| May 7 |  |
Editor says, what if Ike had determined that America couldn't abandon the garrison at Dien Bien Phu? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1954, the 56-day battle of Dien Bien Phu ended with the destruction of Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh guerrilla forces by tactical nuclear weapons supplied to the French defenders by the U.S. military at the order of President Dwight D. Eisenhower (pictured).
Siege Lifted at Dien Bien PhuPresident Eisenhower, who in 1953 had successfully pressed the recalcitrant North Korean government to accept an armistice in the Korean conflict by threatening to use nuclear weapons if Pyongyang did not agree, had concluded that providing the French with a nuclear option was the only way to prevent their defeat, which he believed would inevitably lead to a Communist takeover of all of "Indochina".
The use of nuclear weapons at Dien Bien Phu was a military success, allowing France to reassert control over its rebellious Asian colonies. It was, however, a political burden for the United States, whose role in the matter was an open secret. Throughout the Third World, America was increasingly seen as all too willing to use nuclear weapons against non-white adversaries, even as it found excuses to avoid a nuclear strike against the white-ruled Soviet Union. The fact that the Soviets had their own nuclear arsenal was not seen as convincing disproof of this charge, since the U.S. had enjoyed a nuclear monopoly from 1945 to 1949 but had not, even during the Berlin crisis of 1948, used atomic bombs against the USSR.
Entry posted by
Eric Lipps
© Eric Lipps,2007-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Linebacker Source: Wikipedia Labels: Richard Nixon, 1968, Presidency, Presidential Election, Vietnam War.
~ So does this mean no Vietnam War for America? And if so, what changes can we expect for the 1970s onwards, not just for America, but the world in general?
~ For starters, it'll complicate things in Central America even more than they already were....
~ I do think that the currents of history were strong enough that the French were eventually going to be out of Vietnam...but nuking the Viet Minh would have delayed things by a few years, I admit.
~ It would have required massive bombing of Viet Minh artillery positions surrounding the besieged French garrison, but the result would have been the same as at Khe Sanh and Con Tien. Fixed positions can't stand up to sustained air attack. Ground attack planes, such as the Douglas A-1 Skyraider, would have easily done the job, supplimented by B-29s.
Comment from J Michael Antoniewicz II on Facebook @Stan; You'd have to undercut the 'Bomber Only' folks at the pentagon, find and push up the 'Ground Attack' up and raine in the embronic 'Figher Mafia'. And for the timeframe you still have hundreds of P-47's you'll want to send them in since they (looking back) where the modern original F/A airframe.
~ I happen to like the Skyraider, big heavy engine, massive payload, but it hardly matters -- the vietminh had massed artillery in the open, and were vulnerable, just like the NVA at Khe Sanh, who lost heavily.
~ If the French had used nukes there they would have wiped out their own garrison but the Vietnamese would still be able to win by replacing their losses with fresh volunteers.
When it comes to imperialism the French were the absolute worst of people. They mistreated the Vietnamse and exploited it so so badly they sucked it dry like a pack of vampires. Turned the place into a drugden brothel from which they sucked the profits back to Paris. I doubt the Vietnamese had anything short of driving them out. They would fight to the death to be free of the French parasites.
If worse came to worse, the Vietnamese would turn to teh Chinese for help to drive the parasites from their soil.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
