The great American fear in the fifties was of Soviet intentions and capabilities. As Michael Beschloss pointed out, even the Moscow phone book was classified. Hitler’s military build-up in the thirties had, because of the nature of armaments and of Germany’s physical location, been self-evident, but the Soviet Union was something else. It was both secretive and vast; much of its territory had no possibility of being inspected; it was a veritable black hole for the new uncertain world power across the Atlantic that felt so threatened. We had made our great investment in SAC, the bomber attack
...more
