A Reaganite in 1952

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Something That Must Be Talked About....

On June 29, 1983 President Reagan said desegregation contributed to the decline in the quality of public education. If this was transferred 28 years prior, we are looking at a President who is suddenbly opposing Brown v. Board of Education

For a transcript, please look at the following link from the University of Texas Archives (not exactly a liberal bastion):

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/62983b.htm

 

[Wendell]

On June 29, 1983 President Reagan said desegregation contributed to the decline in the quality of public education. If this was transferred 28 years prior, we are looking at a President who is suddenbly opposing Brown v. Board of Education

For a transcript, please look at the following link from the University of Texas Archives (not exactly a liberal bastion):

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/62983b.htm

He might have favored that decision at the time though.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Don't Hold Your Breath...

He might have favored that decision at the time though.

All things considered, the Brown v. Board of Education decision was even less popular when it came out on May 17, 1954. Consider the fact that 40% of America's public schools were segregated at the time. To make matters worse, only 37% of the U.S. populace at the time actually supported the decision. It is only through the hindsight of 50 years of history that the decision has been seen as a good thing. Consider that even today 63% of the populace of the South still opposes the decision. For more information, check out the following link, from Lynchburg, Virginia (not a liberal bastion):

http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/...NA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031775516463

 

[MarkWhittington]

Any President can oppose a Supreme Court decision all he wants, but it usually does little good. Remember, the Reagan in OTL opposed Roe v Wade. Yet he had no effect on the availability of abortion on demand.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

But The President ....

Any President can oppose a Supreme Court decision all he wants, but it usually does little good. Remember, the Reagan in OTL opposed Roe v Wade. Yet he had no effect on the availability of abortion on demand.

MarkWhittington- That maybe true...But the President has the power of enforcement. Remember it was Eisenhower who sent the National Guard to Little Rock, Arkansas. Remember it was Kennedy who sent federal troops to the University of Alabama in Montgomery. In the same note, teh President can simply not raise a finger...that and they can appoint federal judges to slowly undermine the ruling of the Court.....

 

[Wendell]

MarkWhittington- That maybe true...But the President has the power of enforcement. Remember it was Eisenhower who sent the National Guard to Little Rock, Arkansas. Remember it was Kennedy who sent federal troops to the University of Alabama in Montgomery. In the same note, teh President can simply not raise a finger...that and they can appoint federal judges to slowly undermine the ruling of the Court.....

But, you have yet to prove that Reagan opposed the decision initially.

 

[Cloudy Vortex]

Eisenhower and Kennedy were, as I can tell, moderate conservatives. Johnson was the first liberal president since Roosevelt. Mind you, Eisenhower wasn't relying on Southern votes, and Kennedy was only as conservative as what would get him elected in '60 and reelected in '64, but they weren't champions of civil rights in particular or the left in general. They supported the authority of Federal over State law, and they probably regarded Southerners as another kind of wierd hyphenated Americans. (They can be as they are, but they must obey the rules.) As for Reagan, I don't think he would've been much different. He was an American first, conservative second. And nobody wanted to be the one to start Armeggedon. All histories teach that Hitler started WWII and, because of that, was the bad guy. Nobody in Washington or Moscow wanted to be the bad guy. WWIII had to be started by the other guy. MAD was not the cause of this, it was the result (to make sure the other guy didn't start it; there is no way to know, but I suspect that MAD was always the world's biggest and most dangerous bluff). Reagan would have been more guns than butter (forget about the '50s boom), but neither he nor anyone else would've controlled in a vacuum. I don't know, but I doubt he would've started WWIII over Hungary, and I don't think his cabinet would've let him.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Well Here Is The Evidence....

But, you have yet to prove that Reagan opposed the decision initially.

In 1980, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke of his support of the "States' Rights Movement" in Philadelphia, Mississippi where 4 civil rights workers were killed before a mainly white audience carrying Confederate Battle Flags...

In 1983, President Reagan spoke at Bob Jones University in support of its tax-exempt status despite the fact that it forbid inter-racial dating, even after the Supreme Court ruled against the tax exempt status....

