Action against the ChiCom nuclear facilities which was incidental to other military actions taken against Communist China in response to Chinese aggression would generally be preferable to actions directed against nuclear facilities alone. Similarly, threats designed to deter ChiCom action should probably not be directed solely against nuclear facilities. It seems most unlikely that we can develop, through negotiations in the arms control field, a politically viable basis for action against the ChiCom nuclear facilities. The USSR is also most unlikely to agree explicitly or implicitly to U.S. action against ChiCom facilities or to cooperate in helping lay the political basis for such action. But arms control negotiations can further isolate the Chinese on this issue and can thus help prepare the way for possible action taken in other ways and on other grounds against the ChiCom facilities.
Covert action seems to offer the politically most feasible form of action.
Such action would present least problems if undertaken as part of a reaction to Chinese Communist aggression. Political costs of action in the absence of ChiCom aggression are difficult to estimate. There are a number of technical and technical-related questions which would require an answer before a decision for any of the possible forms of action were made. It is doubtful whether, even with completion of initial photographic coverage of the mainland, we will have anything like complete assurance that we will have identified all significant nuclear installations. Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-68, Vol.