The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

by William I. Hitchcock

finished in the whole Southeast Asian area.”8 The day before Kennedy took the oath of office, he came to the White House again, chiefly to discuss Laos. Eisenhower seemed to relish the opportunity to show Kennedy just how much power the commander in chief possessed. He walked Kennedy through the procedures to launch a nuclear attack, drawing on “the satchel filled with orders applicable to an emergency and carried by an unobtrusive man who would shadow the President for all his days in office.” He also went into a detailed discussion about the acute Laos crisis with Secretary Herter. The Soviets had launched an airlift to supply communist fighters in Laos; the North Vietnamese were helping. Kennedy asked Herter directly if the United States should intervene if invited to do so by the Laotian government, and Herter unequivocally said yes. Some 12,000 U.S. troops could be transported into Laos in two weeks from Okinawa. “It was the cork in the bottle. If Laos fell, then Thailand, the Philippines, and of course Chiang Kai-shek would go.”