The really frightening thing about Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper was that he wasn't terribly far from some real life USAF generals, particularly Curtis E. LeMay (who, at age 44, had 3 more stars than Ripper, a mere base commander). And it wasn't because both constantly chewed on a trademark cigar.
From Wikipedia:
In 1949, LeMay was first to propose that a nuclear war be conducted by delivering the nuclear arsenal in a single overwhelming blow, going as far as "killing a nation".
Despite popular claims that LeMay advanced the notion of preventive nuclear war, the historical record indicates LeMay actually advocated justified preemptive nuclear war. Several documents show LeMay advocating preemptive attack of the Soviet Union, had it become clear the Soviets were preparing to attack SAC or the US.
Yes, but how do you
know when it's clear the Soviets were preparing to attack? Ask them? Circa 1980 we had several false alerts that indicated the Russians were attacking us. Fortunately, "launch on warning" was not then US policy. A decade ago we launched a preemptive war against another enemy we were sure was about to attack us with weapons of mass destruction. They turned out not to have any at all.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed again with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary McNamara, arguing that he should be allowed to bomb nuclear missile sites in Cuba. He opposed the naval blockade and, after the end of the crisis, suggested that Cuba be invaded anyway, even after the Russians agreed to withdraw. LeMay called the peaceful resolution of the crisis "the greatest defeat in our history".
Yet Kennedy's relative restraint almost certainly saved our lives. After the Cold War, we learned from the Russians that had JFK followed LeMay's advice, the Soviet commanders were authorized to retaliate with nuclear weapons. That would have been more than a little ugly, and a far worse outcome than the one we got.
I think even JFK was extremely reckless for having precipitated the entire event in the first place. So
what if the Russians were amassing missiles on Cuba? We still had plenty to deter the Russians from using them. Within just a few years, the Russians had developed ballistic missile submarines that could loiter unseen even closer to Washington DC and New York than Cuba. So what exactly did the Cuban Missile Crisis achieve, other than risking annihilation and scaring a lot of people for no good reason?
When LeMay passed in 1990, just after the fall of Communism, I remember thinking at the time that he probably just didn't have anything left to live for.
