MacArthur’s Plans to Drop 50 Nuclear Bombs During the Korean War
History Unplugged Podcast
History Unplugged
4.2 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Korean War came dangerously close to going nuclear, and if would have if Gen. Douglas MacArthur had gotten his way. He proposed using 30 to 50 nuclear primarily to targeting air bases, depots, and supply lines across the neck of Manchuria to create a radioactive barrier and halt Chinese and North Korean advances. This would have killed millions and almost definitely brought the Soviet Union into full-scale war against the United States.
In this episode, we explore the Korean War’s pivotal role in shaping the Cold War, diving into the tense standoff between East and West. The conflict erupted with North Korea’s 1950 invasion, prompting a daring counteroffensive by MacArthur, whose strategic overreach drew Communist China into the fray. The rapid escalation pushed the U.S. to contemplate using nuclear weapons, a decision that could have reshaped the 20th century.
To explore this is today’s guest, Robert Lyman, author of “Korea: War Without End.” The Korean War was not planned as a Communist offensive against the West. In turn, the East did not understand the principle at the core of the Western response to Kim Il-sung’s aggression, namely a refusal to appease an aggressor, the key mistake the West considered to be at the heart of the rise of Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan in the 1930s.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Scott here with another episode of the History Unplugged podcast. |
| 0:07.0 | If there was ever a time that the Cold War could have gone hot, it would have been at the beginning of the Korean War. |
| 0:13.0 | It started in June 1950, and by October 1950, the U.S. South Korea and its allies had successfully pushed North Korea back to the 30th parallel. |
| 0:21.6 | But U.S. General Douglas MacArthur wanted to do more and completely retake the peninsula and achieve total victory, like in World War II, and to do so, he proposed using nuclear weapons. |
| 0:31.7 | Not just two nuclear weapons, like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but up to 20. |
| 0:36.1 | This could have resulted in up to 4 million deaths |
| 0:38.3 | and irradiated large swaths of Korea, Manchuria, and other parts of China, in almost |
| 0:43.3 | certain escalation with the Soviet Union. None of this happened, but it chose the strategic |
| 0:47.6 | overreach, which led the Communist China's involvement on the North Korean side and the rapid |
| 0:52.3 | escalation afterwards. Today's episode, we're speaking to Robert Lyman, author of Korea, War Without End, |
| 0:58.3 | that looks at this escalation in the Korean War that ultimately define the second half of the |
| 1:02.0 | 20th century and the creation of the global security state. |
| 1:05.1 | We look at all the different what-ifs of the Cold War, the chaos of political decision-making |
| 1:09.5 | at the war's outset, and how Western |
| 1:11.5 | military planners ultimately consider North Korea to be a sequel to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, |
| 1:17.5 | and thought they had to use similar methods. We'll enjoy this discussion with Robert Weil. |
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