Bromden's Biography

1970

On One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

There are three main reasons why Ken Kesey (left) chose to present the history of the chief in the manner he does.

Reason one is to build suspense.  There is suspense in the battle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratchet to be sure, but the suspense surrounding the chief, and his background, assures a tightness of tension in the novel.  This tension surrounding the chief is necessary to make the novel complete.  The information about the chief must be controlled to make his rebirth by McMurphy more important.

Thus a second reason: the steady gathering of information on the chief’s background helps keep focus on Bromden.  This focus would fail if the background was known from page one, for then the story would focus overly on McMurphy and his battle of wits with ratchet, and the conversion of Bromden to McMurphy’s minion would be weakened.  He would seem to change too rapidly.

This is reason three: Chief Bromden is a very sick man when he first presents himself.  He is withdrawn.  He has lost his memory of the past to shock treatments, recalling only flashes when they relate to the actions surrounding him, as when he associates the hospital aid with the hunting dogs in the opening pages.  (PP. 12)  A fog obliterates his other memories, but as McMurphy influences his mind, this fog gradually lifts and his memory gradually returns.  This add to the character’s realism what would be lost if his background was presented as a set of statistics right at the beginning.  It also emphases his recovery, for by the time he leaves he has accepted his past and is ready to face the opponents to his way of life.

As a footnote to Cuckoo, I find the very last line interesting.  “I been away a long time.”  (PP. 272)  He says it as if he means he had been away from his home a long time, but he also means he has been away from life a long time.  Even deeper, it could mean he has been away from the asylum a long time too; long enough to tell his story freely.  Long enough to know he doesn’t need it.

Freudian Hills of Africa

1970

On "Henderson and the Rain King" by Saul Bellows (Left)

Eugene Henderson obviously related in many ways to the Ernest Hemingway code-hero,₁ goes to Africa, Hemingway’s own Valhalla of truths, in quest of the essential truth about himself.  He is driven by an inner-voice saying, “I want, I want.”₂  He travels deep into the interior of Africa, literally into his own “heart of darkness”.₃   Here he encounters two primitive tribes, isolated by nature and time from the outer world.  Conveniently for Henderson, chiefs of both tribes were educated in civilized countries.

Desmond Morris stated anthropologists have traditionally rushed off to study primitive tribes seeking insights into modern man’s habits.₄  Similarly, Henderson seeks insight into himself, but the tribes he meets are very special.  Not just primitives, they are basic projections of his own self.

The first tribe, the Arnewi, is his own passive, loving quality, the deep compassions beneath his roughness that allow him to spare the life of the abandoned cat.₅  But the Arnewi’s passivity is leading directly to their doom; for their cattle, which they treat as equals, are dying of thirst and the water supply is polluted with frogs.

Upon meeting the Arnewi Prince, Henderson reluctantly joins in tribal tradition by wrestling the Prince.  At first, he lets the prince win, being compassionate, but then in a rematch he wins.  The Prince declares that now he knows Henderson.₆   Actually, Henderson’s mind has transformed its own wrestling match in to actual fact, and the real Henderson defeats the Henderson who wishes to exist.  

Primitive nature made the Arnewi stoic and accepting.  Henderson meets the queen, Willatale₇, who says he has “grun-tu-molani”₈, the will to live.  Henderson feels he is on the brink of ending his quest, but there still is ambiguity to content with.  True to the Hemingway Hero-Code, Henderson seeks action to escape from thought.  He decides he must save the Arnewi’s water.  He tries using modern technology to aid these primitive people, overruling their taboos and doubts.₉  His self-destructive nature overcomes his passive acceptance, so in blasting the frogs he blasts his hopes with the Arnewi.₁₀

He leaves and comes to the Wariri.  There is no passive acceptance in this tribe, no joy in the suffering of life.  They attack life and force confrontation with death.  Death is the reality of life.  It is reality that Henderson has never faced.  For all his talk of death, he has always believed the illusion of Lily’s statement that he could never die.₁₁

The king, Dahfu, knows death is inevitable.  Henderson’s strength will not hold off death, for his strength will fail and he will die.  The lion, not the cow, is life.  The Arnewi are Henderson’s illusions of life; the Wariri are the realities he has never faced.  And the truth of life may be the incorporation of Arnewi virtues with the realities of the Wariri.

