Cold War II
The Russian threat of nuclear war has sparked strong rhetoric in the U.S. It also reminds us of why the 1964 Cold War films "Dr. Strangelove" and "Fail-Safe" are still relevant.
There is an excerpt from Robert F. Kennedy’s 1964 book Thirteen Days, a memoir of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, that is eerily prescient to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
It is Oct. 22, Day 8 of the crisis. Six weeks earlier, U.S. spy planes revealed that the Soviet Union was placing mid-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles south of the Florida coast. This posed an immediate threat to the Eastern seaboard of the United States, and antagonized the Kennedy Administration, which was still reeling from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba the previous year.
Tensions mounted as Soviet ships approached a U.S. naval blockade of Cuba in an attempt to thwart the delivery of suspected nuclear cargo. Strategically, the U.S. called the blockade a “quarantine,” a euphemism less antagonistic in tone.
At this moment, President John F. Kennedy reflected to his advisors about a book he’d read: The Guns of August, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Barbara Tuchman detailing the early stages of World War I.
He recalled the untenable circumstances of how “The Great War” began.
How could the world teeter on the brink of annihilation, he wondered, because of a series of miscalculations of the great world powers? Kennedy vowed to avoid a repeat of history …
“I am not going to follow a course that will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time.”
Cold War II?
Last month, almost exactly 60 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, history appeared to be repeating itself. Russian President Vladimir Putin, his military flagging, brazenly raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Sirens sounded around the world, especially in our nation’s capitol. The response ranged from guarded anxiety to outrage and defiance.
It’s the outrage and defiance that are concerning. There was a lot of Clint Eastwood “Make my day” in Washington’s bluster. It appeared the U.S. was willing to enter a game of nuclear chicken just as it did six decades ago … this time over a non-NATO nation thousands of miles away in Eastern Europe.
In the following days, several tactical moves were set in motion …
In late October, the U.S. Army’s 101s Airborne Division was deployed in Europe for the first time since World War II. The 101st “Screaming Eagles” are a light infantry group trained to hit the battlefield within hours almost anywhere in the world. Right now the 101st is in Mihail Kogălniceanu, Romania, about three miles from the Ukrainian border.
Simultaneously, The United States announced the acceleration of deployment of a more accurate version of its mainstay nuclear missiles to NATO bases in Europe. The arrival of the upgraded B61-12 air-dropped gravity bomb, originally slated for next spring, is now planned for December.
These were the types of actions JFK cited as the catalysts for war in The Guns of August.
Role Reversal
We are in the strangest of times. Everything has turned ass-backward since 1962. Social movements and fads are normal in today’s cultural milieu, which by nature is trendy and bendy.
But geopolitics is complex and ambiguous. U.S. foreign policy often is purposely vague, allowing the powers that be wiggle room to hold up a finger to gauge political winds. The Cold War may have ended 30-plus years ago, but shades of its ethos resurfaced recently… and under the weirdest of circumstances.
Many Liberals have hawkishly puffed their chests toward Russia since the invasion began in February. The conservative Right – historically militant and belligerent – has been more circumspect. Some have spoken out against a long and costly proxy war ($64 billion and counting), and have suggested a diplomatic solution. Their stance has met with scorn from Democrats and mainstream media. Compromise is seen as subversive to Democracy, or “apologetic” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Even members of their own Progressive wing as been censured. (see below)
All of a sudden, it seems foreign policy has taken a turn to the surreal.
Why are Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe Still Relevant?
Dr. Stranglove: How I Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb (Columbia Pictures 1964) … directed by Stanley Kubric
Who would have thought an extinction event could be so funny?
Emerging young film director/genius Stanley Kubric did so in 1964 with his fiendishly funny farce on Cold War politics. The screenplay – written by Kubrick, Peter George and Terry Southern – is based on the book Red Alert (1958) by Peter George. Red Alert is an apocalyptic vision of nuclear war and the almost absurd ease with which it can be triggered.
