Powell concluded from the exercise that war with the Soviet Union probably would trigger nuclear war; that nuclear weapons, once used, couldn’t be controlled; and that, therefore, war had to be prevented at all cost. This was one problem Powell had with the whole business of Limited Nuclear Options. He told Miller, during one of their sessions, that there was nothing to support the idea that we could drop a few nukes on Soviet territory and say, “Let’s stop here.” There was nothing in the intelligence reports to suggest that the Soviets would play the same game—that they would do anything but
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