Nike Missiles, John Galt, and Sufjan Stevens

It seems my work is becoming tangled in a web of obscure cultural references...

 I am working on the deployment of Nike Missiles around the perimeter of Chicago in the 1950's. Some time ago I came across a short film that was produced by an electronics company here in Chicago during the 1950's or early 60's titled "Charlies Atlas". My interest in the film began when I was scouring the Prelinger Collection of documentary and ephemeral films - on the hunt for things related to the city during the 50's:

Like many cold war artifacts, this film seems odd given the facts of the world we live in today.  Where is this curious town with missiles on the main street? My first guess was Huntsville, Alabama .  And when and where in the age of television did young boys dress like that? Several clues lead me to believe that this was made in the 1960's, including the cars seen on the street, although other clues suggest perhaps this may have been the late 1950's.  A company responsible for creating the film, Cook Electronics, was apparently based in Chicago at this time - their headquarters were on Southport Avenue just a few blocks from my office in Lincoln Park...

Fast forward to last week. Again looked at this film. Came across an edited version that reminded me of a '90's snarky show on some comedy network whose sole premise was to make fun of old sci-fi movies from the 50's and 60's - Mystery Science Theater 3000 or MST3K..

Obscure cultural references abound. The narrator mentions John Galt, somehow relevant in the 2012 election mess, Viagra, and Robert Oppenheimer...

Again.. Another version - this time used as background for Sufjan Stevens' song Concerning the UFO Sighting near Highland Illinois.

This song was said to be about the sighting of a Black Triangle UFO in southern Illinois about 12 years ago.. Cultural artifacts - traces - enter the public domain and are reworked, repurposed, recycled.

Again.. It seems my work is becoming tangled in a web of obscure cultural references...

A Little Black Box..

In the 1950's the U.S. was in the midst of an early cold war paranoid conundrum.  Right wing zealots, politicians, media, and clergy had fanned the fear of Soviet sneak attacks to a white hot level and the introduction and early deployment of terror weapons on both sides such as ICBMs and SLBMs only served to heighten the anxiety.  When combined with the more-likely scenario of nuclear assault (from either side) by manned aircraft and the possibility of hundreds of atomic weapons being used in a doomsday exchange the importance of civil defense became crucial. The massive social investment in CD had the dual effect of calming the public while showing the other side that there would be survivors in any exchange.  In this contest winners and losers would be determined by the percentages of the population saved through early warnings, shelters, and regimented action by well-drilled and terrified citizens.

As a way of easing fears while responding to several possible what-ifs, came the NEAR System (National Emergency Alarm Repeater) - a simple device that could be plugged into a normal AC wall outlet in homes or businesses.  The system would detect a special frequency of AC current superimposed on the normal frequency and would sound the alarm - a buzzer contained in the "black box". The metaphorical meme "black box" - only recently coined and rapidly taking on meanings across many diverse fields - applied  perfectly to the device both literally and metaphorically.

The NEAR program was intended to address perceived gaps in the Nation's warning systems, and was developed following the direction of Congress that 90% of the population be alerted in a timely fashion following the detection of an incipient Soviet nuclear attack on the U.S.  There was quite a bit of confusion in the electric utilities regarding the infrastructure needed by each utility in order to address the receivers, costs, liabilities, and ownership.

The irony of this system was in its spin - the way it was demanded, developed, explained, and received in the midst of the cold war.  When viewed from the present (2012) technologies of this sort seem a paranoid and irrational response to a nebulous perceived threat, the possibility of Soviet sneak attack.  But the fear of attack was a product of the system of Soviet demonization in the U.S. mass media that began creating the boogie of international communism decades before.  The brief respite during WWII (following our declaration of common cause with Stalin) only served as a backdrop for the strategic play of the late war as Soviet "treachery" unfolded in Europe and Asia.  The immediate turn toward the USSR as enemy following the war provided a justifying narrative that supported "big stick" defense policies (and the creation of the military industrial complex in the 1940's and 50's) during a period that should have been one of demobilization, disarmament, and reduced defense spending.  The drumbeat of anti-communist propaganda at home and abroad became a self-fulfilling prophecy as the Soviets followed our lead (in response not just to U.S. triumphalism but more reasonably to the history of German aggression during the 20th century).  It is difficult to calculate the social and economic cost of what became the "cold war" - a war that did not really exist in the sense of actual conflict - and histories of the 20th century are yet to be written that set aside this period as an analytical object, perhaps because it has not ended.

