US Intended to Destroy Civilian Populations With Nuclear Strikes During 1950s

US Intended to Destroy Civilian Populations With Nuclear Strikes During 1950s, Newly Declassified Document Reveals

A. Buncombe - The Independent (Britain)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-intended-to-destroy-civilian-populations-in-enemy-cities-during-cold-war-according-to-a6784756.html

First came Moscow and Leningrad, with more than 300 targeted sites or Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs), in those two cities alone. Then there was Warsaw and Beijing, and an astonishing 1,200 other cities. This was the list of targets drawn up "systematic destruction" by US nuclear strikes at the height of the Cold War for nuclear strikes, and declassified more than fifty years later. The list reveals that the priority for any operation launched by the US was airfields and installations, as they wanted to be able to destroy any chance the Soviet Union had of itself attacking America. But included in each city are specific areas - a detail that to this day remains classified - that the US intended to target because of their dense human populations. This tactic was apparently at odds with international rules of war that prohibit specific targeting of civilians.