Nixon’s role covered in unpublished papers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32636, 18 June 1971, Page 9

Nixon’s role covered in unpublished papers

(By

THOMAS ROSE.

of the ‘'Chicago San-Times." through N.Z.P.A.)

WASHINGTON, June 17.

The unpublished portion of the top secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam war covers the period in 1954 in which President Nixon played a key role in the debate over dropping the atomic bomb and committing United States troops.

Eisenhower Administration officials asserted yesterday that Mr Nixon, then the Vice-President, supported the use of tactical nuclear weapons and the commitment of United States combat forces to prevent the downfall of the French.

But they said that they did not know whether Mr Nixon's position was documented in the Pentagon history of the war. Nuclear weapons A number of unofficial accounts have portrayed Mr Nixon as then advocating the use of tactical nuclear weapons and United States combat forces in North Vietnam to prevent the downfall of the French. The issues were debated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon history, which runs from 1945 to 1968, presumably contains documented citations of Mr Nixon’s position.

The Nixon Administration succeeded on Tuesday in obtaining a court order stopping, at least temporarily, the publication of the history by the “New York Times.”

The White House Press Secretary, Mr Ronald Ziegler, said yesterday that the President agreed with the Attor-ney-General, Mr John Mitchell, that further revela? tions cause “irreparable injury to the defence interests of the United States.” No consideration Mr Ziegler said no consideration was being given to de-classifying the “New York Times” documents. The first three instalments in the series disclosed that former President Lyndon Johnson approved clandestine military strikes against North Vietnam five months before the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that he was planning a major intensification while campaigning as a peace condidate in 1964 and that he purposely concealed his 1965 decision to send United States troops into offensive operations. The fourth instalment, which has been blocked by the court, deals with the Kennedy years and reportedly would prove actually embarrassing to a number of prominent citizens who now declare themselves "doves.” Later instalments deal with the Truman and Eisenhower ■ years. Diem plot Officials who served the i United States Embassy in Saigon during Kennedy years said that the Pentagon history would undoubtedly reveal the intimate awareness of high ranking officials in Washington of the plot to eliminate the late President Ngo Dinh Diem. These embassy officials said that the upper echelon of the Kennedy Administration did little to protect Diem from the South Vietnamese Army whom they knew were planning to arrest and possibly execute him. The Eptbassy officials said

that the Pentagon history would show that the Ambassador, Mr Henry Cabot Lodge, arranged for a plane to take Diem out of the country, but other than that did little to protect him. The officials said that the Pentagon documents should disclose that Mr Lodge overruled a proposal to provide an honourable funeral and burial for Diem in 1963. The “New York Times” instalment on the Kennedy years is also understood to contain some explosive information about a bitter controversy between the United States and the Saigon regime over the first dispatch of large numbers of United States troops and advisers. It was during the Eisenhower Administration that the United States moved to the verge of a major intervention, a full decade before Mr Johnson took the fateful step.

In the spring of 1954 as the French were being surrounded by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu, Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly sought authority to

use tactical nuclear weapons to break the siege. It was widely assumed at the time that Mr Nixon and the late Secretary of State, Mr John Foster Dulles, supported Admiral Radford. Mr Nixon indicated he was arguing for forceful action in an off-the-record speech that leaked to the press. He said that United States troops would have to be sent to Indo-China if the only alternative was to let it fall to the Communists. Planes with A-bombs During that period, United States Navy planes, equipped with tactical atomic bombs were in the air off North Vietnam, poised to strike at the Viet Minh. But President Dwight Eisenhower called them off at the last minute, reportedly after seeking the advice of General Matthew Ridgeway, the Army Chief of Staff, who warned him that a successful military intervention might require several hundred thousand United States troops.