Friday Flick

Last night at the Old Theater in Oriental, we had a showing of the movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

It's among my favorite movies, but I had never seen it on the big screen. When the movie came out in 1964, I was too busy learning how to be a department head on a destroyer to see movies. That spring, I spent some weeks in Norfolk, Virginia learning about nuclear weapons and their control and use.

The previous fall, at 1:00 pm November 22, 1963, I had joined my fellow students in the US Naval Destroyer School at a command performance - a speech by the US Navy's Chief of Naval Personnel. As the Admiral stepped up to the podium, we muttered among ourselves wondering if he knew the president had been shot. He showed no sign of awareness. The speech turned out to be an attack on the defense policies of the Kennedy administration and, in particular, those of Defense Secretary MacNamara and his "whiz kids."

About half way through the speech, the admiral's aid approached the podium and handed the admiral a note. The admiral read it and said, "I regret to inform you that the president has died." He then completed his speech.

After that, I would have to say that nothing in the dialogue of General Jack D. Ripper, General Turgidson, Colonel Bat Guano, or any of the other outrageous characters in the movie seemed impossible. In particular, Major Kong as played by Slim Pickens, was spot on.

There was much about our national obsession with and fear of the Soviet Union and Soviet Communism in those years that was irrational. A movie like this does a great service by revealing absurdities instead of taking them too seriously.