Pres Nixon: 'a nuclear war a week'

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was reputed to have said during Nixon's presidency that 'if the president had his way, we'd have a nuclear war a week', based on the pres' tendency to make rash decisions, after consuming alcohol, to use military action in response to threats to US security interests, such as in 1969 with his demands to bomb Damascus airport after a hijacked airliner had been diverted there, and to launch a tactical nuclear strike against North Korea after a US spyplane was shot down. Kissinger and his associates developed the policy of not implementing the pres' alcohol-induced decisions for 24 hrs, after which time Nixon would see the errors of his original outbursts and adjust his orders accordingly, and apparently Kissinger and the JCS also instituted instructions to US lower-ranking commanders in charge of US nuclear facilities that they were not to follow the pres' orders to launch attacks unless they had direct authorisation from themselves 1st.

WI such a policy hadn't been developed to counter Nixon's dangerous alcoholism-induced decision-making, though ? Could the US have actually launched nuclear strikes in such an immediate, knee-jerk manner as to lead to fullscale nuclear war ?
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
He was a Quaker, you know.

Any of you know the song,

"God in His infinite wisdom placed Richard Nixon upon this earth to give us his heritage"?
 
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