This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I am Gaius, John Batser.

Germanicus is here. He is Mark of Lejos. We're enjoying ourselves because this is our youth, yet not.

And we've been speculating about the Pentagon papers, which are an aspect of the leak, if it is a leak,

about what we could call the Ukrainian papers in these last days.

But now we go to William Westmoreland's decision in 1968 to fight to the end at Kassan, a firebase with Marines and Special Forces down the road,

surrounded by the Vietnamese Army, the very good Vietnamese Army, very good regiments. These are not Viet Cong. This is first-rate stuff. These were very tough, very well supplied, heavily armored.

They had big guns. They weren't just all shooting a coalition of coughs, AK-47s.

And I read this section from a new book about Westmoreland and what he planned. And this is meant to surprise everybody, because I'd forgotten it until I read it again.

You know, these days, Nukes, Putin's always talking about Satan too, and nuclear weapons, and the US has suspended transparency on New Start,

and there's finger-pointing going back and forth at NATO about nuclear weapons, and let's get ready for the future. Well, this is 1968.

The attack on Kassan was a faint, designed to draw even more Marines away from the strategic coastal cities of Icor. But for Westmoreland, it was the defining act in the drama, his opportunity to replay the siege of Yanban Fu.

The enemy would throw their full weight against the base, and he would crush them. The French commanders, after all, had not had the benefit of B-52s or F-4 Phantoms or Rainbow Herbicide, 28th-Agen-Orch.

Let alone the arcane new technologies dreamed up by a scientist, the Hochimen Trail, the Electronic Hochimen Trail fence.

If there was a serious threat that Kassan might fall, Westmoreland was prepared to resort to tactical nuclear weapons. Here's the quote, although I recognized the controversial nature of the subject, said the general,

the willingness to use such extreme measures would, quote, tell Hanoi something, just as the two atomic weapons had spoken convincingly to Japanese officials during World War II.

Without informing the White House, Westmoreland put together a secret plan, codenamed Operation Fractured Jaw.

I learned from a footnote that he did inform the commander of the Pacific Command, the Navy, Grant Sharp, the Admiral.

He did inform Earl Wheeler, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on February 10th, 1968. He informed them.

But they didn't tell the president. Walt Rostow, the National Security Advisor, found out, according to this memo, and told Lyndon Johnson.

Johnson was said to be exercised, immediately communicated through Rostow to tell Westmoreland nothing about this is to go forward,

and no one is to ever say anything about it. Well, here we are saying something about it, Germanicus, and I bring it to you, because if William Westmoreland, a straight arrow, four years in command of the Vietnam War, four years, Earl Wheeler, a straight arrow,

Grant Sharp, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, a straight arrow. If they're in a conversation about using tactical nuclear weapons against the Vietnamese,

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