Bellows uses anthropology not to study mankind, but to study one man, who may be many men, but not all.  Using the usual trappings of primitive behavior and culture, Bellow reduces them to the mental state of the main character, and in this battleground of his basic nature personified, Henderson is turned to the foam which is the cream of life.₁₂  He gives up accepting his illusions enough to grasp at life and make an attempt at the medical career he always longed for.

(To read more about Saul Bellows, click on the title of this post.)

NOTES:  FREUDIAN HILLS OF AFRICA 

1 Keith Opdahl, The Novels of Saul Bellow: An Introduction (University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1967), pp. 124-125.

2 Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King (New York: Fawcett World Library, 1958-59), p. 40; hereafter referred to as Bellow.

3 J. C. Levenson, “Bellow’s Dangling Men” Saul Bellow and the Critics, ed. Irving Malin (New York: New York University Press, 1967), p. 50.

4 Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape (New York: Dell, 1967), p. 9.

5 Bellow, p. 80.

6 Bellow, p. 62.

7 The names Bellow uses are interesting.  Will-a-tale-tell?  Dahfu and Death.  Ar-new-i (Are new I?)  War-ir-i (Where are I). --LEM

8 Bellow, p. 74.

9 Henderson seems to try being a Connecticut Yankee with Don Quixote results. -LEM

10 Bellow, pp. 94-95.

11 Bellow, p. 9.

12 Bellow, p. 151.

Marlow's Search for "Us": Joseph Conran's Lord Jim

1970

By choosing the device of a narrator within the narrator, Joseph Conrad (left) was forced to create further devices to avoid awkwardness.  It would have been unwieldy switching back and forth between the omnipotent narrator and Marlow; yet Conrad needed a means of widening the view of Jim.  Therefore, there are several narrators, including Jim himself, conveniently meeting Marlow and explaining a view.  One of the most interesting aspects of Conrad’s wheels within wheels could be called Marlow’s search for “us”.  The search can be followed through Marlow’s conversations with six characters.

THE CHIEF ENGINEER

Marlow visits the engineer admittedly seeking an answer to Jim’s character.  “I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse.”₁  This excuse would relieve Marlow’s concern there might be “a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth...resembled [Jim’s] youth.”₂  But Marlow finds no answer from the engineer, only the confusion of D.T. delirium.

BRIERLY

Captain Brierly is as hard and prickly as his name.  He used the thorns of superiority to keep the world from touching him. Marlow is uncomfortable rubbing against Brierly and does not get any direct insight from his conversation with the Captain. Brierly is Jim, if Jim had never fallen.₃  Brierly, however, has no outward feeling toward Jim as a kindred spirit, for to him, Jim is a failure best kept hidden.  “Well, then, let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there!”₄  But inwardly, Brierly recognized the same question as Marlow:  Jim is every decent man and if Jim could fail, so could Brierly.  This is a fact Brierly would rather not face and he commits suicide rather than change failure.

THE FRENCHMAN

The Frenchman, the man of potential never lived up to,₆ gives voice to Marlow’s feeling about fear.  “[The Frenchman] had made out the point at once: he did get hold of the only thing I cared about.”₇  Fear is always with all men, but they act bravely because of certain inducements, the opinions of others and of faith.  Jim had none of these inducements when he failed and who could say all men would not do the same.₈  (This follows the destructive nature theme Marlow felt while visiting the engineer and later expressed by Stein.)

STEIN

Stein allows Conrad some symbolic philosophizing about Jim and the nature of man.₁₀  It is also a chance for Marlow to confirm his feelings about Jim.  Stein, as do all the characters, hints at Jim’s fate.  “The way is

 the destructive element submit yourself...”₁₁ That is, man cannot have his dream of being about the world.  Man must submit to his disaster and use it for support.  This is what Brierly understood and could not face.

JEWEL

Marlow no longer seeks confirmation of Jim being “us’.  He is certain of this, but fails in attempting to make  Jewel understand.  Her attitude is very interesting.  She showed understanding for Cornelius, believing he was so wretched he needed no further punishment;₁₂ yet she cannot forgive Jim his last act because this broke his promise to stay with her.  “He was false,”₁₃ she says and no one can make her understand Jim’s “truth to himself”.₁₄  She represents the innocence Jim lost.₁₅

BROWN

Gentleman Brown is the affirmation and completes the story, Marlow’s search and a plot cycle.  Jim was brought to his failing in the company of scoundrels, and in such company comes his self-retribution.  As Brierly was too “good” to accept the acts of Jim, Brown is too “evil”.  “He a man! Hell!  He was a hollow sham!”₁₇  This fact, that the evil Brown cannot understand Jim is the affirmation that Jim is one of “Us”.

