Operation Giant Lance

Last updated
Operation "Giant Lance"
Part of the Cold War
DateOctober 10–30, 1969
Location
Over Arctic Ocean
Result Inconclusive
Belligerents
Flag of the United States.svg  United States Flag of the Soviet Union.svg  Soviet Union Flag of North Vietnam (1955-1975).svg  North Vietnam
Commanders and leaders
Flag of the United States.svg Richard Nixon Flag of the Soviet Union.svg Leonid Brezhnev

Operation Giant Lance was a secret U.S. nuclear alert operation by the United States that the Strategic Air Command carried out in late October 1969 [1] Giant Lance was one component of a multi-pronged military exercise, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test that the Joint Chiefs developed and carried out during October 1969 in response to White House orders. On October 10, 1969, on the advice of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, U.S. President Richard Nixon issued the order for the readiness test that led to Giant Lance.

Contents

Preparations were made to send a squadron of 18 B-52s, flying in sorties of 6 bombers at a time, of the 92nd Strategic Aerospace Wing loaded with nuclear weapons to fly over northern Alaska in the direction of the Soviet Union. It was hoped that this would convince the Soviets that Nixon was willing to resort to nuclear war in order to win the Vietnam War. The squadron took off on October 27 and flew towards the Soviet Union. [2] [3] Actions were designed to be detectable by the Soviets. [4] Nixon cancelled the operation on October 30. [1]

The plan was part of Nixon's madman theory, [4] a concept based on game theory, [1] and its details remained unknown to the public until Freedom of Information Act requests in the 2000s revealed documents about the operation. [5]

Background

State of the Vietnam War

Vietnam War tensions were high and were a major driver of Nixon's decision to initiate the operation. [6] The war was one of the primary challenges Nixon sought to address on becoming president, and led to him devising a plan to both end the war and gain international and domestic credibility for the United States as a result. [6] By launching Operation Giant Lance, Nixon aimed to increase war tensions by raising the United States' nuclear threat through a "show of force" alert. [2] These operations acted as a prequel to Nixon's eventual Operation Duck Hook, which was declassified in 2005. [6] The primary goal of these operations was to pressure the Soviets to get their North Vietnamese ally to agree to peace terms favorable to the United States. [4] [2]

Preparation

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle Wheeler ordered the operation as a part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test [3] On 27 October 1969, eighteen B-52 bomber aircraft began the operation, accompanied by KC-135 tankers to refuel and support the extended patrol of the squadron. The bombers flew in sorties of 6 bombers at a time. [4] [2] The U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) was used to deploy the aircraft from air bases both in California and Washington State in secrecy. [2] The bombers were checked throughout the day, standing by for immediate deployment. [3]

Purpose

The purpose of Operation Giant Lance and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test of which it was a component was to intimidate the foreign contenders in the Vietnam War, primarily the Soviets, through a world-wide alert of U.S. nuclear and non-nuclear forces. By using seemingly irrational actions as a part of Nixon's madman diplomacy, he aimed to push both the Soviet and the Vietnamese to end the war on favourable terms. The squadron of eighteen B-52 bomber aircraft was to patrol the Northern polar ice cap to survey the frozen terrain whilst armed with nuclear weaponry. [3] [6] [4] The patrols consisted of eighteen-hour long vigils, which were intended to appear as suspicious movements by the U.S. [3] These movements were kept secret from the public, whilst also remaining intentionally detectable to the Soviet Union's intelligence systems. [5] [3]

The operation was also intended to be a precautionary measure, boasting operational readiness in case of military retaliation from either East Asia or Russia. [3] [6] [5] The operation's intended goal was also to directly support Operation Duck Hook as a part of the "show of force" alert. Nixon believed that this would coerce Moscow and Hanoi into a peace treaty through the Paris peace talks with the Soviets, on terms that were advantageous to the United States. [3] This outcome was also thought to possibly benefit the United States as well by promoting the credibility of the United States intervention in the Sino-Soviet conflict to its general public in the war. [7]

Madman theory

President Richard Nixon was infamous for radical measures as part of his diplomacy. [7] The radicality of sending eighteen armed bombers on patrol was designed to pressure foreign powers by displaying extreme military aggression. [6] [2] Nixon told Henry Kissinger, the national security advisor, that he was willing to use nuclear weapons in order to end the war. [6] Following so-called madman theory, Nixon would often take diplomatic options that seemed irrational even to the United States' own authorities. [6] [4] The idea was to make it impossible for foreign powers to determine Nixon's motives or predict his actions, giving him a unique strategic advantage. [8] This diplomacy, coupled with Nixon's decision to raise the nuclear alert, served as an indirect threat as the Soviets would not be able to understand his actions. [6] [3]

Nixon used this unpredictable diplomacy in a failed attempt to end the war in Vietnam, creating the impression he was willing to take desperate measures including using the United States' nuclear weapons. [3] [2] [8] These actions would also enhance Nixon's reputation as a tough and "mad" leader. [3] The intention was to cause the North Vietnamese and the Soviets to believe that he was an irrational leader, capable of escalating the nuclear threat. [3] [6] The policy failed to produce the concessions desired by the United States.

