no matter how nit-picky even though I don’t necessarily always agree. Since this was written somewhat as a personal reminiscence of history that I personally witnessed, your inaccuracies are my facts. I think it depends on point of view. I do agree I generalized somewhat skimming over minute details because things like World War II, of whom beat whom, post Wold War II America, nukes and the Cold War are tomes in themselves, so I only touched briefly to make my point.
However, here are a few things I think I need to clarify to you. It is my opinion that the “duck and cover” civil defense film and many others shown to children and civic minded citizens at clubs, political gatherings and such were nothing more than pure propaganda. Yes, when we were testing above ground, many did witness the flashes from a great distance and some military even closer, but these films gave one the impression you could survive a nuclear attack at very close range. I think you can find them in film archives still.
When I speak of untried weapons, well this is semantics and I meant that they hadn’t be tried in war before nor since for that matter.
As for the TV broadcasts, I personally watched those. We had TV news back then. Also, one of the local stations here in California broadcast film of the hearings, as well and the Kefauver hearings, and both conventions when Ike ran against Adlai, live programming children tap dancing etc. because at that time television was relatively new and they were desperate for programming.
As for the airplanes from red China, in the air watch we were taught to look for various markings and other identifying marks as not being our aircraft and therefore suspicious. They would be coming from the west either China or soviet Russia. Both countries were very red then. It was implied they could be dropping nukes. Kind of the same kind of disinformation that ties Iraq to Al Queda, by implying such.
Since in round figures, three thousand lives were lost in America on 9/11 out of a population 281,421,908 million (2000 census figure), I stand by my 99.9999% estimate.
My world history class in college in 1959 invited an army general, a graduate of West Point, to teach us about the wars of the twentieth century including the Korean War. Vietnam was not on our plate then. He brought up the term geopolitical. It is in the dictionary, incidentally and means the same thing today. He claimed the four corners of Eurasia were the prize that the two powers of Russia and the USA sought. His take on the wars incidentally was that of a football coach planning plays in his playbook. His take took the blood and guts aspect out of those wars and introduced us to the game plan.
He claimed that this is why Russia was swallowing up nations all the way to the Pacific Ocean because the philosophy then was that if they ruled this real estate they would rule the world. It was our duty as Americans not to let this happen. This is why we had to stop the communists in Korea. This is why I am sure we went to Vietnam, even after the French warned us not to bother. It was believed that if Russian vassal states owned these countries they would rule the world.
This is still happening but today the geopolitical advantage has shifted to the Middle East. Why is this so? For some fascinating reading, go to the Project for a New American Century website,
http://www.newamericancentury.org and read about their plan to take over the Middle East by invading first Iraq, then Iran and Syria. Instead of owning the world though, they will own instead all the mineral wealth of that region. There is so much I agree that I touched on that should be gone into in more depth and I will in the future. I want to explore the Trojan Horse aspect of our administration more, a thing I only brushed on in this piece.
By the way, welcome to DU. Thanks for reading and taking the trouble to comment.