For more information, please check out:

http://www.commondreams.org/views/020900-101.htm

 

[Aldroud]

There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. The whole Cold War was based on MAD. It meant exactly what it said. Any explosion of a tactical nuclear device would immediately trigger a response and an escalation that would very quickly be beyond anyone's control. A strategic exchange would inevitably follow. That was the plan!

Bollocks! I've read the plan my dear chap (the unclassified versions of it anyway). Tactical nuclear weapons were planned for from the opening shots in the European theater. Tactical nuclear weapons were also planned for in the opening shots in the Persian Gulf theater. Every recent wargame for Korea ends up going nuclear.

A nuclear weapon is a big bomb, nothing more. It's not magical or special in any way except in the mind of the public. Tit-for-tat, a tactical nuclear exchange need not involve the homelands of either principal involved. There's whole classifications of different nuclear strikes as well.

Counter-force strategy focuses on the elimination of the ability to exert military power. My posting of Nine Nukes earlier was one such counter-force strike. The aim is not to kill, but disable. Minimizing casualties is a goal as it reduces the urgency of a response.

Counter-value strategy focuses on the elimination of strategic assets such as dams, industry, and ultimately, population centers. The response to such an attack is undoubtedly a massive response in kind, thus a counter-value strike would almost NEVER be considered.

I imagine the next nuclear war will be fought between Pakistan and India, or perhaps China and India. That there will be a second nuclear war I have no doubt.

 

[Halnzder Kverldak]

-First, considering Reagan's attempt to dismantle Social Security starting in 1981, you might face greater opposition. This would be in part to the GI Bill and medical health care benefits, especially after 1946-1948...

-Second, Reagan's ferverent anti-Communist statements would be trouble seen as troublesome for several reasons. The first is the implicit support of Senator Joseph McCarthy's "Red Scare" (see Ann Coulter)and to the first inklings of the civil rights movement. The second, would be the apparent disregard for either arms negotiation or international agreements. One can almost imagine the use of nuclear weapons at Dien Bien Phu in 1954....

-Third, considering his economic policies, you can certainly imagine "the Payola mentality" of the 1950s, wherein the ideals of what is legal and what is right began to diverge even further, as such the backlash of the 1960s & 1970s will be greater...

+ Less 50`s boom...

Also China would not have broked upp withe the Soviet-Union in the face of a common threate.
Yougoslavia would be closer to the Warsawa pacte in order to avoide an invasion.
The communiste bloc would not have been divided, there would be more food for propaganda(atome bombes against civilians...), in response they would be more agressive.

 

[Halnzder Kverldak]

In 1964, the Suprem Soviet order to constructe the "Alamo" an underground facility that is in facte a giant thermonuclear bombe, at the surface over the facility there is stocked in containers severale thousands of tonns of radioactive material. In case of war, informs the Suprem Soviet, the whole world will be lethaly radioactive...

 

[hammo1j]

Anyone got a spare B52?

Am'h gonna ride that bomb all th'way down to those Commies!

Yee Hah!

Cue Vera Lynn - We'll meet again

Halnzder Kverldak: I think the Doomsday Device was a fiction that came from the film Dr Strangelove

 

[MarkA]

Bollocks! I've read the plan my dear chap (the unclassified versions of it anyway). Tactical nuclear weapons were planned for from the opening shots in the European theater. Tactical nuclear weapons were also planned for in the opening shots in the Persian Gulf theater. Every recent wargame for Korea ends up going nuclear.

A nuclear weapon is a big bomb, nothing more. It's not magical or special in any way except in the mind of the public. Tit-for-tat, a tactical nuclear exchange need not involve the homelands of either principal involved. There's whole classifications of different nuclear strikes as well.

Counter-force strategy focuses on the elimination of the ability to exert military power. My posting of Nine Nukes earlier was one such counter-force strike. The aim is not to kill, but disable. Minimizing casualties is a goal as it reduces the urgency of a response.

