In 1962, in Mrs Whitacre’s 2nd grade class at Alto Elementary, we were taught to crawl under our desks in the event of nuclear war that was possible because of “the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Pres Kennedy was smart, a WW2 veteran, knew the carnage of war and studied history. 1/6

“A few months earlier, President Kennedy had read Barbara Tuchman’s ‘The Guns of August’,” [FN1] Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer-winning account of European powers’ blundering into WW1. During a conversation w/Atty Gen Robt Kennedy, special assistant Kenny O’Donnell, 2/6

and White House counsel Ted Sorenson, Pres Kennedy said, ““I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time. [] If anybody is around to write after this, they are going to understand that we made every effort to find peace 3/6

and every effort to give our adversary room to move.” [FN2]
Today, trump, an imbecile, is in the Oval Office & toys w/war (“maybe I will, maybe I won’t”).
He doesn’t read, is surrounded by imbeciles (Hegseth? Gabbard?) & is ignorant of war. 4/6

Another dynamic: the evangelicals around trump who believe their deity wants Armageddon, the last war in which we all perish. In 1962, we were lucky. Only 10 miles from Bunker Hill AFB, the desks wouldn’t have protected us. An intelligent Pres did. 5/6

Footnotes:
FN1. Meredith Hindley, “The Dramatist,” HUMANITIES, September/October 2012, Volume 33, Number 5, accessed 6/21/25.
FN2. Id. 6/6