But suspected, confirmed and affirmed, there is nothing more Marlow can do about Jim.  Jim is dead and Marlow must leave him as Stein must someday leave his own butterflies.₁₈

NOTES:  MARLOW’S SEARCH FOR “US”

1 Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Norton Critical Edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), p. 31.

2 Ibid., p. 32.

3 Ibid., p. 2, epigraph referring to Adam becoming as one of us by eating the fruit.  Jim becomes one of us by jumping ship.  If he had not jumped, he would have become like Brierly.  Jim fell as we all can fall.

4 Ibid., p. 41.

5 Ibid., pp. 39-40.

6 Ibid., p. 87.

7 Ibid., p. 89.

8 Ibid., pp. 89-90.

9 Ibid.’ p. 130.

10 Tony Tanner, “Butterflies and Beetles -- Conrad’s Two Truths”. Norton Critical Edition of Lord Jim (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), pp. 447-462.

11 Conrad, p. 130.

12 Ibid., p. 176.

13 Ibid., p. 213.

14 Ibid., p. 213.

15 That is, Jewel may be saintly, as Jim would have been saintly had he not fallen.  However, she seems to have a cynicism he does not.  A study of her would be interesting, especially an examination of the possibility that she is Stein’s daughter.  The relationship between Stein and Jim may be subtler than normally proposed.

16 Brown is not “Us”; he is one of “them”.  Since Brown cannot understand Jim, it affirms Marlow’s belief that Jim is one of “Us”.  If Brown had been able to understand Jim, it would have meant that Jim was one of “them”.

17 Conrad, p. 209.

18 Ibid., p. 253

To learn more about Joseph Conrad and his works, click on the title of this post.

Comedy Amidst Fears and tears

1970

Not one of these three writers (Saul Bellow, Ken Kesey, Joseph Conrad -- LEM) used comedy as entertainment. In the case of Bellow and Kesey it was used to heighten the overall effect of the story, and Conrad used it as a device to emphasize the distinctions between “them” and “us”.

In Lord Jim the humorous scenes revolve around the scurvy characters, not around Jim or Marlow or Stein. For instance, the Patna scene, after the danger is discovered. Jim’s description of the Captain and the other officers is comic. It is almost farce with everybody shouting, falling over each other and working against each other to escape the ship. The same type of thing happens with other scenes involving them. Robinson and Chester sound ridiculous in their projected plans for the uncharted island. The description of Cornelius is funny.

It isn’t so much the humor of the characters as the ludicrous surrounding them. Jim is never shown in this manner. he keeps his dignity through it all, except at the moment of his jump, but immediately afterward he gains his dignity back.

(Sketch of Joseph Conrad by Sir Muirhead Bone, 1923. To read and learn more about the novel Lord Jim, click on the title of this post.)

On "Design"

1970

The sonnet “Design” is Robert Frost’s vision of forces beyond nature. The title is the basic motif.  The poem is developed by carefully counter pointed images.  The images display the ambivalent questions in the poet’s mind.  These questions present an antithesis:  Do the innocent exist haphazardly or do they exist enslaved to predestination?

The poem’s meaning revolves about the image-motif of “whiteness”, the traditional symbol of purity and innocence: a “white spider” upon a “white heal-all” holding a “dead white moth”.  This “white-on-white” theme is further supported by such light terms as “morning”, “snow-drop” and “frost”. 

There are several possible meanings for “white”.  The first is a depiction of “innocent”.  The spider is “kindred” to the Heal-all, therefore also innocent.  This innocent motif is carried by other images. The spider is “dimpled...fat and white”; something fed, healthy and new, such as a newborn baby.  The moth is held  like “rigid satin cloth”; the baptismal gown of the baby at the font, the wedding-gown of the bride at the alter, both innocent portrayals.  The “innocent Heal-all’s” name symbolizes cure, health and even resurrection, rebirth, new life.  These “assorted characters” are “ready to begin the morning’.  They are as fresh as “snow-drops”, “flowers”, and as light as “froth”.  The spider carries the moth like an innocent child carries a “paper-kite”.

