By
1961 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, a group of senior military figures
advising the president, had concluded that proposed nuclear attacks
across China, the USSR and Warsaw Pact allies would result in over half a
billion deaths. Approximately 600 million fatalities.
Yet
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deliberately or subconsciously, were
compiling an estimate that was not a complete reflection of reality. The
true death toll would have soared towards one billion, quite likely
even passing that number and reaching about 1.2 billion dead, double the
original calculation.
In 1961, the USSR possessed almost 2,500
nuclear weapons, and had long since developed the far more powerful
hydrogen bombs; though at this time, unknown to almost everybody but the
Soviet leadership, Moscow held ownership of just four intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of hitting the US mainland with
nuclear warheads. The US military then had 170 such long distance
missiles in their arsenal.
However,
American intelligence had grossly underestimated the number of Soviet
nuclear-armed, mid-length missiles and bombers, which were within
comfortable striking distance of every NATO state across Europe. The
Kremlin had many hundreds of intermediate and medium-range ballistic
missiles, along with jet aircraft, primed in responding to a US first
strike upon Soviet soil. Even a full force American nuclear attack had
the means to take out a mere fraction of the USSR’s ability in
retaliating through its own nuclear capabilities.
In
riposte to a US first strike, a significant proportion of the Soviets’
surviving nuclear devices would be fired at most, or all, of the
following NATO countries: West Germany, France, Britain, Italy, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and Turkey – each of which would face
annihilation, either from precision hits through Soviet warheads, or via
radioactive fallout dispersed on the wind.
By
the early 1960s, there were more than 4,000 US nuclear weapons
positioned in the above European NATO states, something that Moscow was
aware of due to continuous intelligence reports.
It
may be important to note that Britain – which first tested an atomic
weapon in October 1952 – agreed to take more powerful US nuclear bombs
on its territory from September 1954. This “nuclear sharing” policy was
far from limited to the UK.
Britain
was thereafter copied by the following NATO members, all of which
became de facto nuclear powers from these dates, when they accepted US
nuclear weapons upon their soil:
West Germany in March 1955, Italy in April 1957, France in August 1958,
Turkey in February 1959, the Netherlands in April 1960, Greece in
October 1960, and lastly Belgium in November 1963.
In
an event of nuclear conflict between our planet’s superpowers, the list
of countries to face extinction would not be limited to militarized
nations. Britain, a key NATO and nuclear power, constituted particularly
high priority scope in Soviet and later Russian nuclear war planning.
Kremlin reprisal strikes over the UK would most probably have resulted
in extensive fallout spreading westwards over neutral Ireland, with less
than 400 miles distance between London and Dublin.
Finland
was expected to be one of the first to face destruction following US
nuclear attacks on Leningrad and her submarine pens.
This
radioactive poisoning was anticipated to fan out across neighbouring
Sweden, destroying this separate neutral country. NATO state Norway, to
the west of Sweden, could also expect wide-scale ruin due to enlarging
fallout.
Switzerland,
a secretive nation bordering France and Germany, was directly in harm’s
way and because of nearby fallout that country would have faced
desolation. Likewise neutral Austria, which shared frontiers with
Germany and Warsaw Pact states like Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
From
1960, American military plans were formulating to wipe all of the
USSR’s Warsaw Pact allies off the face of the earth. This included not
merely Czechoslovakia and Hungary but also East Germany, Poland,
Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. In 1960, the population of Warsaw Pact
countries (minus the USSR) comprised of 93 million people.
As the plans were developing General Thomas Power, the 55-year-old chief of Strategic Air Command, said in December 1960 that,
“I
just hope none of you have any relatives in Albania, because they have a
radar station there that is right in our flight path, and we take it
out”.
Albania
was to be obliterated early, with others to quickly follow. The Warsaw
Pact’s destruction with nuclear attacks would, in addition, result in
radiation reaching southwards over NATO states Greece and Turkey. These
two countries, sharing borders with Warsaw Pact rivals, were likely to
face devastation regardless; as Moscow responded to US first strikes
with assaults of their own against NATO members and de facto nuclear
powers, that were holding American warheads pointed towards Russia.
Furthermore,
Tito’s Yugoslavia, also bordering various Warsaw Pact states, would
face eradication following close-range fallout from US ground-burst
nuclear explosions.
Virtually
the whole of the European continent would have been decimated – either
from direct hits or through the devastating aftermath – had Pentagon
nuclear programs undergone execution as envisaged by its commanders.
This included all of Washington’s NATO allies in western and southern
Europe.
Come 1961, every urban area in the USSR containing 25,000 people or more was earmarked to be struck with a nuclear warhead.
To
put the scale of these plans into perspective, the Soviet Union was a
landmass greater in size than both America and Canada put together.
Russia by itself is easily the biggest country in the world; but the
USSR consisted of another 14 nations spanning thousands of miles across
eastern Europe and Central Asia, from Estonia and the Ukraine to
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
It
was possible for the Pentagon with its new long-range, jet-powered
bombers to strike each urban centre in the USSR. In 1961, Washington’s
nuclear cargo had climbed to 22,200 bombs, a significant rise from the
18,600 such weapons in 1960. The Kremlin held an aforementioned 2,470
nuclear bombs in 1961, just over a tenth the size of Washington’s
arsenal.
