The New York Times ran a story today about how 1963 tapes reveal that the United States was preparing to drop The Bomb on China in the event that China invaded India again. President Kennedy and his advisors, discussing the possibility of another invasion, strongly believed, given his pro-India stance, that the United States should support India against China. One of his advisors, Robert McNamara, is heard on tape as saying that instead of introducing large numbers of American troops, that nuclear bombs should be dropped on China instead. Read the article, but remember you'll need to register for the Times (which is free).

The context of that suggestion is that the advisors used the N-word as a way to get Kennedy to back off from a commitment they thought was a very bad idea. Still, this will have Chinese and Indian military, political and history analysts alike reassessing that era in history, before the Cultural Revolution had begun.