The dangerous myth that a U.S. nuclear threat worked in 1953

Do nuclear threats work? U.S. President Donald Trump seems to think so. His recent warning that the United States would rain down “fire and fury” upon North Korea may have been improvised, as some media reports suggest, but it may also be part of a strategy to intimidate the North Koreans and get them to restrain their nuclear program.

Some historians and policy-makers have long looked to a specific case to claim that such nuclear threats against North Korea have worked in the past. In 1953, they assert, the newly elected Dwight Eisenhower, determined to redeem his campaign pledge to end the unpopular Korean War, passed along a secret message to the communist Chinese and the North Koreans: Agree to an armistice, or we will unleash our nuclear weapons on you. The result, so the story goes, was immediate: The communists agreed to an armistice, leading to an icy peace along the demilitarized zone at the 38th parallel.

Naturally, presidents and war hawks like the simplicity of this tale. Bold president rattles nuclear sabre; bad guys stand down. This may well have been in Trump’s mind when he spoke earlier this week.

The trouble is, it never happened. Ike’s nuclear bluff, and its supposed success at ending the hostilities, is a dangerous myth, one that gave later presidents false confidence in the effectiveness of nuclear intimidation. When Eisenhower took office, he did indeed wish to end the war in Korea. He travelled to the embattled peninsula in December 1952 to inspect the front and concluded that the war would go on forever unless he either agreed to an armistice or dramatically increased the American war effort.

As an experienced warrior, his first instinct lay in seeking outright victory. Eisenhower started to plan with his advisers for a significant increase in the war effort, using conventional and nuclear weapons, to break the stalemate on the battlefield and push north to Pyongyang, and then impose a settlement. He told his colleagues that using nukes “would be worth the cost.”

Yes, Eisenhower considered using nuclear weapons on North Korean and possibly Chinese targets. But this plan was being discussed only at the most secret levels of the U.S. government and was kept hidden from the enemy.

Fortunately, Ike never had to pull the nuclear trigger.

On March 5, 1953, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died. Stalin had been an ardent backer of the North Korean war on the South, but his successors, an uneasy lead- ership team, felt uneasy about the war.

We know from once-secret documents, released after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., that this new Soviet leadership hatched a plan to ease world tensions in the wake of Stalin’s death. When Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai travelled to Moscow to attend Stalin’s funeral, the Soviet leaders told him it was urgent that China end the Korean War. Mao Zedong, who had long desired to ease the conflict, and North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung agreed that an armistice would be preferable to continued conflict. By early April 1953, the Chinese negotiators at the armistice discussions began to make significant concessions.

By the start of May 1953, an armistice was in reach. The parties signed it at the end of July — and no nuclear threats had been made.

It was not until late May, well after Chinese concessions had been made, that Eisenhower’s alleged threat is said to have materialized. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, on a trip to India, casually dropped a hint to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that he hoped would be passed on to the Chinese: If the armistice talks failed, the U.S. would probably expand the war in Korea. He said nothing about using nuclear weapons. And Nehru never reported this conversation to the Chinese.

In any case, by the time Dulles met Nehru the armistice negotiations were all but complete. What had driven the entire affair was not a U.S. nuclear threat, but a change in Soviet politics.

The myth of Ike’s nuclear bluff was created by Dulles himself in 1956. Dulles told a Life magazine reporter a fib about how the threat of nukes, passed through Nehru to the Chinese, led to immediate results at the armistice talks. Dulles wanted the world to believe Eisenhower would not shirk from using nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, the story of a daring Ike intimidating the North Koreans took root in the minds of a generation of nuclear strategists. Presidents have been susceptible to the myth that nuclear bluffing works. Trump seems to think so, too. But they cannot look to Eisenhower for a model to follow. He made no threats in 1953. He was prepared for a wider war in Korea, but when the chance of a stalemated peace presented itself, he grasped the opportunity. By contrast, Trump has made a public threat and drawn his red line. It might work. But if it doesn’t, Trump will have to back down, or become the first president since Truman to launch nuclear weapons.

What had driven the easing of world tensions was not a U.S. nuclear threat, but a change in Soviet politics