 2004 to 2006, Sky broadcast an Irish version of Sky News called Sky News Ireland, but it didn’t last the pace.
In May of this year, Sky launched Now TV, a contract and subscription-free channel. It’s available anywhere in Ireland to anyone with an internet connection, and this ‘no-strings’ streaming service enables viewers to pay only for what they want to see. Sky viewers continue to receive Irish terrestrial channels – from RTÉ, as well as TG4 and TV3.
But while Sky is by far the biggest satellite service in Ireland, many other satellite services are also available. Most free-to-air channels in Europe can be picked up here, provided that the right set-top box and a dish pointed at the right satellite are used.
Before the advent of Sky Digital, cable was the most widely used system for distributing multichannel television. With more than 40 years’ experience of cable and the extensive development of both wired and wireless cable, Ireland remains one of the most cabled countries in Europe.
In 2010, Ireland also started its free-to-air digital television service, which meant an increase in public service channels, such as the Houses of the Oireachtas channel. Free-to-air digital television began in 2011, initially with services provided by RTÉ, TG4 and TV3, and replacing the old analogue services.
Other developments in recent years have included mobile terrestrial television, enabling TV signals to be received on mobile phone handsets.
Despite all the advances in television transmission technology in recent years and the rapid advance of digital, the impact of satellite broadcasting, mainly through Sky, has been immense.