Good morning, it's Thursday, May 24, 2018. Fifty-four years ago today, presumptive Republican nominee Barry Goldwater enlivened the nation's political conversation -- and simultaneously undermined his chances of living in the White House -- by ruminating aloud about the possible use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
A decorated military transport pilot during World War II, Goldwater was already on record as saying a “defensive war” is hard to win. And in his May 24, 1964 appearance on ABC News' “Issues and Answers,” moderator Howard K. Smith asked the conservative Arizona senator how he believed the escalating war in Vietnam should be prosecuted.
“There have been several suggestions made,” Goldwater replied. “I don't think we would use any of them, but defoliation of the forests by low-yield atomic weapons could well be done. When you remove the foliage, you remove the cover. The major supply lines, though, would have to be interdicted where they leave Red China, which is the Red River Valley above North Vietnam -- and there, according to my geography, it would be a difficult task to destroy those basic routes.”
