US launches a nuclear strike on Hanoi; global crisis follows

Military action

The incident ends the Vietnam War, but a nuclear standoff ensues as the Sino-Soviet bloc mulls retaliation.

After several months as president, Goldwater comes to believe that the only way out of the Vietnam quagmire is through brutal, decisive military action. He acts without congressional approval and after consulting only a select handful of advisors. Though he has voiced a willingness to engage in limited nuclear warfare previously, most Americans assumed he was not speaking literally; virtually everyone, from the plugged-in politico to the average civilian, is taken wholly off-guard.   The ICBM strike hits Hanoi in the early hours of morning. It decimates the North Vietnamese government and abruptly ends the Vietnam War. Total casualties are expected to exceed one million.   A miniature repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis follows. Americans living in coastal population centers, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, are warned that a Soviet or Chinese nuclear strike could occur at any moment. Terrified urban Californians spark a statewide run on the banks and cause innumerable shortages of goods. Schools close and businesses suspend operation.   After 10 days, Nikita Khrushchev issues a statement – cosigned by Mao Zhedong – promising that there will be no retaliatory strike. From the American perspective, the reasons for this clemency are still unclear. Once it becomes clear there will be no escalation, American troops are evacuated. Pro-US forces soon take over Viet Cong territory, but the government is unable to maintain rule and the country devolves into perpetual guerrilla warfare.   New Left identitarian and anti-Cold War movements take the opportunity to rally disgruntled Californians to their cause. They decry Goldwater's ‘terror-bombing’ of Vietnam and Nixon’s premature destruction of the nonviolence movement.