Counter pointing the freshness and innocence is the presence of death.  Here the image-motif “white” takes another meaning.  “White” is paleness, ill health, the pallor of death.

White is non-substance. It has the strange ambivalence of “nothingness” that can be colored either “black” or “white”.  In this poem, “white seems to contrast with the “darkness”,  but are these really separate images? “Darkness” is man’s ignorance, a cover over truth, hiding the “design”.  Darkness may be the cloak of evil intent.  “White” may be something else.

There is more to the image-motif of “white” than innocence.  The “innocent”, after all, are gathering “characters of death and blight”.  Indeed they are.  Spiders, as any reader of gothic literature knows, are associated with death, decay and evil intent.  Moths are symbols of plague and blight.  Even the “innocent Heal-all” is a member of the “gathering’, for its healing powers are superstition, and is used by those whose final hope is to cure the incurable.

In this new “white” motif, the “rigid satin cloth” is not the baptismal gown, but the lining of a coffin.  The light “froth’ dissolves and beneath its insubstantial surface boils the putrid “brew of witches”, most certainly brewed with evil intent of insidious design.  The innocent child carrying a kite becomes the bearer of a corpse.  The “paper-kite” is broken and will not fly again.  All this revels the darkness.

What does the darkness contain?  What appalls? 

Throughout the poem is the basic motif “design”.  The “assorted characters” are “mixed” like “ingredients” in a recipe.  The spider is a “Snow-Drop Spider” famous for spinning webs of symmetrical and intricate design.  Moths and butterflies are collected for the design of their wings.  Is there “design” in their fate as well?  Is it of evil intent?

The poet fears such “design”.  His “characters” are presented as innocent.  They represent possible victims of some great “design’.  This “design” is usually hidden behind the merciful “darkness” of our ignorance.  The poet has had a glimpse  of this “design’ and it frightens and appalls him.  he uses appalling creatures to represent his vision, for if such a “design’ exists then everything is predestined and we have no control over our fate.

As an afterthought, the poet states that such a “design” would not extend to such insignificant creatures.  What occurred was not “design”.  It was accident.  There is no evil intent, no reason to be appalled.

There is still something else.  The “darkness” hid something, which the poet saw.  In the night a white spider climbed a white Heal-all and killed a white moth.  We return back to the white-on-white motif for our answer.  The darkness hid -- nothing!  the poet saw a chance event of small creatures and invented a litany and ritual, a design of froth.  The froth dissolved and reveled no “design”.

The poet tries to comfort himself by saying if there is a grand “design”, it does not extend to arachnids and lepidopteron.  But if there is a grand “design”, does it apply to mankind?  The poet ends wondering if there is any design” or only a “white-on-white” nothingness that man must fill himself.

For more on Robert Frost and his poetry, click on the title of this post.

Experiment

1970

EXPERIMENT

Of the myriad problems of modern American society, racial disharmony is certainly one of the most dominant.  It has been the boing issue of the last decade, with roots going even further into the past.  And it threatens to remain a complex and perplexing issue for the future.  However, despite the maze of unanswerable questions surrounding every approach to understanding our society’s racial facets, one fact can be stated without too much argument.  The attitude concerning what should be the minority’s relationship to the majority has changed.  In the early sixties, assimilations of the minority into the mainstream of society were felt to be the best answer.  As the seventies begin, there is an emphasis on racial pride and the perpetuation of sub-cultures.  It is as if the melting pot had been turned into a great soup tureen serving out different soups.

Where once the rally cry of minorities was brotherhood with all mankind, there are now cries of black power, red power, yellow power and so on.  Language, clothing style, hair style and other particulars of a given minority, that were once disowned by the minority members who wished to blend into the mainstream of American society, are more and more being adopted by the same as their special identity.  Any attempt at changing such styles is regarded as an attempt to force the majority’s values on the minority.

Whether this development of racial pride is good or bad is not our concern.  We are concerned with such things as style, fashion and taste being regarded as the essence of a given group of people.  Our purpose will be to devise a means to prove that such styles are not inherent differences within different racial strains, but are acquired through various experiences.

HYPOTHESIS AND APPROACH

I propose there is no difference between people caused by race, but that differences are imposed upon people by outside pressures.  I do not intend to deal with those pressures.  I am interested in proving only my basic premise in its purest form.  I have devised an experiment to test my hypothesis to some degree.

My approach is simple.  I have compiled a series of musical groups.  Each group contains seven popular songs performed by singers of different race.  A group can then be played for a selected group of subjects who will be asked to list the songs in order of preference.

