War

How Does This End? – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

How Does This End? – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Even in the better case where both sides take their fingers off the triggers, the nuclear taboo has been broken, and we are in an entirely new era: two nuclear superpowers have used their nuclear weapons in a war. The proliferation consequences alone would be far-reaching, as other countries accelerate their nuclear weapons programs. The very fact that the nuclear

Nelson Rockefeller and Civil Defense (U.S. National Park Service)

Nelson Rockefeller and Civil Defense (U.S. National Park Service)

Nelson Rockefeller was a businessman, foundation head, cabinet-level US government official, and four-term governor of New York. He was engaged throughout his life with shaping public policy in direct and indirect ways, often alongside his younger brother Laurance, with whom he worked on some of the same business, philanthropic, and governmental initiatives. One of Nelson Rockefeller’s most passionately-pursued ideas during the 1950’s and 1960’s was the necessity of fallout shelters for civil defense.

β€œDo You Hear What I Hear” was actually about the Cuban Missile Crisis – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

β€œDo You Hear What I Hear” was actually about the Cuban Missile Crisis – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

We often take Christmas carols at face value. But at least one holiday favorite, “Do You Hear What I Hear,” contains more than what first meets the ear.

Written during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the song contains references to the fear of a nuclear attack. Many of the phrases it contains, such as “a star, dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite” can be interpreted in two ways: as the bright star of Bethlehem that leads the Magi to the baby Jesus—or as the sight of a nuclear missile in flight. “The star was meant to be a bomb,” the composers’ daughter, Gabrielle Regney, explained to GBH News, the magazine of the Boston public radio station, in 2019.