19. Fear of an American Dien Bien Phu Led to a Crazy Plan to Use Nukes
Unfortunately for the French, the planners of the Dien Bien Phu operation had not thought things through. So many airplanes were shot down while trying to resupply the paratroopers at the besieged garrison, that their situation became critical. The French had also assumed that the Vietnamese would have no artillery. They were mistaken. The Viet Minh organized tens of thousands of porters into a supply line, and hauled disassembled guns over rough terrain to the hills overlooking the French. Within two months, Dien Bien Phu’s garrison lost 4000 dead and missing, and nearly 7000 wounded. The survivors, numbering about 12,000, surrendered.
Understandably, as the North Vietnamese besieged Khe Sanh in 1968, fears of another Dien Bien Phu preyed upon the minds of American military and civilian leaders. As the situation at Khe Sanh seemed to grow ever more critical, President Johnson sought repeated assurances from Westmoreland and Defense Secretary McNamara that it would not turn into an American Dien Bien Phu. It was against that backdrop that Westmoreland put together a seemingly crazy contingency plan, that LBJ knew nothing about. It called for using nuclear weapons against North Vietnam, in a bid to avert disaster if things got desperate at Khe Sanh.