But Kubrick, with lots of help from the brilliance of British comic actor Peter Sellers, adapted the novel, and struck mankind’s greatest existential threat with a satirical haymaker. The farcical events and unhinged behavior in Dr. Strangelove allow Kubrick to speak directly to the insanity of nuclear war.
Plot: Robbing “Precious Bodily Fluids”
A deranged general, Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), orders an airborne nuclear strike on the USSR. The paranoid and sexually-frustrated general justifies the attack in an epiphany he experienced during a failed “act of lovemaking.”
Ripper claims to exchange officer RAF Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake (Sellers) that the fluoridation of our water is a heinous Communist plot, and that Marxists are secretly robbing him of his “precious bodily fluids.” It’s time to act, he says.
Ripper is as dead serious as he is insane, while Group Capt. Mandrake, the quintessentially British “stiff-upper-lip,” tries with unavailing politeness to change his mind.
This sets in motion a ridiculous chain of events. Mandrake implores Ripper to recall the B-52s while President Merkin Muffley (also played by Sellers) and his “War Room” advisors gauge a proper course of action.1 Meantime, Maj. Kong (Slim Pickens) — applying his thickest Texas drawl — flies his B-52 toward Russia to “go toe-to-toe with the Rooskies.”
The absurdity of nuclear conflict
Strangelove blends fatalism, irony and absurdity with bullseye precision. The characters' names are funny: Gen. Jack D. Ripper, Gen. “Buck” Turgidson (George C. Scott), Col. “Bat” Guano (Keenan Wynn), B-52 pilot Maj. “King” Kong (Pickens). Even the Russian Premier – Dimitri Kissoff (never seen) – befits the farce.
Kubrick also mocks Cold War archetypes: overtly Alpha military hawks, emasculated politicians and corrupt diplomats. Scott shines as Turgidson, the oversexed, hyper-belligerent general and Joint Chief (loosely based on Joint Chief Gen. Curtis Lemay).
But the film’s tour-de-force is Sellers’ third and most fiendishly funny role as Dr. Strangelove2, the president’s wheel-chair bound scientific advisor who also happens to be a former Nazi. 3
It is through Strangelove that the lunacy and futility of nuclear conflict come to full focus. He tells Muffley and Turgidson about the Soviets’ possession of a top-secret “Doomsday Machine,” an apocalyptic global destruction device. He also advises that in order to “ensure the propagation of the species” the U.S. should protect 10 females for every male in mine shaft security shelters … and that the Americans have fallen behind Russia in building these shelters … thus creating a “Mine Shaft Gap.”
Much of Strangelove’s character was ad-libbed by Sellers: his mad scientist appearance, a sinister German accent, and an uncontrollable right hand that involuntarily shoots into a Nazi salute. The film ends as Strangelove stands and euphorically cries out “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!!” as cowboy Col. Kong rides a nuke like a bucking bronco toward its Russian target.
Dr. Strangelove won numerous awards and is widely recognized as one of the best cinematic satires in film history.
Fail Safe (Columbia Pictures 1964) Directed by Sidney Lumet
While Kubric turned fatalism to funny in Dr. Strangelove, Director Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe is a taut, tension-laced thriller. Based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, the plotline so closely resembled Red Alert that Kubrick and George filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. The case was settled out of court.
Plot: “Fail Safe” fails
The drama unfolds inside Strategic Air Command’s headquarters when an attack by the Soviet Union is falsely detected by U.S. Air Force’s high-tech deterrence system. The system is fool-proof, or “fail-safe,” with built-in safeguards and backup procedures to prevent false alarms.
In response to the warning, USAF scrambles several groups of B-52 bombers armed with nuclear bombs toward Russia. The counterattack protocol is routine during any alert. When a false alarm is detected, the B-52s are contacted and recalled.
This glitch at the USAF headquarters is fixed. However, because of a computer error one bomber squad, Group 6, doesn’t get the message and continues its mission toward Moscow.
