In 1958, a crisis over Quemoy and Matsu in the Taiwan Straits brought the world dangerously close to nuclear war. Morton Halperin’s top-secret 1966 study of the Taiwan Straits Crisis revealed the seriousness with which US military and civilian leaders considered using nuclear weapons against China. RAND’s publicly available version of the study has significant redactions that obscure the nature of the threat. Ellsberg has released an unredacted version of the study.
Main Article:
Risk of Nuclear War Over Taiwan in 1958 Said to Be Greater Than Publicly Known, by Charlie Savage, New York Times, 5/22/21
Follow-On Articles:
Daniel Ellsberg Is 90 Years Old and Still Causing Trouble, by Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 5/24/21
US Generals Said Nuclear Bomb Would Tame Mao, by Ben Hoyle, The Times (UK), 5/24/21
US Considered Nuclear Strike on China to Protect Taiwan from Communist Forces in 1958, Leaked Documents Reveal – As Tensions Rise in the Region, by Lauren Fruen, Daily Mail, 5/23/21
50 Years After Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg Reveals U.S. Weighed 1958 Nuclear Strike on China over Taiwan, Democracy Now, 6/14/21
Smart Statesmen Can Make Bad Decisions Leading to Nuclear War: Interview with Daniel Ellsberg, by Koji Sonoda, The Asahi Shimbun, 6/19/21
US Military Considered Using Nuclear Weapons Against China in 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, Leaked Documents Show, by Ben Westcott, CNN, 5/24/21
US Considered Nuclear Strike on China in 1958 to Protect Taiwan, Documents Show, by John Bowden, The Hill, 5/24/21
Why Daniel Ellsberg Wants the U.S. to Prosecute Him Under the Espionage Act, by Jon Schwarz, The Intercept, 6/1/21
United States Considered Nuclear Strike on China over Taiwan in 1958, Classified Documents Reveal, South China Morning Post, 5/23/21
WW3: US and China Stood on Brink of Nuclear Armageddon over 1958 Taiwan Conflict – Report, by John Varga, Express (UK), 5/24/21
Not Even Past: Dan Ellsberg vs. New Madmen’s Theories of Cold War & Press Suppression, by Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.), Antiwar.com, 5/27/21
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The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis (Quemoy) Study
by Morton Halperin, 1966
(the full unredacted version)
Ellsberg’s Note on the Significance of the Taiwan Straits / Quemoy Crisis Study:
I consulted with my friend Morton Halperin when he began the research for this study, I believe, in 1963. Having participated myself in the Cuban Missile Crisis a few months earlier, I spent most of 1963 and the first half of 1964 doing research on nuclear crises at the RAND corporation in Santa Monica, California, for which Halperin was a consultant. When I joined the Defense Department as a full time employee in August 1964, as special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs (ISA), my purpose was really to pursue my investigation of this subject, in the hopes of reducing the chance of nuclear war in the future.
When Halperin completed his study at the end of 1966, my Draft Notes on the Offshore Islands Crisis of 1963 were a product of my consultation with Halperin in February 1963. In the mid ’60s, the crisis over Quemoy and Matsu, Offshore Islands in the Taiwan Strait—which is variously described as the Offshore Islands (OSI) Crisis, the Quemoy Crisis, or in the title of Halperin’s study “The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis”—was not generally perceived as having been a nuclear crisis, despite the fears expressed publicly by politicians and commentators that it could possibly have erupted into nuclear war.
What Halperin discovered in his classified (Top Secret) study was that the nuclear dimensions of this confrontation were taken very seriously by the Eisenhower administration, and in particular the military advisers and commanders involved. Indeed, Christian Herter, who succeeded John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State, was reported to have said later, “The Cuban Missile Crisis is often described as the first serious nuclear crisis; those of us who lived through the Quemoy crisis definitely regarded that as the first serious nuclear crisis.” The reasons for this will be obvious every few pages of this study.