21°23′13″N 103°0′56″E / 21.38694°N 103.01556°E / 21.38694; 103.01556

Operation Vulture (French: Opération Vautour) was the name of the proposed U.S. operation that would rescue French forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 via B-29 raids based in the Philippines. The French garrison had been surrounded by the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War. When the British government refused to give its support (something that Eisenhower required for the operation to proceed), the plan was cancelled and as a result the French Army organised Operation Condor, an attempt to weaken the Viet Minh artillery's assaults against the besieged French Union garrison.

Viet Minh forces under General Võ Nguyên Giáp surrounded and besieged the French, who were unaware of the Viet Minh's possession of heavy artillery, including anti-aircraft guns. The attack that formally began the battle was launched 13 March 1954. French artillery outposts fell within hours, and a dismal trickle of wounded survivors into Dien Bien Phu's garrison hospital began. The French tried to hit back with artillery and airpower, including some 30 US C-119 Flying Boxcars which had been modified to drop napalm on the Viet Minh artillery and flown mainly by American employees of Civil Air Transport, the contract airline founded by Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, the head of the World War II Flying Tigers. Dien Bien Phu could be supplied only via airdrop, and dropping and retrieving supplies became difficult as Viet Minh artillery shrank the effective size of the drop zone. On 27 March, French Col. Jean-Louis Nicot, the officer in charge of the aerial resupply effort, had to raise the drop altitude from 2,000 feet to 8,000 feet. Drop zone accuracy declined, and some supplies inevitably fell into Viet Minh hands. The French, with the encouragement of some US officials based in Saigon, pressed hard for the US to launch an overwhelming air strike to save Dien Bien Phu.

Giap's initial assault began on March 13, 1954. General Paul Ély, the French Chief of Staff, arrived in Washington to plead the French case to US policy-makers. on March 20. Discussions involved General Ély, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. At a meeting in Washington on 20 March 1954, Admiral Radford proposed to General Ély a plan calling for United States to use 60 B-29 bombers in the Philippines together with the aircraft of the 7th Fleet based in the Gulf of Tonkin to bomb the Vietminh forces besieging the French at Dien Bien Phu. Ély came away from the meeting with the impression that the Americans would intervene and promptly reported to Paris that he had Radford's assurances to that effect.

The plan included as many as 98 B-29s from Okinawa and the Philippines that would drop 1,400 tonnes of bombs on positions held by the Viet Minh. Another version of the plan envisioned sending 60 B-29s from US bases in the region, supported by as many as 150 fighters launched from US Seventh Fleet carriers, to bomb Giap's positions.

The plan included an option to use up to three small atomic weapons on the Viet Minh positions in support of the French. The Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up plans to deploy tactical atomic weapons, U.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin, and reconnaissance flights over Dien Bien Phu were conducted during the negotiations. Radford, the top American military officer, gave this nuclear option his backing. US B-29s, B-36s, and B-47s could have executed a nuclear strike, as could carrier aircraft from the Seventh Fleet. Admiral Radford was the leading voice within the government for Operation Vulture, citing a study that three tactical atomic bombs "properly employed" would decisively smash the Vietminh forces besieging the French at Dien Bien Phu, and thereby turn a certain defeat into a victory.

The U.S. Air Force's commanding officer, General Nathan F. Twining, endorsed Vulture, but General Matthew Ridgway of the U.S. Army was stoutly opposed. Ridgway stated that air power alone could not save the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu and argued that only the commitment of seven U.S. Army divisions could save the French. Ridgway further contended that if the United States intervened in Vietnam it was almost a given that China would likewise intervene. Dien Bien Phu was located in the northern part of Vietnam that put it into the proximity of China, and China had intervened in the Korean War in 1950 on the grounds that the United Nations advance into North Korea was a threat to its security. If China intervened in Vietnam, Ridgway asserted the U.S. Army would need twelve divisions in Vietnam to have a chance of victory. Ridgway concluded that "Indochina is devoid of decisive military objectives" and fighting another land war against China "would be a serious diversion of limited U.S. capabilities". Ridgway thought that Radford as an admiral was far too dismissive of Chinese power and that he was blind to the political dangers of the United States fighting again against China in less than a year after the end of the Korean War, causing much discord on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ridgway was the leader of a faction within the U.S. Army known as the "Never Again Club" that regarded the Korean War which ended in a draw as an unsatisfactory outcome from the American perspective, and were strongly opposed to fighting another land war in Asia, especially against the Chinese.

Both the Vice President, Richard Nixon, and the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, were all for Vulture and lobbied Eisenhower hard to accept it, arguing that it was essential to stop Communism in Vietnam. Eisenhower himself felt much guilt over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and during one meeting told Admiral Radford and General Twining: "You boys must be crazy. We can't use those awful things against Asians for a second time in less than ten years. My God!" Eisenhower finally agreed to carry out Vulture, but if Congress gave its approval first and if Great Britain agreed to join in. At a press conference Eisenhower stated: "There is going to be no involvement of America in war unless it is the result of the constitutional process that is placed upon Congress to declare it. Now, let us have that clear". Eisenhower was referring to the clause in the American constitution that gave the power to declare war to Congress.