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Americans: Was your town a [rumored] Cold War missile target?

jeb — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:55:23 -0800

Americans: Was your town a [rumored] Cold War missile target? I grew up in New Jersey. When I lived there, people would sometimes say, "You know, after [DC|New York], our area is the number-two target on the Soviet nuclear ICBM list, because of Bell Labs." I didn't really think about this too much at the time, and it seemed at least somewhat plausible. But as I've gotten older, I've heard people from all over the country say, "You know, [my town] is #2 on the Soviet missile target list because of [$feature]."

I had a text file of them for a while, I was collecting them because I think they are interesting bits of folklore, but I can't find it now. I'm curious as to where this rumor got started, where people claim to find this information, etc., because it must be false, right? I mean the whole MAD strategy was predicated on the idea that the Soviets and the USA could pretty much totally wipe each other out in one go, so there were probably dozens or hundreds of places with equal target priority.

Mostly, though, I'm interested in these rumors. The commonalities are:
1) #2 target. There's always a credibility-adding reference to a clearly more-valuable target. In the Northeast, this is generally DC, the Pentagon, or New York.
2) A specific reason that points to some local feature as being of strategic import, and often one that you wouldn't immediately think of, like Bell Labs (really? A lab? that's going to be ahead of a SAC HQ?)

So my question is did you hear this about the place where you grew up or lived? What was the reason your town was supposedly targeted? What was the reference target of greater import?

Looking for books about the Cold War for French high school students. More below.

jackmcc — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:00:39 -0800

Looking for books about the Cold War for French high school students. More below. I have a friend who teaches English to French high school students. She’s planning her course for next year and the subject is history -- specifically “the world between WW2 and today”. Can you make any recommendations for her? I think the books should be accessible (these are not native English speakers, although “they are a keen group”) and not too difficult to get. They will be coming over here as part of an exchange program sometime during the year.
One of the books they will be reading is JFK’s “A Nation of Immigrants” (although that’s not really post WW2). She says they are not interested in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. Apparently previous classes have read this and “the students do not find it particularly thrilling to study this.” So. Any ideas about what you think would be good for these kids to read?

Searching for a Cold War Soundtrack

DOUBLE A SIDE — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:46:11 -0800

I am looking to make a music playlist that recaptures that '89 cold war, fall of communism feel. Think Scorpions - Wind of Change. I'm living in Eastern Europe for the first time, a whole bunch of friends and family are coming over for a special occasion and I really want to create a playlist for a night of drinking in an old communist apartment. I'm not so interested in traditional folk music or patriotic songs...but popular music with subject matter relating to the cold war or the fall of communism (or Russia and Eastern Europe in general). I don't mind how cheesy they are and the song doesn't necessarily have to be western.

To Begin:
Scorpions - Wind of Change
Elton John - Nikita
David Hasselhoff - I'm Looking for Freedom
Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhatten [for the Berlin mention]
Nena - 99 Luftballons

Not Interested in:
The Beatles - Back in the U.S.S.R
Novelty songs - e.g anything by Weird Al

There were these nuclear songs previously, but maybe a bit too nucleary for me.

Need help finding an sci-fi story.

killThisKid — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:23:44 -0800

Seeking out a sci-fi short story I read some time ago and would like to find again. I remember some details to the story. It was set in present or near future. It had a cold-war feel to it.

There was some form of alien or just strange life found that the Russians had locked up in a massive installation that some how got loose. The monster left a trail of destruction where all that was left of people were their bones.

There was some form of drug running via a secret lake at the south pole that involved some form of portal.

At the end a few people, mainly high up politicians are evacuated some how via another portal, and the story ends with one of the main characters morose, sitting out side one of the big domed habitations they were all now living in.

Cold War chills in the warm sun

gentle — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:42:33 -0800

Give me the Cold War chills, please. I'm going on vacation soon and I would like to settle down on the beach with a really juicy espionage novel, preferably something about the Cold War, something suitably dense, complex, panoramic and violent. What should I read? I don't know my Le Carré from my Ludlum (though I have read The Constant Gardener and found it interesting though poorly written).

However, I'm terribly sensitive to bad writing; please don't recommend any Tom Clancies or Clive Cusslers or any of those authors whose name take up half the cover in embossed capitals.

Conversely, though they're brilliant novelists, I would also like to preemptively rule out Graham Greene and Norman Mailer, both of whom I find a bit too dry for this excursion.

So who's the Rohinton Mistry or Patrick O'Brian or James Ellroy of espionage thrillers?

Fiction in which the US has all the bombs?

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:54:57 -0800

Is there an alternate history novel about the US as sole possessor of nucear weapons? Over in the recent game theory thread BigSky says "I think one of the proposed game theory solutions to the cold war was to preemptively bomb the Soviet Union before they could catch up to us enough in nuclear weapons to really hurt us."

I find this an intriguingly appalling approach. Has anyone written alternate history fiction in which the US uses military power to ensure that nobody else develops nuclear weapons?

Ah, the good ol' days - nothing to worry about but a lingering death from radiation poisoning

pompomtom — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:58:37 -0800

Nuke related songs of the 80s and 90s. Which (pop, punk, ska and new wave particularly, but all suggestions appreciated) songs of the 80s or 90s which touch on the angst caused by living under the spectre of nuclear weapons.

Things like:

Nena - 99 Luftballons
Underworld - Underneath the Radar
Tears for Fears - Shout
Sting - Russians
The Clash - London Calling

Sorry for the 'mixtape' question, but google sets has failed me.

Magic movie communist Volvos?

dreamyshade — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:15:11 -0800

Asking for friend: Watching The Lives of Others, a movie taking place in East Germany during the Cold War, I noticed that a limousine in the movie was a Volvo. I have also noticed that other movies set in the Eastern Bloc show cars made by Western nations. Is this an oversight by the movie makers, or were these cars actually available at these times?

Yes, but how many seconds to midnight?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 14:59:06 -0800

So how close exactly were we to nuclear war? It's often said that at some point during the past fifty years the world was "on the brink" of nuclear war - in hindsight, I wonder how close to the brink?

Short final for Red Square

tss — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:35:18 -0800

Is this photograph of Mathias Rust's plane faked? This is a question for someone who knows Moscow. This photograph on the website of Mathias Rust, best known as the guy who landed a small plane in Red Square in 1987, shows the aforementioned Cessna about to touch down. Meanwhile, in this Guardian interview, Rust says he landed on a bridge and taxied into Red Square. Does anyone know if the image shows the plane about to land on a bridge in Moscow? It doesn't look like it to me...

Astronaut vs Cosmonaut

mkn — Sun, 22 Feb 2004 10:14:56 -0800

Etymology question: astronaut vs. cosmonaut. Why are there two separate terms for the same thing? Is the distinction just a Cold War relic? It always seemed a little redundant to me. What about "taikonaut"?