Counter-value strategy focuses on the elimination of strategic assets such as dams, industry, and ultimately, population centers. The response to such an attack is undoubtedly a massive response in kind, thus a counter-value strike would almost NEVER be considered.

I imagine the next nuclear war will be fought between Pakistan and India, or perhaps China and India. That there will be a second nuclear war I have no doubt.

I think you should critically examine the insane notion behind the use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons. The Europeans were terrified of them because their use would have rendered much of the continent uninhabitable. Strikes against nuclear power stations would have made the situation critical.

Consider - Tactical nuclear devices are used in the European theatre. Nato and the Warsaw Pact leadrships lose contact with (and therefore control over) their forces in the field. Most of the civilian communication systems are destroyed also. Nobody knows what is happening!

Intermediate range missiles are launched to destroy tactical targets further back from the front so whichever side is winning (these fools believed such a war could be won) cannot follow up their initial victories. Depots, bridges, choke points etc are all targeted. Hundreds of them on each side at least. Fallout is now so bad that radiation sickness will affect most of the European populations.

After the strikes behind the front lines, the political leaderships in Washington and Moscow are left deaf, dumb and blind. Communications with their troops and with the command posts in Europe are all down. This was the point of the stikes after all as you acknowledged. In addition, the early warning systems are limited to those close to the main protagonists countries. The President and the General Secretary are both warned that response times are down to minutes. This may not be enough time to ensure the command to launch strategic weapons gets to the delivery points.

It only takes one of them to decide that the other side will launch a strategic attack because it belives it is losing. Then 'the button' is pushed.

This is the reality behind the 'planning' for tactical nuclear strikes. And nuclear weapons are not just 'big bombs' as you assert. The whole rationale behind MAD was that a nuclear war could NOT be limited.

 

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Anyway, the question of tactical nuclear missiles is irrelevent to this time period. Everyone was still working with bomber aircraft (or whatever else they could smuggle a bomb on), and missiles were only in their crude infancy (hell, the ICBM wasn't mass-produced until about 1960).

It'd still be awful, but not entirely Armageddon.

 

[FirstCitizen1]

There was some information on surving a nuclear war publish by FEMA in 1987. (http://www.ki4u.com/free_book/s73p904.htm) It explains what people must do in order to survive a nuclear war. It makes some very interesting claims though:

1) The public generally overestimates drastically the power of nuclear weapons, at least in terms of the radiation effects.

2) Most nuclear weapons would be 'airburst', i.e., exploded in the atmosphere. This method creates a lot of heat, pressure, which knocks down buildings, but radiation levels would probably return to normal within 2 WEEKS. (Something to do with the potentially radio-active particles in the air being so light that they tend to move up to the Stratosphere, rather than down to the ground)

3) Only nuclear weapons exploded on the ground, to hit deep bunkers, ect, would cause lots of radiation on the surface. (And their effect on well made bunkers is dubious.) Heavy radio-active particles could linger for several months, but would still eventually disipate.

4) Nuclear Winter, Hundreds of Years of Radiactivity, Rapant Cancers, All The Horros of Nuclear War Portrayed by Hollywood are vasty overated. (Over several weeks, radioactive exposure from airbust weapons similar to riding the Concord 100x)



Okay, I'm not saying that it couldn't be some FEMA / Dept of Energy propoganda. But I'm not a scientiest, either, and do wonder why I should trust fokelore about nuclear war that much either. Still, according to this, the casualties from nuclear war would more likely be in the low tens of millions, rather than the 100s of millions.

So what if the government is right. Soviet and American industrial capacity is destroyed by nuclear war, but 90% of each population survives, and the targetted sites are generally inhabitable within a month again?

I guess Regan still comes out looking bad?

 

[MarkA]

There are a plethora of articles in scientific journals dealing with the after effects of a hypothetical nuclear war. Limited excahnges as well as full scale.
Probably the best ones are in Scientific American. At least they are the most accessable.

The effects of Chernobyl were a lot worse than predicted and if the winds had been blowing in a different direction they would have been even worse. A nuclear strike on the facility would have made the fallout catastrophic. Imagine the effects of all the nuclear power plants in Europe being hit. Destroying the enemies industrial capacity and power generation facilities is the aim of modern warfare.

