'Togetherness'

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy Otto
I know about the U.S. (our!) Jupiter missiles in Turkey. My use of the
old nickname "Crazy Ivan" was intended to be light and ironic. If you
didn't read it that way I'm sorry, I guess.

In the "official" version of events Kennedy didn't learn about the
missiles in Cuba until October 15, when he was shown U-2 overflight
photos, which I presume must have been taken at least a day earlier.
Are you sure of the dates of your childhood memories? I'm not sure of
the dates of mine. My earliest genuine memories are of getting hit
pretty hard with a belt by my dad because I threw a heavy oak stool at
my little brother (and of always sitting at the table with my mom
between me and dad thereafter), sledding down hill and busting my head
on a concrete block buried in the snow, fighting with my younger
brother over *my* tricycle (there was only one), Soupy Sales, the
Kennedy Funeral, and of enormous waxed-cardboard cannisters of powdered
eggs and powdered milk stacked in our kitchen. 

I can't attach dates to any of it. Weren't the "continuous alarms" you
remember pretty much continuous back then? The atmosphere of crisis in
Europe must have been quite high from the days of the Berlin airlift
and before, and continued right on through the eighties, when that
great song "99Luftballons" was such a big hit with the kids... 
Best
Mark

--- Otto <ottosell at yahoo.de> wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Wright AIA" <mwaia at yahoo.com>
> > Are you saying that Pynchon somehow knew that Crazy Ivan was
> putting
> > missiles into Cuba before Kennedy did?
> 
> That was known quite a while before the actual September-crisis came.
> I knew
> that the Russians were about to deploy missiles close to the USA
> because I
> was a soldier's kid and there were continuous alarms in the village
> were I
> lived throughout the Summer-holidays. We even had prepared a special
> room in
> the cellar.

> Why shoudn't our man not know this while working for Boeing &
> obviously
> having more information than the ususal citizen as his articles
> prove.
> 
> I could imagine that Boeing at Seattle was a possible target. I mean,
> if I
> were living close to a military base I would move away as far as
> possible
> during such a crisis.
> 
> On "Crazy Ivan":
> "Elsewhere in the world, in April of 1962, 15 U.S. Jupiter missiles
> in
> Turkey become operational, on the border of the Soviet Union. All
> positions
> are reported "ready and manned" by U.S. personnel - ready to launch
> against
> the Soviet Union at any moment. The missiles are armed with 1.45
> megaton
> warheads, 97 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
> Fatality projections for each missile aim at one million civilians."
> 
> So who was the lunetic?
> 
> > And that his leaving Boeing just
> > then had something to do with the Cuban missile crisis?
> >
> 
> That has been my question. Maybe his contract had just ended and they
> didn't
> want to renew it.
> 
> > Or are you pointing out that his leaving Boing couldn't have had
> > anything to do with Cuba?
> >
> 
> I just discovered the coincidence of quitting the job in September,
> the
> month of the Cuban Missile Crisis which has been the first major
> political
> event I can remember (the second was Nov. 22, 1963) because all the
> grown-ups were talking about a possible nuclear war. The Russians
> were about
> to attack us, driving their panzers on our beautiful autobahns,
> raping all
> the women, forcing the men and boys to Siberian slave labor and
> taking away
> all the watches. I did not want to give away my watch.
> 
> > Or that the Russians moved into Cuba because that pesky Pynchon was
> > finally out of the way?
> >
> > Mark
> >
> 
> That's the best solution I could think of but I fear it's just a
> dream.
> 
> Otto
> 
> 


		
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