Why did I choose popular music for my experiment?  I choose a field of art, because only in art does there seem to be any real conventions of racial tones.  There have been inventions by men of all races, but can any single invention be defined in terms of race?  Such terms as “soul music”, “black experience”, "Jewish school of literature” appear often in art criticisms and attest that racial definitions exist in the field of art.  I feel this is especially true in the area of pop music.

A few years ago I was with friends talking about the Righteous Brothers, who were a white duo singing “black music”.  One of my black friends laughed and said, “If you think that’s soul, well I guess I’ll have to take you out to hear some real soul music.”  In that particular statement is the belief that there is some essential difference in the music of different races; a difference caused by race.

I believe the difference is mostly imaginary.  Therefore, I choose pop music as the perfect media for my experiment.

EXPERIMENT

Subjects are selected.  The main requirement for selection is that a racial mix is maintained.  There should be enough subjects to make the results significant.  The experiment deals with music that is a subjective form at best.  Allowances must be made for individual tastes, hearing differences and possible familiarity with the music being played.  There should be enough subjects to allow for these factors and still give definite patters in the charted results.

The subjects are then asked to listen to a series of musical selections and to rank the songs in order of individual preference.  A number will be given each song and they will use the number to list the songs.

SAMPLE GROUP OF SONGS

This performers are racially mixed, but only half of the subjects should be told this.  The half not knowing for certain that there are black and white singers will act as a control group in that no prior prejudice has been given.

1. Try a Little Tenderness   Otis Redding     Black

2. Alabama Song                   Doors                White

3. There She Goes                Bill Medley       White

4. Sudden Stop                     Percy Sledge      Black

5. America 1968                   Animals             White

6. Valentine Song                Tim Buckley      White

7. Always Something There to Remind Me   Dionne Warwick   Black

Some Aspects of the Military Industrial Complex: Notes by Sidney Lens and Others

1970

What is the Military-Industrial Complex?  The term is attributed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who warned in his “farewell address” that “the Military-Industrial Complex” was to be gravely regarded because “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist”.  The military influence, according to Eisenhower,  “is felt in every city, every state house, every office of federal government”.₁  But what is the meaning of this term?  Sidney Lens attempts to answer this question in his book The Military-Industrial Complex.

Before looking at what he found, let’s take a brief look at the author.  Sidney Lens originally came from Newark, New Jersey and for much of his early adulthood was associated with organized labor.  After turning to journalism, he traveled through 74 countries and interviewed many heads of state and policy makers  His books have concentrated on political and labor difficulties and include: Left, Right and Center; The Counterfeit Revolution; Crisis of American Labor and The Futile Crusade: Anti-Communism in the United States.₂

The Military-Industrial Complex originally appeared in “The National Catholic Reporter”.  This article was revised into book form and released in 1970.  Structured into eight chapters, each chapter treats a specific aspect of the “Complex”. 

In the first chapter, entitled “Unmasking the Goliath”, Lens attempts to show how the military had appropriated funds from Congress without question or challenge until the Vietnam War begged the question of military effectiveness.  Congress began searching for some answers and uncovered great  waste in spending by the military.  The most glaring example being the cost jump for a deep submersible rescue vessel ordered by the Navy.  Originally quoted at a cost of $36.5 million for twelve, the later estimate became 4480 million for six; and Senator Proxmire maintained that in the last 40 years, there was only one instance where such a vessel could have been used.₃  Despite such overruns on cost, and many cases of plain shoddy work, the same industrial outfits continued to receive large military orders.  The large number of former military officers serving on the executive staffs of many of these industries may or may not have anything to do  with the situation, but the possible morass of corruption hinted at by Lens’ figures suggest a second instance to use a deep submersible rescue vessel.

“Origins and Purpose” is the second chapter.  Herein, Lens traces the development of the military-industrial complex from a very secondary influence before World War II to a major influence on United States policy after the war.  He questions the basis of this influence by questioning the actual Soviet threat in the early period of the cold war as well as just  side, east or west, was most guilty of treaty breaking.  Our proposed objective of self-government for other countries is shown to hide courser objectives; not human rights, but mineral rights.  Out statement that we only wish for other countries to control their own destiny proves to be feckless if under our breath we say, but we will control their fortunes.

