China's Nukes in the 1960s: Lessons for Today's Iran | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary

China's Nukes in the 1960s: Lessons for Today's Iran | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary: During the early and mid-1960s, there were similar panicked warnings about China’s nuclear ambitions.

"The assumption that the leaders of Maoist China were so reckless that they might well turn East Asia into a pile of radioactive rubble came through clearly in those editorials. Even though China did not at that time have intercontinental ballistic missiles, the National Review editors were not reassured. They warned that China already had planes that could drop bombs anywhere in Asia, and that “a ship can carry a Chinese bomb into the harbors of New Orleans, San Francisco, New York, or London.” Given that danger, the United States could not sit passively “like a man who merely watches and waits while the guillotine is constructed to chop his head off.”"