Re: Every incident is an opportunity

[Barry Shein <bzs () world std com>]

On February 12, 2007 at 04:28 bonomi () mail r-bonomi com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:

Mostly the same as what I said, but one important difference: duck and
cover was a response to seeing the flash (only seconds), not to sirens
going off (minutes) which was generally get your coat and go into the
hallway and close the classroom doors and await further instruction
like maybe head to the basement, being sent home was discussed and
there's even some cultish early 60's? movie that revolves around the
teachers sending the kids home upon hearing nuclear attack was
imminent, etc.

> BTW, I was in school (elementary/seconndary) in those days (1958-71), in a
> mid-sized Midwestern city.  We -never- had any of those kind of drills.
> Apparently 'the powers that be' concluded that there was nothing in our 
> vicinity that would be worth dropping a nuke on.  :)

POSSIBLE OPERATIONAL CONTENT:

In the late 60s I remember having an interesting conversation with
someone who did this kind of strategizing for the Dept of Civil
Defense.

His scenarios were markedly diferent from the "urban folklore" you'd
hear from people about what the Russkies were likely to nuke, other
than everyone agreed they'd try to get the silos and a few other key
military assets to try to prevent retaliation.

But by and large his scenarios worked forward from the assumption that
it was a prelude to an invasion and if you're going to invade you
don't want to destroy immediately valuable assets like big factories
etc. which usually meant you didn't want, or have any good reason, to
nuke major cities, they'd make good slaves.

Notice how this "they'll nuke the big cities first to kill as many of
us as possible" presumption carries forward even today to the central
plot of the current US TV show Jericho (it's summarized in the
wikipedia) tho of course the enemy and its strategy has changed since
the end of the cold war.

Then again much of 9/11 did kinda happen in a big city.

Anyhow, far be it for me to try to outline an invasion for fun and
profit scenario in less words than you'll tire of reading. But it's
somewhat different than a white-hot grudge match fling them all at
major population centers extermination scenario.

The operational content is to be careful of folkloric wisdom in
regards to major disaster no one involved has ever really personally
experienced.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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