Cold War Quotes
Misquoted. Comedian Tina Fey, while impersonating Ms. Palin on Saturday Night Live, uttered this line that is now widely attributed to the former Alaska governor. The basis for this line comes from a Sept. 11, 2008 interview with ABC News's Charles Gibson, who asked Palin what insights she had from her state being so close to Russia. She responded: "They're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." This is true. On a clear day, those on the Alaskan island of Little Diomede can see the Russian island of Big Diomede, some two and a half miles away. There are other points in Alaska where you can see Russia on a clear day.
This is a very important quotation. It is often cited by preventive war hawks to show that deterrence might not be a sufficient inhibitor against an extreme ideological enemy. In this case it was political philosophy that would make the enemy willing to have the majority of its population die to reach the ideological objective. More fearful is the prospect of the Theocracy of Iran where the leaders may believe that nuclear jihad is a commandment of God. More critical is the Islamic theology which says that if most of the Iranian Muslim population die in a nuclear war that they start all those people will be martyrs and immediately go to God’s Paradise. Thus, even the dead Muslims are not victims and the nonbelievers should be killed. For extremely fanatical Muslims nuclear war can be a logical and holy course of action.
Cited as an example of Joe Biden being on the wrong side of nearly every foreign policy debate during his political career.
After the Second World War Japanese industry had mostly not yet been rebuilt from the destruction of the allied bombing. The automobile industry, which before the war had aspirations of worldwide competition had been reduced to one company making less than 1000 cars a year and not many more trucks. However, when the Korean War broke out, there was a need for many military vehicles to support the allied war effort. Japan being so close and having very low labor rates had the opportunity to supply many of the needed vehicles. This allowed Nissan, Toyota and Datsun to get on their industrial feet, and from there to become world leaders. Hence, for Japan, the war was a gift from the Gods.
Germany had some world class physicists. Our scientists, military intelligence people, and political leadership assumed that the Germans were also seeking to develop the Atomic Bomb. Ironically, it turned out that they were not, and what Truman reported in this quotation was untrue (although that was not fully known at the time.) Einstein and several of the scientists who were early pioneers in modern physics were Jewish, and Hitler referred to the study of nuclear fission and fusion as “Jewish Science.” As a result, the German government did not commit the resources to the development of an atomic bomb. Instead, they were betting on the development of the Jet Airplane which they succeeded in deploying against the Allies at the end of the war. But they did not have enough or enough pilots left alive to fly them, and Germany was overrun by the Allied Troops. Prior to Truman’s erroneous report about the German development of an atomic bomb, there had only been one piece of evidence that the Germans were not developing one. An OSS secret agent, Moe Berg, had talked with Werner Heisenberg, at a Swiss scientific conference during the war. He was going to assassinate the greatest of the German physicists if Berg thought he was working on a nuclear device. Berg concluded from his discussions that Heisenberg did not know enough about nuclear fission to have been working on that. Berg did not kill Heisenberg, and reported that he did not think the Germans were developing a bomb as if they were Heisenberg would have been deeply involved. However, the American intelligence people and the American scientists, did not trust Berg’s analysis and conclusion. Berg was not a trained scientist. He was a professional baseball player—the NY Yankee backup catcher to Bill Dickey. He was a college graduate, a brilliant guy and a very fast learner who had studied physics books and papers before his assignment. Berg turned out to have been right, but that was not confirmed until a few years after the war. Truman had relied on an incorrect intelligence estimate when he made this quotation. It was not the first such error of intelligence analysis in American history and it would not be the last.
He was thrown out of the Labour Party for his pro Cold War and Soviet statements.
India built the bomb, and then Pakistan djd at great economic sacrifice.
Two days before Nagasaki was attacked by the second atomic bomb. Bohr was afraid of a nuclear arms race, and argued for the release of all scientific information. His suggestion went nowhere. There was a 50 year nuclear arms race.
Commencement Address, Harvard University, June 8, 1978
