Somber Thoughts

September 29, 1961, Twin City News-Record

For today's installment, let's hearken back to the Cold War, when the US and USSR engaged in a relationship of mutually assured destruction via nuclear weaponry.  In the midst of the "duck and cover" drills we former students of a certain age may still recall, comes this somber editorial about saving the Fox Valley's youngest citizens from the inevitable fallout.  For those less aware, "mutually assured destruction" is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.  We may remember this more vividly as the theory of "deterrence," which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. Thankfully, this never escalated to the point of being a reality, but the fear was always there.