Eisenhower’s threats to use nuclear weapons against China, for example, contained a healthy dose of high-stakes bluffing. In September 1958, at the height of a crisis over Taiwan, when the Strategic Air Command deployed to Guam B-47s capable of carrying Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs, Eisenhower remarked to his generals: “You boys must be crazy. We can’t use those awful things against Asians for the second time.”