After 1989 (with the almost immediate pivot to threats in the Arab world by the U.S. defense establishment) we have spent two decades waiting for post-cold-war "demobilization" and "disarmament" in a futile hope that somehow sanity would guide national policy - it never arrived.  Consider the recent claim by Romney that our principal geopolitical foe in the world is Russia - the immediate response of gratitude for this remark by Putin is a reminder of the vested and open interests in the illumination and redeployment of psycho-social structures of irrational fear still resident in the memories of generations.  So the NEAR system can be seen as a dorsal fin of a deep and abiding fear, an ugly fear inscribed into our national character, sometimes not visible but at other times surfacing and raising the goosebumps of our childhood, saluted to by both parties each year in the senseless growth of defense/security appropriations in national accounts.  A little black box... Indeed.

It's Tuesday Morning, 10am..

..and the Air Raid Siren is wailing.  The three-minute blast from the village is a reminder of weekly tests of the 95 sirens in Chicago and Cook County that would wail every Tuesday morning (at 10 am) starting in 1950, reminding us that we were only hours from the apocalypse.  By the late 1950's it was only minutes.  Postcards from the county civil defense director were sent asking us to describe the siren - this then used to "fill in the holes" in our paranoid mental maps.

This is posted for those who think their children are growing up in a different world than we.

Tactical use of UAV's: What is the limit?

A recent article in Defense News discussing the ways that drones have been incorporated into USAF training exercises caused me to consider the troubling expansion of U.S. defense policy that is reliant on remotely piloted aircraft.  If the use of these devices in faraway south Asia is any guide to what the future may hold for their deployment, thinking defense analysts (or anyone concerned with U.S. foreign policy) should be asking particular questions of the defense establishment and the politicians who pay for and direct them.  Here are a few for starters:

• What are the limits for the use of these devices, ethically, tactically, and geographically?
• Are there particular geopolitical situations which might be considered "national security concerns" - either current, impending, or hypothetically likely - which have been or might be considered as possible theaters for their deployment?
• Where is the appropriate place for a public discussion of UAV/ drone policy in the United States, and why is this not an issue in the 2012 election cycle?

One must assume (or to borrow a somewhat hackneyed word, hope) that there are limits to the use of these devices, however there has really been little to no public discussion of the ways that they might be deployed in particular, specific circumstances going forward.  It seems their deployment in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa has emerged over the last decade as a tactic in response to both budgetary and demand imperatives with little public discussion about the ways this has represented a fundamental break and a shift in how we, as a society, defend ourselves and make war on our perceived enemies.  The consequences of this have been many.  Whether there are geographic limits to their use likely depends on the whims and wills of present and future administrations - the technology has quickly become a Pandora's Box of ethical, legal, and political concerns that are weakly- or under-specified in public discourse.

There most certainly are contingencies in current DOD planning which would become candidates for UAV deployment and use, globally, and one must assume that these are under consideration.  For instance, the current turmoil in Mexico and Central America, that occasionally has spilled into the southwestern U.S., most certainly qualifies as a concern for the national security establishment.  UAV's are in use for border surveillance and as real-time intelligence for interdiction of illegal immigration and drug traffic.  The recently-conducted USAF training exercise "Red Flag" is intended to simulate engagement with a "near-peer" adversary or, in Air Force jargon a "World War III scenario" - Iran is the most likely boogie-man, as the exercise included "search for Scud missile launchers".  Whether Pakistan-style use of Predator drones in future worst-case scenarios has or will be considered should be a top question in this year's election season - as yet it has not.

There are numerous possible fora for public discussion of these contingencies before they happen.  The most obvious would be one of several committees in Congress that deal with defense appropriation, strategic policy, border surveillance and security, and defense technology.  Whether any political will exists, either in the executive or legislative branches, to undertake a discussion of what has been raised here is doubtful - we seem to be more easily distracted by cultural and social concerns in 2012 to consider whether our apparent love of robotic killing machines can or should be called into question.

"..survivors scurrying in all directions"

During the late 1920's and 30's Canadians came up with a novel use for surplus bombs from the recent European War.


