Yesterday, on Father's Day, I decided to vegetate. I had received my Father's Day gifts on Saturday, with the highlight being watching a video my oldest daughter sent me of her receiving her M.B.A. degree from Eastern Washington University on Saturday. She has had a great year. She got married, she got a new house, and now she earned her third degree after a bachelor's from UC Davis, and a master's from UC San Diego. And to top it all off, while she has made a point out of telling me that she is a Pointer now, she matriculated under the name Jenkins and during the graduation ceremony she was announced as Jenkins Pointer, and the diploma she received has the name Jenkins on it. I may have cried at the wedding, but I had a little smile watching the graduation ceremony.
After viewing the video, I decided to watch a movie before succumbing to four hours of watching golf. My initial selection was "Footloose",
a movie that I had never seen. However, before the movie had been on for less than ten minutes, I became curious about the fact that John Lithgow was in this movie. I Googled "John Lithgow"
and noted with interest that he was also in one of the most important television movies of all time, "The Day After".
I have been wanting to see this movie again, so I switched off "Footloose" and found "The Day After" on Youtube. Over forty years since viewing it for the first time, the movie still has a great impact. What made this viewing additionally impactful was the special panel discussion that followed. Apparently, in 1983, ABC had a program called "Viewpoint" and immediately following the airing of "The Day After", "Viewpoint" came on with Ted Koppel as the moderator. He began by interviewing the then Secretary of State George Schultz about what measures the then existing Soviet Union and the United States had in place to prevent the nuclear holocaust depicted in "The Day After" from happening.
After Schultz explained how the events depicted in "The Day After" were not going to happen, Koppel then turned to a rather illustrious panel consisting of the astronomer, Carl Sagan; the conservative pundit, William F. Buckley; the future Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Elie Wiesel; the National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft; former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara; and former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
Listening to the panel discussion from 41 years ago, was not just illuminating. It was reassuring. These folks knew what they were talking about, especially those who had served in the government handling these matters. Looking back at it now, it appears that the nuclear regulatory framework that these men helped to establish has for over forty years actually served to prevent "The Day After" from occurring. And, while there are now more states that have nuclear weapons, at least for the last forty years "The Day After" has never occurred.
In a way, that could be considered some progress.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
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