188 { China’s Quest
primarily a psychological impact in Asia, and were of “no importance” to the
Soviet government.
There were a number of reasons why US leaders ultimately ruled out a pre-
emptive strike against PRC nuclear facilities. But Moscow’s attitude was a
major factor. Without Soviet understanding, a US strike against China’s nu-
clear facilities was simply too risky. Fear of another war with China was an-
other factor. US leaders could not be confident Beijing would not respond by
imposing a large-scale war on the US—perhaps in Southeast Asia. Lyndon
Johnson’s 1964 electoral calculations also weighed against a pre-emptive
strike. Ambiguities in Chinese management of its dispute with Moscow may
have played a role in the US decision. Prominent US journalists reprised for
the public, including Chinese intelligence, the broad parameters of US gov-
ernment consideration of attack on China’s nuclear sites in 1961–1963. Stewart
Alsop, then one of the most prominent commentators, told readers of the
Saturday Evening Post in fall 1963 that the “president and his inner circle ...
have agreed in principle that China must be prevented, by whatever means,
from becoming a nuclear power.” “Nuclear sterilization,” Alsop said, would
require force, which was a “technically easy problem” that could be accom-
plished with a “few rather small bangs.”^51
It was certainly with calculations of not antagonizing Soviet leaders too
grievously that in April 1963, on the occasion of Khrushchev’s seventieth
birthday, Mao vetoed a highly polemical birthday greeting that a writing
group had drafted. Instead, Mao mandated a much more positive reply,
one promising “unity once we encounter trouble.” The message ultimately
read: “Once the world encounters big trouble, the two parties ... will stand
together to oppose the enemy.”^52 As noted earlier, it was extremely difficult
for Soviet leaders to imagine that communists could actually fight commu-
nists. By sprinkling such hints in CCP discourse with Moscow, Mao fed those
Soviet illusions.Preparing to Resist Soviet-American Collaborative InvasionBy 1964, the Sino-Soviet conflict had been transformed into a conflict between
two states and was rapidly being militarized. Washington and Moscow were
considering possible joint preemption of China’s nuclear sites. Simultaneously,
Chinese support for Hanoi’s revolutionary push was increasing in tandem
with increasing US support for South Vietnam’s noncommunist govern-
ment. Beijing and Washington were moving toward proxy war in Vietnam.
Confronted with increasing tensions with both the Soviet Union and the
United States, Mao resorted to two main defensive strategies: 1) building a
self-reliant defense industrial base in China’s interior which could sustain a
protracted war to counter a Soviet and/or US attack that knocked out China’s