'Togetherness'

[Otto]

Mark,

I only wanted to point to the fact that the Soviets (let's drop the word
Russians) weren't the only ones making the mistake of believing that
threatening the world with such a danger would ensure the peace. Pynchon
speaks of the "succession of criminal insane" and I deeply share this
opinion, not pointing to one side only.

As you say it's the "official" version of history. I'd bet that Kennedy knew
shortly after Khrushchev had decided to give an answer to the nuclear threat
on his southern front that Khrushchev had indeed taken that risky decision
in May 1962, and I'm sure that Kennedy was sure that Khrushchev would do so
before he'd put those US-rockets to Turkey.

"On October 22, 1962, Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky is arrested in the
Soviet Union. From April 1961, Penkovsky has been a spy for British and U.S.
intelligence services, providing them with material on Soviet military
capabilities, including important technical information on Soviet MRBM and
ICBM programs."
http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/subject/missile-crisis/ch03.htm

It was a logical step that Khrushchev would try it. But Cuba could be
isolated easily, and Khrushchev turned the ships around finally (luckily).

About the dates of my childhood memories I'm quite sure. There hasn't been
such a tensely atmosphere before and my parents never have prepared a room
downstairs again. Or do you remember a situation any time later when the US
and the Soviets were so close at each others throats again? We were nailed
to the tube watching the evening news, and when my dad came back from his
48 hours shifts on the airfield early in the morning he rested in the living
room to listen to the radio-news because the only TV-channel was
broadcasting only from the late afternoon on.

No, I don't think that there has been such a concrete fear later. Later we
knew that the nuclear balance was just "deterrence," that the politicians
and generals had finally understood that no side would win a nuclear war.
Have you ever been really afraid of a possible nuclear war later? I was not.
There have been so many crises, the USA in Vietnam, the Russians in
Afghanistan, Angola. The military-industrial complex who benefited from the
ongoing "alarm" would have destroyed itself so the wars were shifted to the
Third World; substitute wars on a lower level excluding a direct USA-UDSSR
confrontation.

On Nena and "99Luftballons" I admit that I've played that song too during my
active time as a dj, but I've never been a big fan of her. I liked Nina
Hagen's music more.

On the question of the date I know that the most likely answer is that
simply Pynchon's contract had ended. But I'm sure he wasn't unhappy
about it.

Otto

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Wright AIA" <mwaia at yahoo.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: 'Togetherness'


> 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
>