Nixon's "madman" diplomacy was in effect briefly during the Vietnam War, amplified by the numerous "show of force" operations. [2] [8] Although this diplomacy could have been seen by opposing states as a bluff, the risk of uncertainty to them was much larger than the risk to the United States. [8] [6] Ultimately, Nixon possessed an advantage as the US could gauge the effectiveness of its threats based on the reactions of the Soviets and the Vietnamese. [8]

Implications

Effects of the operation

The operation did not directly cause any obvious, significant change due to its cancellation; the impact it may have had on the Soviets or the Vietnamese cannot be accurately measured. [3] The operation was terminated on October 30 suddenly without any known reason. [3] [4] The abrupt halt to the operation may have been due to the fact that the Soviets did not show any significant changes in their actions, which may mean that the Soviets suspected Nixon of bluffing. [8] [3] However, some historians have argued that the sudden withdrawal of the SAC's squadron was an intentional effort to display the maneuverability and freedom the US possessed when it came to nuclear warfare. [1]

Operation Giant Lance was intended to jar foreign forces into favourable diplomatic agreements to end the war, to avoid Nixon ordering Operation Duck Hook. [2] [3] Despite the operation ending as a bluff tactic, the operation served to add credibility both to Nixon's madman threats and the proactiveness of the U.S. [3] However this may not have been successful due to the large anti-war movement at the time, which tended to discourage nuclear operations. [9] [2] Seymour Hersh believed that the operation also served as an adjunct to Operation Duck Hook, a proposed mining and bombing operation against North Vietnam. [3]

The Soviets showed no clear reaction in response to the Giant Lance patrols. [3] Whilst there may not have been a direct response to the operation, there was a reaction from Soviet intelligence: a sudden heightened nuclear alert. [2] This was the goal of the operation: to make the operation visible to Soviet intelligence whilst hiding it from the American public. [5] [3] The Soviets may have seen Nixon's move simply as a bluff. [3] In October 1973, a Soviet official exclaimed that "Mr. Nixon used to exaggerate his intentions regularly. He used alerts and leaks to do this", which may have caused the U.S. operational threat to be ignored. [3]

Perception of U.S. nuclear threat

Although both Moscow and Hanoi did not show any reaction to Operation Giant Lance and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, the uncertainty of Nixon's nuclear power posed a significant threat. [3] [8] Nixon's continuous nuclear threat towards Hanoi was undermined by the anti-war sentiment on U.S. home soil. [9] This implied to Hanoi that the U.S. did not wish for further war, or to risk nuclear warfare. [9] The heightened fear of nuclear warfare caused a shared parity of nuclear avoidance across all participants in the war. [2] Neither side wanted a military confrontation that would escalate to that level. [2]

There also existed the danger that excessive reliance on the nuclear threat in times of war would cause other governments to begin to accept this as the norm. [10] [2] Nuclear fear might bring the possibility of increased nuclear use. [9] [2] Continual development of nuclear technology and reliance thereon would inevitably lead to increasing paranoia. [2] Military escalation could lead to “the threat that leaves something to chance”. [10] [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strategic Air Command</span> 1946–1992 US Air Force major command; predecessor of USAF Global Strike Command

Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile components of the United States military's strategic nuclear forces from 1946 to 1992. SAC was also responsible for the operation of strategic reconnaissance aircraft and airborne command post aircraft as well as most of the USAF's aerial refueling fleet, including aircraft from the Air Force Reserve (AFRES) and Air National Guard (ANG).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melvin Laird</span> 20th-century American politician

Melvin Robert Laird Jr. was an American politician, writer and statesman. He was a U.S. congressman from Wisconsin from 1953 to 1969 before serving as Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon. Laird was instrumental in forming the administration's policy of withdrawing U.S. soldiers from the Vietnam War; he coined the expression "Vietnamization," referring to the process of transferring more responsibility for combat to the South Vietnamese forces. First elected in 1952, Laird was the last living Representative elected to the 83rd Congress at the time of his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DEFCON</span> Alert posture used by the United States Armed Forces

