3 ms·

Thanks for mentioning "Airstrip One" (1). It's indeed always worth to mentally compare the parts of his Oceania with Five Eyes (2). The "airstrip" is, I believe

by acqq 6y ago

Thanks for mentioning "Airstrip One" (1). It's indeed always worth to mentally compare the parts of his Oceania with Five Eyes (2). The "airstrip" is, I believe, a reference to the island's role in the bombing operations of WW II (3) which would have been a direct association to the reader reading the novel in 1948. Also thanks for mentioning Eleanor Dulles (4) I haven't read about her before. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-Fou... 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes 3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World... 4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Lansing_Dulles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Lansing_Dulles

082349872349872 6y ago
On strategic bombing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23572030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23572030
- acqq 6y ago
  I've read R.V. Jones' book about it from the said "Airstrip One" location, and much more, I really recommend it. It's really interesting. Regarding "someone must've been doing similar analyses to pick allied bombing targets" there is somewhat about that, regarding Japan, in the book by Leslie Groves. Edit: Spoiler: they simply bombed every city that they didn't explicitly decide to spare for the bomb, in Japan. The bombs weren't too precise anyway. Most destruction was intentionally causing the fires. Edit 2: also absolutely required read: "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" also about how "precise" the bombing actually was.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Ta! Will be busy tracking these down for a while. Jones gives an early intimation of Snowden during a CIA symposium (1993): https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol38no5/pdf/v38i5a05p.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig... > "A point to be made at the outset is the enormous difference between the scale on which you operate today and our own efforts in World War II..." (As Jones is fond of Kipling, I offer one of the latter's less jingoistic moments: Children of the yoke and goad, Pack and harness, pad and load. ... While the men that walk beside, Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed, Cannot tell why we or they March and suffer day by day.)
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      Things that make you go hmmmm: Groves could publish a memoir the Manhattan Project in 1962 (<20 years after the war), yet the JFK cancellation files have still not yet been fully released. What I was able to glean from the preview: Groves wanted to bomb 京都, less because he knew exactly what military targets there were there, and more because it would have been "large enough in area for us to gain complete knowledge of the effects of an atomic bomb." I wonder how much this calibration wish factored into his rationalisation (p.266) for not demonstrating the bomb before dropping it on civilians? Good guys: Stimson (p. 275) and Patterson (p. 265) https://archive.org/details/nowitcanbetolds00grov/page/274/mode/2up?q=japan https://archive.org/details/nowitcanbetolds00grov/page/274/m...
      - acqq 6y ago
        > Groves could publish a memoir the Manhattan Project in 1962 He explicitly named it "Now It Can Be Told." Only 17 years after the bombs, the whole book. The rationales for the target selection -- yes, it's straight from the horse's mouth, and plausible because it is directly not something somebody would just write to in any way "improve" his own reputation, I'd like to believe. He also wrote there something like, if I remember correctly, that his biggest worry during the last months of the war has been that the war could had been over before he gets to drop the bomb on some city with civilians which would provide for good demonstration. It's also obvious that the existence of "military targets" was totally irrelevant, except as a good excuse to be provided to the current president. Something which sounded like that to me, at least. Maybe somebody will locate the specific words. Also Groves, before the Senate, November 1945, about the suffering of the victims of the bombs: "As I understand it from the doctors, it is a very pleasant way to die." (1) Also see the book from my Edit 2, before. 1) https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/survivors-hiroshima-and-nagasaki https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/survivors-hiroshima-a...
        082349872349872 6y ago
        The story of the 1'000 cranes made an impression on me when I was young. It's about storks, not cranes, but this is a hit soviet anti-war song (mid-80's, roughly contemporaneous with "Top Gun"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oCoVXcZ59Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oCoVXcZ59Q

by acqq 6y ago

082349872349872 6y ago

On strategic bombing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23572030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23572030

acqq 6y ago
I've read R.V. Jones' book about it from the said "Airstrip One" location, and much more, I really recommend it. It's really interesting. Regarding "someone must've been doing similar analyses to pick allied bombing targets" there is somewhat about that, regarding Japan, in the book by Leslie Groves. Edit: Spoiler: they simply bombed every city that they didn't explicitly decide to spare for the bomb, in Japan. The bombs weren't too precise anyway. Most destruction was intentionally causing the fires. Edit 2: also absolutely required read: "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" also about how "precise" the bombing actually was.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Ta! Will be busy tracking these down for a while. Jones gives an early intimation of Snowden during a CIA symposium (1993): https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol38no5/pdf/v38i5a05p.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig... > "A point to be made at the outset is the enormous difference between the scale on which you operate today and our own efforts in World War II..." (As Jones is fond of Kipling, I offer one of the latter's less jingoistic moments: Children of the yoke and goad, Pack and harness, pad and load. ... While the men that walk beside, Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed, Cannot tell why we or they March and suffer day by day.)
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Things that make you go hmmmm: Groves could publish a memoir the Manhattan Project in 1962 (<20 years after the war), yet the JFK cancellation files have still not yet been fully released. What I was able to glean from the preview: Groves wanted to bomb 京都, less because he knew exactly what military targets there were there, and more because it would have been "large enough in area for us to gain complete knowledge of the effects of an atomic bomb." I wonder how much this calibration wish factored into his rationalisation (p.266) for not demonstrating the bomb before dropping it on civilians? Good guys: Stimson (p. 275) and Patterson (p. 265) https://archive.org/details/nowitcanbetolds00grov/page/274/mode/2up?q=japan https://archive.org/details/nowitcanbetolds00grov/page/274/m...
    - acqq 6y ago
      > Groves could publish a memoir the Manhattan Project in 1962 He explicitly named it "Now It Can Be Told." Only 17 years after the bombs, the whole book. The rationales for the target selection -- yes, it's straight from the horse's mouth, and plausible because it is directly not something somebody would just write to in any way "improve" his own reputation, I'd like to believe. He also wrote there something like, if I remember correctly, that his biggest worry during the last months of the war has been that the war could had been over before he gets to drop the bomb on some city with civilians which would provide for good demonstration. It's also obvious that the existence of "military targets" was totally irrelevant, except as a good excuse to be provided to the current president. Something which sounded like that to me, at least. Maybe somebody will locate the specific words. Also Groves, before the Senate, November 1945, about the suffering of the victims of the bombs: "As I understand it from the doctors, it is a very pleasant way to die." (1) Also see the book from my Edit 2, before. 1) https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/survivors-hiroshima-and-nagasaki https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/survivors-hiroshima-a...
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        The story of the 1'000 cranes made an impression on me when I was young. It's about storks, not cranes, but this is a hit soviet anti-war song (mid-80's, roughly contemporaneous with "Top Gun"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oCoVXcZ59Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oCoVXcZ59Q