 According to a post in the February 1930 edition of Popular Mechanics, attributed in the marginal notes to John Spicer of Owen Sound, Ontario, (p. 216) the Quebec Department of Game and Fisheries were seeking to aid commercial fishers in the lower St. Lawrence estuary.  The agency felt that the fishery was in danger of  collapse from the effects of the "voracious appetites of porpoises".  It seems the marine mammals had an unfair advantage (their existence as part of the ecosystem that included the fish being "harvested" in the commercial fishery; the evolutionary adaptations that allow the animals to cooperate in capturing the fish that sustain them).


After using sharpshooters to address the problem ("..they made no headway") the QDGF escalated by trying airplanes with "depth bombs".  This was not successful however, as the pesky porpoises would simply "scatter as soon as the bombs hit the water".  The obvious solution - bombs that explode on striking the surface! This proved to be the most effective method as "several bombs dropped on a school kill many outright, injure others, and send the survivors scurrying in all directions."


If true, this episode adds valuable context to the historical practices of seal hunting carried out in this same region for nearly 300 years.

a special air-conditioned train...

In the early summer of 1955, Chicago was gripped with what we can only describe as nuclear hysteria.  Over the past few years news reports described the development and testing of terrible new weapons on both sides of the IC, and the local cognoscenti of the Chicago Civil Defense Corps had fanned passions to a fever pitch with frequent massive simulations of atomic attacks, weekly tests of the city's 95 air-raid sirens, and anti-communist rhetoric incubated in McCarthy's hen-house. The airwaves crackled and flickered with paranoid ravings of impending doom, for example this short interview with Val Peterson, FCDA Director under Eisenhower, from August 19, 1953:

It was in Chicago during the spring of 1955, speaking before a convention of insurance underwriters, that Peterson had uttered his warning for city residents to "run, dig, or die" in order to ensure their survival from a Soviet attack.

Chicago Daily Tribune, February 17, 1955

 These warnings were amplified in the pages of Colonel McCormick's rabidly anti-communist Chicago Daily Tribune every day.  In June of 1955, the city prepared for the first simulation of attack by hydrogen bomb, scheduled for June 15.  Planned as the largest simulation of the apocalypse in the city since the initiation of these drills around 1950, hundreds of thousands were enlisted to participate in some way.

As the spring unfolded there was something of a changing of the guard.  Robert McCormick, publisher and scion of the most powerful family in Chicago, passed away in early April.  At about the same time Richard J. Daley, a Democratic ward-healer and the Cook County Clerk, was elected mayor of the city for the first time.  Daley would become perhaps the most powerful big-city boss ever seen in an American city, serving through six chaotic terms, and he would create the Chicago Machine that dominates Chicago political life to this day.

On the day of the test, plans were made to temporarily relocate the headquarters of the new mayor's city government to La Grange, a western suburb, before the simulated incineration of hundreds of thousands of unfortunate city residents who were unable to escape, as a way of ensuring the continuity of city services.

During the simulation, which didn't include an actual attempted evacuation of the more than 3 million Chicagoans but did include a hypothetical evacuation of nearly half the city (unrealistic given the two-hour warning), there were over half a million immolated in a simulated instant with tens of thousands of victims succumbing to injuries and radiation sickness (a newly identified malady) in the next 48 hours.  For his part, Hizzoner and the rest of the city council were whisked to the suburbs in a special air-conditioned train.

Unfortunately, a very real (and unusual) northeast wind on the day of the attack carried the radioactive fallout from the simulated bomb to the west and southwest and the mayor and city council were "wiped out as the H-bomb fallout would have been carried over that area [La Grange]", adding to the multitude of simulated dead and dying.  This unusual wind (normally out of the southwest in June) meant that the swath of destruction from the newly identified technological horror "fallout" would have stretched as far as Peoria, whose city government had "refused to take part in the test as it would disrupt normal working hours".

In the report on the test completed by CCDC officials over the next month, city officials demanded that federal civil defense authorities take a stand regarding the recommendations of evacuation in large urban areas, which had been the hallmark of FCDA policy of the Eisenhower administration, replacing the "duck and cover" strategies (with soft industrial dispersion) pursued under Truman.  The 1955 Chicago test was one of over 50 urban simulations: it marked the beginning of a deep realization of the folly of civil defense strategies in the face of a concentrated urban population and the accelerating power of nuclear weapons being produced by the United States and Soviet Union.