Half life for the most deadly radioactive elements may be measured in years but only a few molecules are enought to be deadly. Death is inevitable but may be months or years from cancers. Other radioactive elements have a half life of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. Their existence would poison the environment and render food if it was still capable of being grown, inedible.

 

[Glen]

If we suppose that "Reagan" in 1953 uses the same strategy as the actual Reagan (and not the fantasy that his haters ascribe to him), then he does the following:

(1) Builds up American military power, including both nuclear and conventional.
(2) Foments and supports anti communist insurgancies.
(3) Employs economic and trade pressure.
(4) Negotiates arms control treaties favorable to the West.

He would not launch nukes on Korea, Vietnam, or Hungary.

That is my impression, as well.

 

[Glen]

There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. The whole Cold War was based on MAD. It meant exactly what it said. Any explosion of a tactical nuclear device would immediately trigger a response and an escalation that would very quickly be beyond anyone's control. A strategic exchange would inevitably follow. That was the plan!

I do not know enough about American society in the 1950's to know how influential fundamentalist christianity was in the corridors of power. But Regan acted as he did because he believed the end of the world was nigh. Armaggedon was a real thing to him. If war broke out and thewhole world was turned to ashes that would be ok because it must have been god's will. Would a President in the early fifties have the same mentality?

Reagan, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, was not of that particular mindset....

 

[Glen]

On June 29, 1983 President Reagan said desegregation contributed to the decline in the quality of public education. If this was transferred 28 years prior, we are looking at a President who is suddenbly opposing Brown v. Board of Education

For a transcript, please look at the following link from the University of Texas Archives (not exactly a liberal bastion):

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/62983b.htm

From that very transcript you link to:

"Q. My name is Jerome Bower, and I'm from Capital Heights, Maryland. And my question is: You recently appointed several persons to the Civil Rights Commission who do not advocate the use of busing to integrate public schools. This, along with your administration's lackluster enforcement of civil rights laws passed in the 1960's, has led many Americans to believe that you are willing to send us back to the times before the Montgomery bus boycott and Dr. King's march on Washington. How would you respond to these critics who say that you're spending more time worrying about the civil rights in El Salvador than worrying about those people who are being discriminated against here in America?

The President: I'm glad you asked that question. I hope sometime, at some press conferences, it will be asked more often. There is a perception that I have to tell you, on my own behalf, is totally false about our approach to anything of that kind.

I can call to your attention that the idea of forced busing, now, is one that the polls show that both minority and the majority in America -- parents -- disapprove of. They don't believe -- that while it started with the most worthwhile of ideas, that it has not achieved the purpose that it should, and that we could find better ways to bring about what we want. I am wholeheartedly in favor of integration -- and was, long before there was a term called ``civil rights,'' back at a time when -- well, some of the things that went on, it's hard to believe now -- but back when I was your age, that we lived in a time in which there was such injustice, such discrimination.

But I, fortunately, was raised by a mother and father who believed that the -- well, the only intolerance they had was they were intolerant of intolerance. And I was raised to believe something else. And when I was a sports announcer in Iowa, not too far from Centerville, announcing major league baseball -- how many of you remember that, within that span of time, major league baseball -- no blacks were allowed to play? It was in the Spaulding Guide. It said, ``Baseball is a game for Caucasian gentlemen.'' And there were some of us at that time that began campaigning that this was wrong, and this was immoral, and it should be changed. And I am proud to say I was one of those.

Now, I think you mentioned our appointment to the Civil Rights Commission. Well, one of them, a Dr. Abram, was the lawyer who defended Martin Luther King when he was arrested for the sit-in in a lunch counter in Atlanta, Georgia. And Bunzel, who was the head of San Jose State University for 8 years, has been involved in civil rights activities for 35 years and was honored by the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco for his work in civil rights in 1974. The other member that I have nominated has an equally solid record in that. And the young Hispanic woman that I have named as Director of the Board, the Executive Director, she is not only of a minority community herself, but she was the assistant to Albert Shanker, the head of the American Federation of Teachers union and also participated in civil rights in education.

