Hong Kong (CNN) Military planners in Washington pushed for the White House to prepare plans to use nuclear weapons against mainland China during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958, newly leaked documents appear to confirm. "US first use of nuclear weapons should not be contemplated, prepared, or threatened anywhere, under any circumstances, including the defense of Taiwan," Ellsberg said in a post to his Twitter on Sunday. The Taiwan leak comes from previously classified sections of a 1966 report by think tank Rand Corporation on the 1958 Taiwan Straits crisis, written by M. H. Halperin for the Office of the then-Assistant Secretary of Defense. Soldiers stack artillery shells at the seaport on Quemoy Island in 1958 around the time of the Taiwan Strait crisis. In the end, Eisenhower was hesitant to use nuclear weapons and pushed for the US troops to stick to conventional arms.

Source: CNN May 24, 2021 06:33 UTC