Like Kennedy, who served in the US Navy, he had seen the face of war. He completed two overseas deployments working with Partisans in Italy and Yugoslavia. Photo: HandoutĪnd by the way, prior to becoming an actor, Hayden was an operative in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) during World War II, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff met with president Kennedy in the Oval Office on November 16, 1962, to update him on the military situation in Cuba. Whether Trump actually believes this nonsense or is just a pathological liar on a sinking ship, we don’t really know, but it is worrying. This is not a far cry from the bizarre tales being floated on Fox News and by other rabid Republicans to play down Joe Biden’s election victory. Specifically, that fluoridation was a vast communist conspiracy invading “our bodily fluids.” The latter an option for US generals, after Washington and other places had gotten pulverized.Ĭolonel Jack Ripper – one of the main characters in the film played brilliantly by actor Sterling Hayden – like the current US president, believes in mad conspiracy theories. The film follows a US Air Force SAC commander gone mad, sending an entire B-52 wing to attack the Soviets, as part of Wing Attack Plan R. Perhaps the best depiction, in a movie, of a nuclear accident waiting to happen was the 1964 Stanley Kubrick film Dr. It was a moment of glory for old “Iron Pants” LeMay, who would get his Vietnam War – but not a victory. LeMay would strut around JFK’s body during the Washington, DC, autopsy, smoking his big cigar and telling the coroners what they could do, and what they couldn’t. But Jack would be gone a year later, the victim of a mysterious assassination, one that has yet to be fully resolved in the minds of many Americans.

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