It’s the Cold War and Americans are on red alert. Both sides stockpile weapons to defend themselves against possible attack. America: The Story of the US: Superpower, History 2010
We suffered then the passion of the time that America’s defense and security were at stake in Vietnam. But our obsession was the real threat. Vietnam pushed the Cold War morality to its extreme conclusion: exorbitant means to accomplish limited ends – anything goes. The wounds still run deep. Bill Moyers, The Secret Government: Constitution in Crisis, 1987
Looking back its stunning how easily the Cold War enticed us into surrendering popular control of government to the national security state. We’ve never come closer to bestowing absolute authority on the President. Setting up White House groups that secretly decide to fight dirty little wars is a direct assumption of the war powers expressly forbidden by the Constitution. ibid.
Nixon had done what none of his predecessors had been able to do: he had negotiated a treaty in which the two superpowers agree to slow an arms race that had been accelerating for more than a century. The American Experience: The Presidents: Nixon II: The Triumph, PBS 1990
It’s easy to forget that for five of the last eight decades Britain was at war. It was a war that framed all our lives. Welcome to Cold War Britain. This was a war between us – the democratic capitalist West – and them – the communist totalitarian East. Dominic Sandbrook, Strange Days – Cold War Britain I: Red Dawn, BBC 2013
We lived every day in shadow of Armageddon. ibid.
The defections of Burgess and Maclean came as a terrible shock. ibid.
The British bomb was all about our national virility. It was a kind of atomic Viagra. ibid.
For almost fifty years Britain stood on the brink of Armageddon. Dominic Sandbrook, Strange Days – Cold War Britain II
And yet the world might end at the touch of a button. ibid.
The Russians used the explicit images to blackmail John Vassall ... Vassall went down for eighteen years. ibid.
The Soviet Union went to war: sending tanks and troops thundering into their southern neighbour Afghanistan. Dominic Sandbrook, Strange Days – Cold War Britain III
This fantastic poster: She promised to follow him to the end of the Earth; he promised to organise it. ibid.
So we won. But what did we do with our victory? We unleashed the power of turbo-capitalism. ibid.
... Who has the moral courage to expose and root out those who try to rot us from within and hold us to ransom by anarchy, blackmail and brute force.
The Communist Trojan Horse is in our midst with its fellow-travellers wriggling their maggoty way inside its belly. Only firm and dynamic leadership can deal with this; it requires high moral courage. The Daily Telegraph, letter from General Walter Walker
At the end of the Second World War in 1945 America emerged as a global superpower. But the ensuing Cold War then presented the US with a very new crisis. Ultimate Guide to the Presidents: Hail to the Chief 1945-1964, History 2013
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, Come here to this gate! Mr Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Ronald Reagan
I call upon the scientific community [sic] in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons obsolete. Ronald Reagan
Let me share with you a vision of the future that offers hope. It is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive. Ronald Reagan
There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans ...
A freeze would reward the Soviet Union for its enormous and unparalleled military buildup. It would prevent the essential and long overdue modernization of United States and allied defences and would leave our ageing forces increasingly vulnerable. And an honest freeze would require extensive prior negotiations on the systems and numbers to be limited and on the measures to ensure effective verification and compliance. And the kind of a freeze that has been suggested would be virtually impossible to verify. Such a major effort would divert us completely from our current negotiations on achieving substantial reductions. Ronald Reagan, speech 8th March 1983
The Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States. John F Kennedy, Democratic rally August 1960
Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear Sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. John F Kennedy, speech to UN September 1961
Good evening, my fellow citizens. This government has promised, has maintained the closest surveillance, of the Soviet military build-up on the island of Cuba. Within the past week unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western hemisphere. John F Kennedy, 7 p.m. 22nd October
President Khrushchev told President Kennedy yesterday that he would withdraw offensive weapons from Cuba if the United States withdrew its rockets from Turkey. John F Kennedy, reading letter to EXCON meeting
The new reality was the Cold War and that was the beginning of the modern age of the conspiracy theory. Alan Hart, Media Morphs: Conspiracy I, Edge Media 2012
The anxieties of the Cold War had conditioned the American public to fear the worst. Alan Hart, Media Morphs: Conspiracy II, Edge Media 2012
Like every British leader since the Second World War Harold MacMillan was convinced that independent nuclear capacity was the only way to preserve Britain’s world power status ... In exchange for a new generation of missiles for Britain he agreed to offer a Scottish sea-base for American Polaris submarines ... The new Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was fuelling the anti-establishment across Britain. Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain, BBC 2007
This policy (MAD) has been approved, through the political processes of the democratic nations it protects, since about 1950. More important, it works. Caspar Weinberger, US Secretary of Defense
There was no going back. The nuclear arms race had begun. During the ’50s and ’60s the superpowers built increasingly bigger bombs in a bid to defend themselves from each other. The result was an arsenal of weapons that could wipe humanity from the face of the earth. The threat of Armageddon was real. And many people lived with the daily fear of nuclear annihilation. ibid.
Thousands took to the streets in protests against the apparent insanity of the arms race. The End of the World: A Horizon Guide BBC 2011
Scientists disagree as to when radiation will reach Australia. The atomic war has ended. On the Beach 1959 starring Gregory Peck & Ava Gardner & Fred Astaire & Anthony Perkins & Donna Anderson & John Tate & Harp McGuire & Lola Brooks & Ken Wayne & Grant Taylor & Guy Doleman & Joe McCormick et al, director Stanley Kramer, radio announcer
Our so-called civilisation was gloriously destroyed by a handful of vacuum tubes and transistors. ibid. Astaire
We’re all doomed, you know. ibid.
This is a special kind of sleeping pill. ibid. Perkins to wife
Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves off the face of the Earth? ... The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn’t possibly use without committing suicide. ibid.
Help us understand the reason for this madness on Earth. ibid. Salvation Army chaplain’s prayer
Hi There Dear John. Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb 1963 starring Peter Sellers & George C Scott & Sterling Haydenn & Keenan Wynn & Slim Pickens & Peter Bull & James Earl Jones & Tracy Reed & Shane Rimmer et al, director Stanley Kubric, names imprinted on nuclear bombs