In chapter five, Lens raises the question of “Self-fulfilling Strategies”.  Pointedly, this is the ability to construct a strategy that forces the circumstances that prove the necessity of that particular strategy.  One sample given is the Cuban missile-crisis of 1962, when President Kennedy had the famous eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the Soviets.  It has been put forth by some that this crisis arose out of the United States own weapons strategy.  The strategy referred to was “city-sparing”, which the Soviets allegedly took as an indication that the U. S. would attack first, so the Soviets stepped-up their own weapon displacements.₄ 

As proposed, the “city-sparing” plan did not claim any strike-first objective.  It was supposed to be a sane approach to nuclear war.  the plan was invented by the Air Force, over the objections of its own high command.  The objections were not quite as harsh as the General who stated: “Let’s start killing people.  People need to respect the United States, and when we start killing people, then there will be more respect for the United States.”₅  But they were of a more punitive nature that the proposed idea.  However, Secretary of defense, Robert McNamara backed the “city-sparing strategy” and it was adopted.  According to the designers, it should spare the lives of 100 million Americans in an all-out nuclear war, presuming both sides used it.  If one side only planned to use it, it worked better as a strike-first strategy.₆

In Lens’ other chapters, he digests rather extensively researched facts as support for his argument.  Each chapter takes a specific problematic aspect of the “Complex”.  The military influence on labor, on academia, on the solving or lack of solving of internal problems, on government secrecy, dishonesty and censorship.  It is interesting to consider lens’ work in light of some conclusions drawn by Richard J. Barnet, Co-Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and former member of the State department, in his book, with the very succinct title, The Economy of Death.

The building of a Warrior State threatens a nation’s own values, especially freedom.  A nation which spends a great deal of its resources on a military establishment at the avoidance of confronting domestic problems faces civil disorders/  If a nation decides it cannot deal with the causes of this disorder, it must seek to suppress it.  If a nation will not base security on the consent of the governed, it will base security on detention camps and graveyards.  And a nation, which devotes its funds to instruments of violence, gives an example to its citizens on how to solve problems.  “Law and order speeches make little impact when those in authority seek order primarily through force.”₇

Lens offers some “Alternatives to Catastrophe” in his final chapter.  he lists a seven-point program for lessening the power of the military-industrial complex and furthering peace and freedom in the world. 

1. End military aid to foreign countries. 

2. Increase aid for social reform. 

3. The aid should be given through the United Nations as a step in strengthening that body. 

4. The United States should “nationalize” American firms operating on foreign soil and make them government-to-government ventures.

5. Encourage cooperation between small nations, aiding their development by lessening dual-effort. 

6. Move toward disarmament, since the temptation of having weapons is to use those weapons. 

7. Suggest programs at home, which are alternatives to militarism, such as attacking poverty, racism and so forth.₈

Lens’ contentions can best be summarized with a simple quotation, for Lens finds a strong military-industrial complex existing and approval of by large segments of our culture.  We are asked to delight in our strength.  But in light of Lens’ information we must ask if “the heart of the wise should be in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”₉  Whether Lens’ proposals will be adopted, or whether they are the best solutions, is left hanging in the air.  But it seems certain from known facts that the “Military-Industrial Complex” will continue searching for greater weapons.  And the possibility of a “doomsday machine” lies within our hands.  It is possible to launch twelve satellites into orbit about the earth, each containing a nuclear warhead.  If these twelve warheads were to be exploded while circling above our heads, they would have the same effect as four simultaneous major volcanic eruptions.  The result of both or either is the same; the end of all life on earth.₁₀

NOTES:  SOME ASPECTS OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

1 Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super-Rich (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 5.  Lundberg quotes Eisenhower’s farewell address.

2 “Liner Notes”, The Futile Crusade, back cover.

3 Sidney Lens, The Military-Industrial Complex (Kansas City, Missouri: Pilgrim Press, 1970) p. 5, hereafter referred to as Lens.

4 Lens, pp. 91-92.

5 Richard J. Barnet, The Economy of Death (New York: Atheneum, 1969), p. 64, hereafter referred to as Barnet.

6 Richard Fryklund, 100 Million Lives (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), pp. 18-32.

7 Barnet, pp. 8-10

8 Lens, pp. 155-159.

9 Ecclesiastics, King James Bible (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., n.d.), 7, 4, p. 601.

10 “The End of the World”, Franklin Institute (Philadelphia: Fels Planetarium, 1968).