Nixon's secret plan: Scare up the peace

At the urging of a friend, I just read “The Nukes of October: Richard Nixon's Secret Plan to Bring Peace to Vietnam” written by Jeremi Suri for Wired.

It was equal parts goofy and chilling. And, since one of my favorite movies is “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” it was an irresistible read.

It was fun, too, because I remember how Nixon campaigned in 1968 on the promise he had a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War in six months ... well, now with this piece in Wired we may be seeing some of what he had in mind.

Codenamed Giant Lance, Nixon's plan was the culmination of a strategy of premeditated madness he had developed with national security adviser Henry Kissinger. The details of this episode remained secret for 35 years and have never been fully told. Now, thanks to documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, it's clear that Giant Lance was the leading example of what historians came to call the "madman theory": Nixon's notion that faked, finger-on-the-button rage could bring the Soviets to heel...

Click here to read all about those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summertime for the baby boomer generation, a time with the Cold War everywhere you looked.

-- Art by F.T. Rea (1999)