Today in Labor History April 30 1945: Eva Braun and Adolph Hitler committed suicide, in Berlin, after being married for less than 40 hours. Many Nazis were tried, convicted and executed. And literally thousands were secreted into the U.S., given false identities, and put to work as spies, intelligence officers, informants, and rocket scientists in the Cold War. Some of them had even been high-ranking Nazi Party officials, secret police chiefs, and heads of concentration camps. In fact, during the first few years after WWII ended, it was easier to get into the U.S. as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish concentration camp survivor. There were policy makers in Washington who said the Jews shouldn’t be let in because they’re “lazy” and “self-entitled.” For more on this sordid history, read “The Nazis Next Door
How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men,” By Eric Lichtblau.
This is what the former Soviet nuclear submarine «Komsomolets» looks like – 30 years after it sank in the Norwegian Sea. The submarine lies on a depth of nearly 1700 metres, and it was filmed by the ROV «Ægir 6000» on July 7th 2019.
Read about the findings: hi.no/en/hi/news/2019/july/researchers-discovered-leak-from-komsomolets
I never realized how close the Kurils are to Japan. Leaving aside, y’know, all of Russian and Japanese history prior to 1945, no wonder the Americans were so keen on becoming friends with Japan after the war.
Even if we definitely should have insisted on more trials of murderers and criminals like Shiro Ishii.
Had long known about the radioactive boar in Germany resultant from Chernobyl contamination, but a team has shown that a significant amount of the radionuclides they are eating comes from Cold War nuclear weapon testing.
Book review #18 for 2024 is W Craig Reed's Red November: Inside the Secret US-Soviet Submarine War. Beginning with 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and continuing into the early 1990's, Reed's book recounts US sub operations and their electronic surveillance and espionage missions into Soviet territory. I liked it and thought it gave some excellent background to some Cold War era events.
☕☕☕☕review @bookstodon@books#navalhistory#coldwar#submarines
🆕 Great news to end the week: Rui Lopes has been awarded a Remarque Visiting Fellowship at New York University’s Remarque Institute, where he will work on the relationship between the Cold War, spy cinema, and comic books. 👏👏👏
#Oppenheimer feared nuclear annihilation – and only a chance pause by a Soviet submarine officer kept it from happening in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as it gave him time to rethink before firing his nuclear torpedo/.
“World War III was very likely averted as a result of a brief delay in time caused by a sailor who happened to be stuck in the right place at the right time..."
Today (March 1) is the 70th anniversary of the #Bravo Test, the largest nuclear weapon test ever conducted by the US, on #Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It was a radiological disaster that resulted in the irradiation and forced displacement of whole communities.
Here is an article I wrote about how Bravo put the word #fallout into our lexicon.
"The Bravo Test and the Death and Life of the Global Ecosystem in the Early Anthropocene"
Return to Winter: Russia, China, and the New Cold War Against America
The United States is a nation in crisis. While Washington’s ability to address our most pressing challenges has been rendered nearly impotent by ongoing partisan warfare, we face an array of foreign-policy crises for which we seem increasingly unprepared.
Patient receiving IV containing radioactive particles for testing of how the body metabolizes radioactive materials. Note the lead gloves on the researcher and that he uses a metal pole to adjust the flow. #ORNL photo
I'll be giving a lecture on American Hibakusha, Americans who were exposed to radiation during the #ColdWar in #Hiroshima this Friday at 6pm. Contact me for details on the talk.
January 27th is the National Day of Remembrance for America’s Downwinders in the USA. These are people who lived downwind of the Nevada Nuclear Test site, and were exposed to radioactive fallout. Much of that fallout remains radioactive and is now embedded into the ecosystem.
The US government has paid a token compensation to a minuscule portion of this community through #RECA.
THE BORDER OF MADISON, HAMILTON, AND OTHER VISIONARIES WAS 80 MILES WEST OF PHILLY, THERE WAS NO CONCEPT OF LEGAL IMMIGRATION, AND ALL THE FOUNDERS DRAGGED THE WICKED WAYS OF CATILINE, WHO LOST AN ELECTION AND THEN CONSPIRED AGAINST THE REPUBLIC
"Eisenhower's cabinet met to consider how to limit [On the Beach's] success and exposure."
From Stephen Dedman’s May the Armed Forces Be With You: The Relationship Between Science Fiction and the United States Military (2016) #scifi#sciencefiction#history#coldwar
📖 The book "Consuls in the Cold War", edited by Sue Onslow and Lori Maguire, includes a chapter authored by Pedro Aires Oliveira dedicated to the diplomatic relations between Portugal and the People's Republic of China in the mid-20th century. 🇵🇹 🇨🇳