Shortly before sunrise on Sept. 22, 1979, a U.S. surveillance satellite known as Vela 6911 recorded an unusual double flash as it orbited the earth above the South Atlantic. At Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, where it was still nighttime on Sept. 21, the staff in charge of monitoring the satellite’s transmissions saw the unmistakable pattern produced by a nuclear explosion—something U.S. satellites had detected on dozens of previous occasions in the wake of nuclear tests. The Air Force base issued an alert overnight, and President Jimmy Carter quickly called a meeting in the White House Situation Room the next day.
Building on the success of the New Deal, FDR added Wallace, initially his agriculture secretary, as vice president in 1940, dumping segregationist Democrat John Nance Garner. Roosevelt felt that Wallace could succeed him and ultimately continue on the work of the New Deal. More importantly, FDR needed Wallace’s energy and vision to help make the case to the American public to back the war effort.
As vice president, Wallace spent the war years touring the U.S. with a vigor that the wheelchair-bound FDR couldn’t, arguing that in order to truly win the war against fascism abroad, the United States must take on racism, sexism, and economic inequality at home, or risk the rise of a new “American fascism.”
In The Bomb, journalist Fred Kaplan reveals how U.S. presidents, their advisers and generals have thought about, planned for — and sometimes narrowly avoided — nuclear war.
The long-term ramifications of the killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani by a U.S. drone strike remain to be seen. It appears we have walked back from the brink of war between Iran and the U.S., at least for now, as both countries acknowledge the high costs of continuing down that path.
However, as this high-stakes situation plays out, the distinct danger is that Iraq and Afghanistan — the two fragile countries flanking Iran — will become collateral damage, rolling back hard-earned progress and prolonging two already drawn-out wars.