I have heard this before. This time its from a Chinese newspaper.

USSR planned nuclear attack on China in 1969 - UK Telegraph

I disagree with this part:

Then US President Richard Nixon was also apparently fearful of the effect of a nuclear war on 250,000 US troops stationed in the Asia-Pacific region and still smarting from a Soviet refusal five years earlier to stage a joint attack on China's nascent nuclear programme.

In 1965 Johnson was President, not Nixon. So Nixon would have had little interest in what Johnson had proposed and I have never heard about this. In 1965 the USSR and China were neutral in the relationship, the relation went downhill in 1966 with the start of the cultural revolution peaking in 1969 with the various border incidents.

My guess was the part about the US proposing a strike against China was make the article even handed and not be seen as anti-Soviet.

Labels: China Politics, Chinese History