I think there's been some misinformation about what we're trying to do and what we've done. As a matter of fact, our Justice Department right now is engaged in more investigations of suspected discrimination in school districts than, I believe, any of the past several administrations have been.

And I can only tell you this: My own feeling and belief is that wherever in this country any individual is being denied his or her constitutional rights, it is the responsibility of the Federal Government, with all the power it possesses, to go to the aid of that single individual."

 

[Aldroud]

I think you should critically examine the insane notion behind the use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons.

Perjorative statement. You have no proof that the nuclear planners where insane. As a matter of course, people that dealt with nuclear weapons were screened constantly for signs of mental illness. Do us all a favor and don't ascribe personal opinion or labels such as insane, it demeans the tone of discussion.

The Europeans were terrified of them because their use would have rendered much of the continent uninhabitable.

Honestly, I don't much care for European sentiments. Sorry.

The President and the General Secretary are both warned that response times are down to minutes. This may not be enough time to ensure the command to launch strategic weapons gets to the delivery points.

Hence why second strike capabilities exist, and tertiary, and so on. In the event of a surprise nuclear attack, riding out the storm and assessing the situation rationally over the next few hours/ days is the most likely course of action. That's why the Trident missile scarred the hell out of the Soviets, it was a counter-forces missile - not a city-busting counter-value one. Trident D5s could have been used to target military installations, the circular probability error of a D5 was measured in feet.

It only takes one of them to decide that the other side will launch a strategic attack because it belives it is losing. Then 'the button' is pushed.
This is the reality behind the 'planning' for tactical nuclear strikes. And nuclear weapons are not just 'big bombs' as you assert. The whole rationale behind MAD was that a nuclear war could NOT be limited.

Don't you find it odd that the Soviets never ascribed to the doctrine of MAD? MAD was the creation of policy wonks in the State Deptartment and media officials practicing the art of sticking their asses in the air and heads in holes. No one wages a war they know they cannot win, no one wages a nuclear war they know will destroy their own nation. That doesn't mean they don't wage war, however. Nuclear weapons ARE just big bombs.

4) Nuclear Winter, Hundreds of Years of Radiactivity, Rapant Cancers, All The Horros of Nuclear War Portrayed by Hollywood are vasty overated. (Over several weeks, radioactive exposure from airbust weapons similar to riding the Concord 100x)

I attended a symposium at the Air War College with Doctor Carl Sagan who spoke about the model for nuclear winter. The original model came from the observation of meteor strikes on Mars. Subsequent modfications to the model to account for Earth's larger size, atmosphere, and other variables showed that nuclear winter was an overblown extrapolation, effects would be no where near those predicted orginially.

Half life for the most deadly radioactive elements may be measured in years but only a few molecules are enought to be deadly. Death is inevitable but may be months or years from cancers. Other radioactive elements have a half life of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. Their existence would poison the environment and render food if it was still capable of being grown, inedible.

Most radiation is either Alpha or Beta radiation. Both are blocked by a minimum of protection. Alpha radiation cannot penetrate the skin and Beta is blocked by clothing. Gamma radiation is extremely energetic and zips through several feet of lead. Fortunately, most of the gamma rays are a direct product of the detonation, so there's little lingering gamma.

As for food, avoid foods like cauliflower or lettuce with large amounts of surface area folded in upon itself. Foods such as eggplants and oranges with an external skin that is smooth and can be washed or removed prove to be very resilient to radiating a person.

Now, not saying that a nuclear war of any scale wouldn't be a disaster of the first magnitude, but let's not get carried away. It's not like an asteroid the size of Texas crashing down. The full scale nuclear exchange of popular mythology is just that, a myth. A far more likely scenario is the use of tens of weapons on a battlefield (the size of Europe or Asia no doubt).

In fact, under certain circumstances, a nuclear weapon may be just the device needed to restore peace/ impose peace. It worked on the Japanese you know.