The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces. For security reasons, the US military does not announce a DEFCON level to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vietnamization</span> Policy of American withdrawal from South Vietnam near the end of the Vietnam War

Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops". Brought on by the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, the policy referred to U.S. combat troops specifically in the ground combat role, but did not reject combat by the U.S. Air Force, as well as the support to South Vietnam, consistent with the policies of U.S. foreign military assistance organizations. U.S. citizens' mistrust of their government that had begun after the offensive worsened with the release of news about U.S. soldiers massacring civilians at My Lai (1968), the invasion of Cambodia (1970), and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers (1971).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Linebacker II</span> American bombing campaign in the Vietnam war

Operation Linebacker II, sometimes referred to as the Christmas bombings, was a strategic bombing campaign conducted by the United States against targets in North Vietnam from December 18 to December 29, 1972, during the Vietnam War. More than 20,000 tons of ordnance was dropped on military and industrial areas in Hanoi and Haiphong and at least 1,624 civilians were killed. The operation was the final major military operation carried out by the U.S. during the conflict, and the largest bombing campaign involving heavy bombers since World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paris Peace Accords</span> 1973 agreement between North and South Vietnam and the US to end the Vietnam War

The Paris Peace Accords, officially the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam, was a peace agreement signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The agreement was signed by the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ; the Republic of Vietnam ; the United States; and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which represented South Vietnamese communists. US ground forces had begun to withdraw from Vietnam in 1969, and had suffered from deteriorating morale during the withdrawal. By the beginning of 1972 those that remained had very little involvement in combat. The last American infantry battalions withdrew in August 1972. Most air and naval forces, and most advisers, also were gone from South Vietnam by that time, though air and naval forces not based in South Vietnam were still playing a large role in the war. The Paris Agreement removed the remaining US forces. Direct U.S. military intervention was ended, and fighting between the three remaining powers temporarily stopped for less than a day. The agreement was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David C. Jones</span> 9th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

David Charles Jones was a United States Air Force general and the ninth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this capacity, Jones served as the highest-ranking uniformed officer of the United States Armed Forces. He previously served as the ninth Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force and fifteenth commander of the United States Air Forces in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tactical Air Command</span> Inactive US Air Force command

Tactical Air Command (TAC) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. It was a Major Command of the United States Air Force, established on 21 March 1946 and headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. It was inactivated on 1 June 1992 and its personnel and equipment absorbed by Air Combat Command (ACC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Linebacker</span> 1972 American bombing campaign against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War

Operation Linebacker was the codename of a U.S. Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy Task Force 77 air interdiction campaign conducted against North Vietnam from 9 May to 23 October 1972, during the Vietnam War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madman theory</span> Feature of Richard Nixons foreign policy

The madman theory is a political theory commonly associated with the foreign policy of U.S. President Richard Nixon and his administration, who tried to make the leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations think Nixon was irrational and volatile so that they would avoid provoking the U.S. in fear of an unpredictable response.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Scratchley Brown</span> United States Air Force general

George Scratchley Brown was a United States Air Force general who served as the eighth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this capacity, he served as the senior military adviser to the president of the United States, the National Security Council and the secretary of defense. Through the commanders of the unified and specified commands, he was also responsible for executing the decisions of the National Command Authorities regarding worldwide readiness and employment of combat forces of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duck Hook</span> U.S. intelligence operation

Duck Hook was the White House code-name of an operation President Richard Nixon had threatened to unleash against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, if North Vietnam did not yield to Washington's terms at the Paris peace negotiations. Duck Hook called for the possible-nuclear bombing of military and economic targets in and around Hanoi, the mining of Haiphong harbor and other ports, saturation bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, the bombing of dikes to destroy the food supply of much of the population of North Vietnam, air strikes against North Vietnam's northeast line of communications as well as passes and bridges at the Chinese border, and air and ground attacks on other targets throughout Vietnam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Menu</span> 1969–1970 US covert military operation in Cambodia

Operation Menu was a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) tactical bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia from 18 March 1969 to 26 May 1970 as part of both the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. The targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and base areas of the People's Army of Vietnam and forces of the Viet Cong (VC), which used them for resupply, training, and resting between campaigns across the border in the Republic of Vietnam. The impact of the bombing campaign on the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, the PAVN, and Cambodian civilians in the bombed areas is disputed by historians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">92nd Air Refueling Wing</span> Military unit

The 92d Air Refueling Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Mobility Command Eighteenth Air Force. It is stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington. The wing is also the host unit at Fairchild. The wing carries out air refueling, passenger and cargo airlift, and aero-medical evacuation missions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Pocket Money</span> 1972 U.S. blockade of North Vietnamese ports by naval mining

Operation Pocket Money was the title of a U.S. Navy Task Force 77 aerial mining campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 9 May 1972, during the Vietnam War. Its purpose was to halt or slow the transportation of supplies and materials for the Nguyen Hue Offensive, an invasion of the Republic of Vietnam, by forces of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), that had been launched on 30 March. Pocket Money was the first use of naval mines against North Vietnam.

