聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 It took me a while to get into this audiobook, Eric Schlosser鈥檚Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, but eventually it got hold of me.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 I had two hours left in the nearly 21-hour long audiobook when the news from Hawaii broke.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 If you were in Hawaii on January 13 and had your cellphone on, you got a message you probably never knew could be sent to you.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 鈥淓mergency Alert 鈥� ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.鈥�
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 If you had a heart condition, you probably were reaching for your nitroglycerin at that point.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 While the governor of Hawaii was informed within two minutes it was a false alarm, it took 38 minutes for the rest of the population to start getting word. That鈥檚 two-thirds of an hour of knowing the world not only could, but likely would, end any minute. After all, it was not a drill.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Thankfully, there was no ballistic missile inbound. With all the threats from North Korea, the most likely source of any attack these days, it sure seemed possible.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Curiously, the alert was missing a key word: nuclear. But that鈥檚 what anyone would think.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 And a hydrogen bomb, which North Korea recently tested, dropped on Pearl Harbour would make December 7, 1941 look like a walk in the park.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Oddly enough, I鈥檝e spent much of the last year listening to numerous audiobooks on the nuclear age and the Cold War.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The interest stems from the fact that the closest United States Air Force Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silo is precisely 50.0 km from our front door, according to Google Maps.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 That鈥檚 close enough that a shock wave from an H-bomb would likely rattle our windows, never mind the fallout.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 And with Minot Air Force Base 小蓝视频 one of only two remaining principle B-52 bases, it surely has numerous missiles aimed in its direction as well, in addition to all the nearby missile silos. If a nuclear war hit, everything south of 49 around here would glow in the dark, and we likely would, too.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The book I had completed just before Command and Control was called Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself - While the Rest of Us Die, by Garrett M. Graff.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Very quaint book, given what happened in Hawaii. Basically, we all die.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Oh, the United States had plans, kinda, to save some people. But they gathered dust, fallout shelters were abandoned, and basically the plan was to just die. Only a select few would actually, hopefully, be saved.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 For most of the Cold War, the various war plans of the United States and NATO boiled down to this: fire everything. And do it in the first day. After that, it鈥檚 all over. There were no war plans after that.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Early in the cold war, a system of detectors that looked like coffee cans with a glass bubble on top were put on telephone poles across the country. They were designed to detect the flash of a nearby nuclear explosion and relay that signal to a headquarters before 小蓝视频 wiped out itself. Eventually constellations of satellites went up to detect missile launches around the globe.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The Soviets had similar early warning satellites. And in 1983, those satellites told their defences that five American missiles had launched, and were on their way to the Soviet Union.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 It was only because of the cool-headedness of Lt.-Col. Stanislav Petrov, who figured it must be a false alarm, that the world didn鈥檛 end on September 26, 1983 with a massive retaliation of Soviet missiles. I was 8.5 years old at the time.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Tensions were so high in the fall of 1983, the world could have ended many times. Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader, had ordered all their spies to watch for signs of impending attack 鈥� signs like mass slaughters of cattle. It was called Operation RYAN.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The Soviets, on a hair-trigger after American F-14s overflew one of their islands in the northwest Pacific earlier in the year, shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, killing all aboard. It strayed into restricted airspace.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 What most people don鈥檛 know is that the United States, when its fighters did that overflight, was operating three aircraft carriers together in that region in an effort to spook the Soviets. The only time so many carriers get together, historically, was when America has been at war.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The climax was Able Archer 83, an annual war games in Germany that simulated all the communications that would take place in a conventional war in that theatre that would lead into a nuclear war. The Russians were expecting an attack any minute, because their own war plans called for using war games as a cover to initiate a war.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 There were no cellphones back then to issue alerts, just radio and TV. But there was a lot more fear, a fear most of the world has forgotten about.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Now, with this business of North Korean nukes, there is reason to fear again. What would you do if the missiles came?
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Probably die.
