186 { China’s Quest
American solicitations—an ironic reversal of the situation that would exist a
mere six years later.
Satellite imagery of Chinese nuclear facilities became available to US
leaders in August 1960. Over the next several years, US intelligence agencies
put together a composite picture of China’s nuclear weapons program. As
soon as he took office, Kennedy was concerned about the impact of Chinese
nuclear capability on that country’s foreign policies, fearing that once
China had nuclear bombs it would become even more supportive of wars
of national liberation in such places as Laos and South Vietnam. Kennedy
thus began to consider whether the split between Beijing and Moscow
might make the Soviet Union willing to cooperate with the United States
in stifling PRC nuclear weapons development. A number of options were
considered. Veteran US diplomat Averill Harriman believed that a simple
joint Soviet-American demand on Beijing, perhaps fortified with a threat
of attack if China failed to comply, could induce China to back away from
testing a nuclear weapon. There was also the possibility, Kennedy admin-
istration officials believed, that Moscow might agree to stand aside if the
United States took unilateral military action against China’s nuclear sites.
There was even the possibility, some thought, that the Soviet Union might
be willing to join the United States in a preemptive strike. Various methods
of preemptive attack were deliberated. By September 1963, the US military
had concluded that the only feasible method would entail multiple waves
of strikes by US warplanes. But without at least Soviet understanding, the
risks and costs of such an operation could be very high. Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Curtis LeMay warned in April 1963 that without Soviet
approval, a US attack could, in fact, trigger a general East-West war. With it,
however, Beijing was unlikely to retaliate in a forceful manner to a preemp-
tive strike, LeMay maintained.
At a summit meeting in Vienna in June 1961, Kennedy broached with
Khrushchev the idea of cooperation in dealing with China’s nuclear program.
The Soviet leader was not interested and refused to pursue the matter. In May
1963, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy again broached the issue
with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, proposing a “private and seri-
ous” discussion of China’s nuclear weapons development. Again the Soviet
representative demurred, diverting discussion to NATO’s plan to give West
Germany a limited role in the Alliance’s utilization of tactical nuclear weap-
ons, a move Moscow fiercely opposed. During the 1963 PTBT negotiations
in Moscow, US Ambassador Harriman briefed Khrushchev on Kennedy’s
thinking about parallel Soviet and American interests regarding China
and nuclear arms, and his hope either for Soviet willingness to take action
with the US or at least accept unilateral US action. Khrushchev rejected the
idea. A nuclear-armed China would not be a threat to the Soviet Union,
Khrushchev averred. In terms of its foreign policy behavior, a nuclear-armed