Tag: Dr. Strangelove

How I learned to stop worrying and love the secrecy system

From Eric Schlosser, The Truths Behind ‘Dr. Strangelove’  in The New Yorker.

“Although ‘Strangelove’ was clearly a farce, with the comedian Peter Sellers playing three roles, it was criticized for being implausible. An expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies called the events in the film ‘impossible on a dozen counts.’ ….The first casualty of every war is the truth — and the Cold War was no exception to that dictum. Half a century after [Director Stanley] Kubrick’s mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of ‘our precious bodily fluids’ from Communist subversion, we now know that American officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on their own.”

Secrecy spared us all that terrifying knowledge. Are you grateful?

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