20. Fact: Richard Nixon proposed using nuclear weapons in Vietnam when the French were still fighting there
Richard Nixon, as Vice-President for Lyndon Johnson, was an early hawk on Vietnam, believing as early as 1954 that American troops would be required there in order to contain communism, and pushing Ike for a more vigorous American response to the war between the Viet Minh and the French colonial troops. Nixon prodded the Chiefs-of-Staff to authorize Operation Vulture, an aerial assault on the Vietnamese troops attacking Dien Bien Phu with both conventional weapons and three atomic bombs, which according to Nixon would have ended the Vietnam War then and there. Nixon later proposed using the threat of nuclear attack in Vietnam to bring the North Vietnamese leadership to the peace table. In both instances, cooler heads prevailed, Ike canceled Operation Vulture in 1954, and Kissinger persuaded Nixon to abandon the idea in 1969.