The US foreign policy during the presidency of Richard Nixon (1969–1974) focused on reducing the dangers of the Cold War among the Soviet Union and China. President Richard Nixon's policy sought on détente with both nations, which were hostile to the U.S. and to each other in the wake of the Sino-Soviet split. He moved away from the traditional American policy of containment of communism, hoping each side would seek American favor. Nixon's 1972 visit to China ushered in a new era of U.S.-China relations and effectively removed China as a Cold War foe. The Nixon administration signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union and organized a conference that led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords after Nixon left office.

Jeffrey P. Kimball is an American historian and emeritus professor at Miami University. Among the ideas that Kimball developed was the idea of a Vietnam stab-in-the-back myth. He also argued that threats to use nuclear weapons had not been effective at advancing the United States' foreign policy goals either in the Korean War, Vietnam War, or the First Taiwan Strait Crisis. Historian Luke Nichter wrote that Kimball's books "shaped future works, and these volumes on my shelves stand as a reminder that my own work on the Nixon tapes would not have happened without them". According to historian Ken Hughes, Kimball is "the leading scholar of the 'decent interval'": the idea that Nixon eventually settled for securing a "decent interval" before South Vietnamese defeat. Hughes regrets that Kimball's work is "virtually unknown" outside academia.

Decent interval is a theory regarding the end of the Vietnam War which argues that from 1971 or 1972, the Nixon Administration abandoned the goal of preserving South Vietnam and instead aimed to save face by preserving a "decent interval" between withdrawal and South Vietnamese collapse. Therefore, Nixon could avoid becoming the first United States president to lose a war.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Readiness Test was a secret test and alert of U.S. military forces staged by the U.S. Department of Defense. It began on October 12, 1969, and consisted of a variety of military moves around the world, including activities by U.S. air and naval forces from the continental U.S. to the North Atlantic and from the Middle East to the Western Pacific.

The Movement and the "Madman" (2023) is a feature documentary directed by Stephen Talbot. The documentary covers the 1969 showdown over the war in Vietnam between the peace movement in the United States and President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. Based on interviews with antiwar activists, historians, and former Kissinger aides, the film shows how two enormous demonstrations in the fall of 1969 pressured Nixon to cancel what he called his “madman” plans to drastically escalate the war, including threats to use nuclear weapons.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Suri, Jeremi (2008-02-25). "The Nukes of October: Richard Nixon's Secret Plan to Bring Peace to Vietnam". Wired Magazine . Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Sagan, Scott; Suri, Jeremi (2003). "The Madman Nuclear Alert: Secrecy, Signaling, and Safety in October 1969". International Security. 27 (4): 150–183. doi:10.1162/016228803321951126. JSTOR   4137607. S2CID   57564244.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Burr, William; Kimball, Jeffrey (2003). "Nixon's Nuclear Ploy". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 59 (1): 28–73. doi:10.2968/059001011 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jesse Ventura (4 April 2011). 63 Documents The Government Doesn't Want You To Read . Skyhorse Publishing, 2011. p.  170. ISBN   978-1-61608-226-0.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Burr, William; Kimball, Jeffry (December 23, 2002). "Nixon's Nuclear Ploy: The Vietnam Negotiations and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test". The National Security Archive.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Delpech, Therese (2012). Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Lessons from the Cold War for a New Era of Strategic Piracy. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation. ISBN   9780833059307. JSTOR   10.7249/mg1103rc.
  7. 1 2 Cressman, Dale (July 28, 2015). "The Great Silent Majority: Nixon's 1969 Speech on Vietnamization". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 45 (3): 144. doi:10.1111/psq.12214.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McManus, Roseanne (September 13, 2019). "Revisiting the Madman Theory: Evaluating the Impact of Different Forms of Perceived Madness in Coercive Bargaining". Security Studies. 28 (5): 976–1009. doi:10.1080/09636412.2019.1662482. S2CID   203470748.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Stone, Oliver; Kuznick, Peter (2012). The untold history of the United States. New York: Gallery Books. p. 364.
  10. 1 2 Schelling, Thomas (May 15, 1981). The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 187–203. ISBN   9780674840317.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.