Dark Horses

Democracies are notoriously susceptible to panics, vague and specific, and nowadays caught by contagion through contact with television, publicity agents, and callow adolescents of all ages whose only comfortable identity is that of victim. The current panic in the U.S. is over the threat of nuclear war, which is supposedly much more imminent in 1982 than it was in 1980, 1979, 1973, 1969, 1965, 1962, 1959, 1950, and 1948.

The nuke scare (which comes around every so often: wasn’t the last major one in 1962?) started in Europe, specifically among our allies, the West Germans, whose leaders have succumbed to the popular hysteria. Within the past couple of months, moreover, and aided by Jonathan Schell and the fine hand of Georgi Arbatov and his propaganda and disinformation agents, the antinuclear movement has ground-zeroed in the most densely populated areas of American public opinion.

CW

About the Author

Chilton Williamson Jr.

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Democracies are notoriously susceptible to panics, vague and specific, and nowadays caught by contagion through contact with television, publicity agents, and callow adolescents of all ages whose only comfortable identity is that of victim. The current panic in the U.S. is over the threat of nuclear war, which is supposedly much more imminent in 1982 than it was in 1980, 1979, 1973, 1969, 1965, 1962, 1959, 1950, and 1948.

The nuke scare (which comes around every so often: wasn’t the last major one in 1962?) started in Europe, specifically among our allies, the West Germans, whose leaders have succumbed to the popular hysteria. Within the past couple of months, moreover, and aided by Jonathan Schell and the fine hand of Georgi Arbatov and his propaganda and disinformation agents, the antinuclear movement has ground-zeroed in the most densely populated areas of American public opinion.