Nixon's Nuclear Ploy: The Vietnam Negotiations and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, October 1969
Today, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an article, "Nixon's Nuclear Ploy,'' by National Security Archive senior analyst William Burr and Miami University historian Jeffrey Kimball,(1) that discloses for the first time one of the Nixon administration's most secret military operations. During October 1969, President Richard Nixon ordered the Pentagon to undertake secretly a series of military measures designed to put U.S. nuclear forces on a higher state of readiness. For nearly three weeks, U.S. nuclear bombers were on higher alert, while U.S.