Eventually, they reach the point of no return. But it’s too late for recall. The pilots act upon their training orders, which are irrevocable: nothing can stop them, not even the President himself. 4
Thus, “fail safe” fails.
The reality in black and white
Shot in high contrast black and white, Fail Safe is grim, gritty and foreboding. Noticeably absent is a film score. There is no music … just taut, gripping dialogue and long, tense silent pauses.
The film features Henry Fonda as “The President,” Larry Hagman as Buck, his Russian interpreter, Frank Overton as SAC commander Col. Bogan, and a cameo by Walter Matthau as Pentagon consultant Prof. Groeteschele.
The only visual effect is a giant radar screen that monitors the bombers’ progress as they approach the “fail safe” line of no return. The screen blinks away in silent urgency as the unthinkable approaches.
Fail Safe unfolds almost entirely inside two spartan and highly antiseptic sets: the USAF command center and “The President’s” secret office. Col. Bogan is a rock-solid commander, stoic and disciplined. But as the threat becomes real, his tone intensifies as his every action fails to stop Group 6.
Co. Bogan calls “The President,” who in turn calls the Soviet premier to inform him of the mistaken attack. Fonda is cool and direct with the premier (who is not seen or heard) and responds to Buck’s interpretation of the Russian’s words and tone. But “The President” eventually accepts the pending destruction of Moscow and, in the end, is forced to make a drastic choice. (No spoiler alert here … you’ll have to see the film).
What makes Fail Safe relevant today is metaphoric. It exposes reliance on technology to defend mankind against himself … that is until the technology itself becomes the villain. By removing human interference -- emotion, faulty reasoning, and mental frailty -- we also abdicate moral responsibility. The film portends a fatal flaw of surrendering total control to science and technology.
Lessons learned
Recent turns of events have swung momentum back to the Ukrainian defenders and emboldened its U.S. supporters. Mentions of peace-seeking missions or a diplomatic solutions have been condemned by the “I Stand with Ukraine” coterie.
And the shaming hasn’t been limited to the Conservative Right. The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), led by chair Pramila Prayapal, sent a letter on Oct. 24 to President Biden with an overture towards a diplomatic solution. The signatory list of 30 members of Congress read like a Who’s Who of the House’s most social media-adored progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Within hours, the letter was censured by the pro-Ukraine faction in the CPC’s own party. One day later, the anodyne letter was embarrassingly withdrawn.
Fear is mankind’s most potent poli-social weapon. Fear of condemnation. Fear of “existential threats.” And fear of annihilation. Fear also is a powerful psychological tool in global conflict. In last week’s edition of The Atlantic, a decidedly Liberal publication, writer Anne Applebaum warns against U.S. complacency and restraint.
“Notwithstanding his bravado about martyrdom, if Putin genuinely believes that a Russian nuclear attack will carry “catastrophic consequences,” to use National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s language, then he is much less likely to carry one out. The less fear we show, the more Putin himself will be afraid.” – The Atlantic, Nov. 7, 2022.
Very Reagan-esque. Pure Cold War I rhetoric.
Who knows how this will end? The best-case scenario is a total Ukraine victory in ousting its Russian usurpers. The worst-case scenario is … well … unthinkable. Perhaps Albert Einstein was most prophetic …
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones".
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Ripper is the only man with the recall code, and eventually commits suicide in his own bathroom.
When Gen. Turgidson wonders aloud what kind of name "Strangelove" is, possibly a "Kraut name," an executive staffer reveals that the scientist’s original surname was Merkwürdigliebe ("Strange love" in German).
Dr. Strangelove is a caricature of former Nazi rocket pioneer and then NASA technical director Wernher Von Braun
In the film, the Soviets jam radio communications to Group 6. But when they reach the point of no return, no orders from the outside are viable. The Air Force had trained its pilots that any recall could be a Russian ruse. So the group commander ignores direct calls from both “The President” and his wife.