PBS's two hour documentary "The Bomb" was on the other night, and it actually didn't tell me too many things I didn't already know. Like the subtitle to the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," I grew up perhaps not loving the bomb, but I did learn to stop worrying. There were of course those who did love the bomb. And I'm sure there are those amongst us who still do.
One of the media reviewers said it. We are now more concerned with identity theft and outdated cell phones than we are with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Add to that retirement income. Who says there hasn't been progress?
I didn't know General Leslie Groves was part of the Army's Corps of Engineers. My father, who before WW II had his engineering degree, was in the Army's Corps of Engineers and was stationed on Guam, assigned to make maps from airplane reconnaissance photos. One of the few things he brought back from that experience were two strike photos of the bombs going off over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sites and dates clearly marked in the lower right corner.
At a photography art show this past April at the Park Avenue Armory, I was surprised to see a vendor who was selling one of these photos. I didn't ask the price. We already have one of each.
We also have some aerial photos of the devastation after the bombs. They eerily look like the photos that were shown in the documentary. For some reason, after the Japanese surrender, (we have a photo of that) my father was in Japan. There are some photos of that. Why he was in Japan I never knew, and it's way too late to ask.
I never knew John Hersey's book 'Hiroshima' first appeared in The New Yorker as the sole story in the August 31, 1946 edition. The New Yorker's (15 cents) cover is above, and shows a sunny scene in Central Park, a stark contrast to the people in Japan who were clearly not enjoying themselves at ground zero.
Ground zero. Such an atomic age term, but it became the accepted way to describe the World Trade Center location after 911. Duck and cover, another atomic age phrase that had us as kids in grammar school practicing turning away from the wall of windows and crouching ourselves in a cannon ball position under our desks in case of a blast.
It was the duck and cover memories that had me backing away from my desk on the 29th floor of One World Trade Center at 8:46 A.M. as the first hijacked plane plowed into the building. Bright, clear day, now with debris gently falling past my window that faced south. Finally exiting the building and seeing and feeling the yellowish air from the ground someone behind me commented that it "My God, it looks like Hiroshima." Ground zero.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of course gets its due. And it was a crisis. I remember the almost daily grainy photos that appeared in the papers that showed (if you knew what to look for) missiles installed in Cuba. There was daily mainspring tension being wound between Russia and the United States.
I was in what would be called Middle School now and one of my classmates was whining about "not wanting to die." I don't remember who it was, but I can remember when it was said. For some reason I didn't feel there was any need to be hysterical. Nuclear war wasn't going to happen. At least according to me.
History of course tells us it didn't happen. I guess presidential libraries get to release tapes and documents after so many years. I never heard of, or heard the phone conversation President Kennedy had with former President Dwight Eisenhower asking the former president if he thought the Russians would seriously meet an army invading Cuba with nuclear weapons.
The replayed actual conversation (no actors portraying the two) is brief, and Eisenhower informs the young president that no, he doesn't think the Russians would use the weapons in response to an invasion. Kennedy, for his part sounds almost light-hearted, accepts the former presidents opinion without further questioning for follow up questions, and is heard in his voice what can only be described as the sound of resigned chuckling, that the answer brings him closer to the prospect of what he might fear he will have to do.
The tone is almost as if Kennedy is asking the former General if Army is going to beat Navy this year. Kennedy closes the call telling Eisenhower, "well, hang on tight." Hang on. It almost sounds as if Kennedy is telling Ike to keep looking art he news reports and papers for the next few days to see how this turns out. Perhaps Ike did. We all did.
The crisis defuses. Well, "we showed them" is certainly an American attitude. Unsaid at the time, and certainly unadmitted, is that perhaps the Russians also showed us.
Public Shelter signs and CD, Civil Defense symbols, didn't disappear after the Cuban Missile Crisis. I distinctly remember a dive bar in the Times Square area my friends and I we went into soon after being able to drink legally called The Crown, that had a poster-sized spoof of the CD instructions on what to do if the bomb hit. The last line said: "Kiss your ass good-bye."
Do I worry about identity theft? Do I cringe out of fear of being called a Luddite every time I open my small, flip cell phone? Do I worry about retirement income?
Certainly not as much if my ass weren't still attached.
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