The Adventures of Chester: Imagining the Insanely Possible

Gerard Van der Leun's post on a nuclear blast in the US spurs a look at popular perceptions of nuclear holocausts, as conceived during the Cold War. What lessons might be drawn for today?

After reviewing the film The Day After, and re-reading the book Alas, Babylon, it becomes clear that the glaring assumption of these apocalyptic tales is the utter stupidity of any party so foolish to believe anything positive could come from a nuclear exchange, or a nuclear blast. Only incredible stupidity, or accident, or a misreading of intentions, could result in a nuclear exchange, for the aftermath would render all imputed political or territorial gains completely meaningless. This meme -- of recklessness or mistake as the only possible precursor to nuclear war -- raises itself time and time and time again in Cold War nuclear literature.

Alas, Babylon is the 1959 classic of a small fictional town in Florida, Fort Repose, and how its residents survive a nuclear holocaust that has left the entire nation decimated. The protagonist is Randy Bragg, a local Korean war vet who has spent his time since knocking about, trying to figure out what to do with his life. His brother is Colonel Mark Bragg, a senior intelligence officer at the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska. One day Mark meets Randy at a nearby airfield and explains his theory that the Russians believe the timing is right for a first strike. He gives Randy a check for $5000 and sends his wife and children to stay with Randy. Then he returns to his post.

The actual war begins with a mistake in the Mediterranean:

Quite often, the flood of history is undammed or diverted by the character and actions of one man. In this case the man was not an official in Washington, of the Admiral commanding Task Group 6.7, or even the Captain, or Air Group Commander of Saratoga. The man was Ensign James Cobb, nicknamed Peewee, the youngest and smallest pilot in Fighter Squadron 44 . . .

Peewee disobeys regulations and chases a Russian observation plane into Syrian airspace and fires a Sidewinder missile at it, which instead heads for the industrial complex at the port of Latakia, beginning a chain reaction which spreads throughout the port. It is an accidental act of war and it is just enough to start the Russians on their path of nuclear annihilation. . . Thus the mistake/stupidity meme is evident.

In The Day After, an ABC TV movie broadcast in 1983, a nuclear exchange between the USSR and the US takes place after an exchange of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe first. The film builds very slowly to this crescendo and the airbursts over American cities happen about an hour in. It is rumored that while watching this part of the film, President Reagan wept. After his screening, he sent suggestions for editing the film to the director. I must admit that the sight of mushroom clouds over Lawrence, Kansas is downright unnerving. For 1983, the special effects are very good. ABC even set up toll free hotlines after the film's airing for viewers who were deeply disturbed by the film.

The presumptions of the insanity of nuclear war that permeate the film are evident both in quotes within it, and in the public reaction afterward. As Jason Robards' character, Dr. Russell Oakes, is about to go into surgery after the blast, in a makeshift hospital, he has this exchange with another doctor:

Dr. Russell Oakes: I wonder who was spared? I wonder if New York, Paris, Moscow... are just like Kansas City now?

Dr. Landowska: There is a rumor that they are evacuating Moscow. There are people even leaving Kansas City because of the missile base. Now I ask you: To where does one go from Kansas City? The Yukon? Tahiti? We are not talking about Hiroshima anymore. Hiroshima was... was peanuts!

Dr. Russell Oakes: What's going on? Do you have any idea what's going on in this world?

Dr. Landowska: Yeah. Stupidity... has a habit of getting its way.

This theme rears its head again in the discussion after the movie was shown on TV. William Buckley debates Carl Sagan, and the scene is described thus:

Immediately after the film's original broadcast, it was followed by a special news program, featuring a live discussion between scientist Dr. Carl Sagan (who opposed the use of nuclear weapons) and Conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. (who promoted the concept of "nuclear deterrence"). It was during this heated discussion, aired live on network television, where Dr. Sagan introduced the world to the concept of "nuclear winter" and made his famous analogy, equating the nuclear arms race with "two men standing waist deep in gasoline; one with three matches, the other with five".

Here again the notion that only insane men would ever resort to the use of nuclear weapons is manifest again.

These ideas are so prevalent in Cold War nuclear texts that they result in a corollary: since only insane individuals would launch a nuclear war, and the consequences for humanity would be so dire . . . only an inhuman intelligence would consider nuclear war as a policy option. Thus we have movies like WarGames, in which a young Matthew Broderick convinces NORAD's computer that he is launching missiles at it, and prompting a response. And of course, The Terminator series, in which one of the first decisions of self-realizing artificial computer intelligence is the nuclear extermination of the human race.

Again and again these ideas permeate our popular culture. In the film version of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010, when Jupiter implodes on itself and becomes a dwarf star, the Soviet premier and the American president both look up at the sky and decide the back down from a burgeoning confrontation. After all, only madness would lead to a nuclear catastrophe.

The effects of these assumptions and mentalities on diplomacy in our current war are not easy to miss. In scenarios of mutually assured destruction, the idea that stupidity and recklessness will lead to catastrophe can easily morph into the notion that all actions are risks which should not be taken -- thus the very nature of the "Cold" war itself, cold only because it was too risky to be "hot." Diplomacy, careful hiding of one's moves, and silent games of cat and mouse, whether by spies or nuclear submarines, become the norm.

Yet does this way of conceiving of a mortal enemy hold any sway at all vis a vis Al Qaeda? Is it proper to assume that only the insane, or the inhumane, would willingly risk a nuclear war with the United States? Sadly, from Al Qaeda's own statements, we know that they possess the desire, and our efforts therefore are exerted in preventing them from attaining the ability to detonate a nuclear weapon in the US.

How different now to conceive of circumstances in which a given party might willingly and gladly use a nuclear weapon – it inverts the tables somewhat from avoidance and accident to those of prevention, pre-emption, and fierce acts of non-proliferation. Deterrence ceases to be effective.

Even though we know these things -- that somewhere, whether in tthe unruled regions of Pakistan, or elsewhere, someone right now is plotting mayhem of which we can not imagine -- one wonders how much the stupidity/insanity/mistake memes of the Cold War affect our preparations and national security imaginations at the highest levels . . .

UPDATE: Of course, the events leading to a nuclear holocaust are only the first parts of these texts. The rest are about the efforts of the survivors to save themselves. In the aftermath of Katrina in the US, many have begun thinking on these issues. One interesting resource I discovered is SurvivalBlog.com.

Posted by Chester on September 7, 2005 9:24 PM to The Adventures of Chester