Home»History and Legacy»Timeline»1945-1964: The Road to War»Army Planning Division Completes A Study On The Potential Use Of Atomic Weapons At Dien Bien Phu

Army Planning Division Completes A Study On The Potential Use Of Atomic Weapons At Dien Bien Phu

March 25, 1954

General Matthew Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff, 1953-1955
General Matthew Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff, 1953-1955
General Matthew Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff, 1953-1955

The Army’s G–3 Plans Division completes a study that concludes that atomic weapons could be used to relieve the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. While the Plans Division approves the results of the study, it provokes heated criticism from other military branches in terms of the potential military effectiveness and political consequences. Army Chief of Staff General Matthew B. Ridgeway and his Chief of Research and Development order the studies shelved, and President Eisenhower is reportedly also very much against their use.1

1Ronald H. Spector, Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960, The U.S. Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1985), 200–201; Edward Miller, Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 73; George C. Herring and Richard H. Immerman, “Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dienbienphu: ‘The Day We Didn’t Go to War’ Revisited,” The Journal of American History 71 (September 1984).