Video: 'Korean War - PART 16, The Low Point, 6.25' (Nov. 30, 1950, at 5:24)

(Thursday, November 30, 1950, 10:30 a.m. EST; during the Second Phase Offensive, part of the Korean War and the Cold War) — As Chinese forces of the People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) pushed back United Nations forces from the Yalu River, U.S. President Harry S. Truman frightened the world today when he declared during a press conference that UN forces would “take whatever steps are necessary to meet the military situation in Korea,” including use of the atomic bomb.

When Jack Dougherty of the Daily News of New York asked, “Will that include the atomic bomb?”, Truman replied, “That includes every weapon that we have.”

Paul R. Leach of the Chicago Daily News then asked, “Does that mean that there is active consideration of the use of the atomic bomb?”, and Truman said, “There has always been active consideration of its use.”

A third reporter, Merriman Smith of United Press, asked Truman “Did we understand you clearly” about active consideration of atomic weapons in Korea, and the President reaffirmed that it “always has been. It is one of our weapons.”

Concern was so strong that British Prime Minister Prime Minister Clement Attlee flew to Washington on Dec. 4, 1950, for an emergency meeting with the President.