A
1959 Soviet census revealed that the USSR was home to almost 210
million people. Large-scale nuclear attacks would have killed off the
vast majority of Soviet citizens – again from either the direct impact
of scores of cities being razed to the ground, or from fallout spreading
far and wide.
Primarily
due to budgetary purposes the scheme for conflict with Soviet Russia,
as outlined by outgoing president Dwight D. Eisenhower, was for direct
escalation to first strikes with nuclear weapons. Conventional or
“limited warfare” would be bypassed.
Eisenhower
was aware of Pentagon death estimates regarding hundreds of millions of
fatalities, but though understandably appalled he accepted the
proposals, as too did his fresh-faced successor John F. Kennedy.
Communist
China, the fourth largest country in the world, was to be attacked in
synchronization with the Soviet Union. After 1950, this stratagem became
firmly embedded in US nuclear conflict designs, and war planners were
loathed to alter it. General Power himself, when asked at a conference
in December 1960 if the Chinese could be spared, dismissed the
suggestion when he said,
“I hope nobody thinks of it because it would really screw up the plan”.
In
1961, the US military had over 1,000 jet fighters positioned within
striking range of the great USSR and Chinese land spaces; while further
hundreds of jets could promptly be called upon if required. The planes
were stationed in airfields like those at Kunsan in South Korea and
Kadena in Japan, while many more were placed on aircraft carriers
surrounding the Sino-Soviet bloc. Other US jets were located at American
bases such as in West Germany.
Many
of America’s B-47, B-52 and B-58 aircraft were armed with hydrogen
bombs, containing an explosive force ranging from five to 25 megatons.
The
latter figure, 25 megatons, equates to 25,000 kilotons of explosive
power. By comparison, the Nagasaki bomb consisted of 21 kilotons. In
this case, the most destructive hydrogen bombs were well over 1,000
times more powerful than the weapon which brought ruin to Nagasaki.
By 1962, Washington held about 500
of these 25 megaton mammoths. One 25 megaton weapon contained within it
more firepower than all of the bombs and shells dropped throughout the
combined wars in human history.
Elsewhere,
China’s population in 1961 comprised 660 million people, dwarfing the
Soviet populace. In late 1960, a US military briefing calculated that
proposed nuclear attacks against China, along with ensuing fallout,
would kill around 300 million people.
Pentagon
war plans also entailed hitting every Chinese city. China was less than
half the USSR’s size, and so could be attacked en masse more rapidly,
with the inevitable fallout not having as large a distance to travel. A
true death toll in China was most likely closer to 600 million. China
was already under threat, as from January 1958 US nuclear-armed missiles
were being stockpiled on the island of Taiwan, less than 200 miles from
China’s eastern coast. These Matador cruise missiles were within range
of big metropolitan areas like Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Blowing
up hundreds of Chinese and Soviet cities would have grave consequences
for many other Asian states. The most notable of these was India, which
shares a border with China to the north, and was home to over 450
million people in the early 1960s. Following nuclear attacks throughout
China, radioactive material was anticipated to move southwards over
India, killing untold more millions.
Afghanistan,
sharing frontiers with China and the USSR, would face large-scale ruin
from enveloping fallout – while neighbouring Pakistan, bordering China
and India, could expect its fair share of radioactive substance. Further
Asian countries resting upon China’s boundary to the south may likely
have experienced widespread radiation, such as Nepal, Bhutan, Burma
(Myanmar), Laos and Vietnam, five nations with a combined population of
65 million in 1960.
Significantly,
the USSR’s broad military apparatus would also have responded to US
nuclear attacks upon her soil, emanating from the western superpower’s
air bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, etc. In 1961, Okinawa alone was
hosting almost 800 American nuclear bombs, while the nation of South
Korea had about 600 such weapons. Guam, a tiny island in the western
Pacific, was at the time holding 300 US nuclear warheads.
As
relating to Europe, the Soviets had growing numbers of medium-range
ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and bombers focused on US military bases in
the Pacific region – a reality further escaping the attention of
American intelligence services.
US
first strikes, this time on the southern and eastern USSR, cannot have
been remotely sufficient in eliminating a major Russian nuclear reply
against US allies like South Korea and Japan. Both these latter
countries would have been blown into dust during a nuclear war. As a
consequence, North Korea could have faced destruction due to close-in
fallout expanding quickly from the devastated South Korean capital
Seoul.
*
Note
to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article
to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Shane Quinn obtained
an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on
foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam
Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
by Michel Chossudovsky
Available to order from Global Research!
ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Michel Chossudovsky is
Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the
Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically
acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Reviews
“This
book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic
diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US
wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil
fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In
a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably
“humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging
book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel
Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran
is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on
distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims
are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be
nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s
only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense
industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a
military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit
from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
|
