Thirteen Days
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1:06:16
At eight a. m. this morning
1:06:17
the United States
1:06:19
detonated a hydrogen bomb above
Johnston Island in the South Pacific

1:06:22
The blast was quickly condemned
by the Soviet Union

1:06:25
who called upon all nations
to denounce the United States

1:06:29
for bringing the world
to the brink of destruction

1:06:31
Who the hell authorized the test?
1:06:32
What is this gonna say
to the Russians?

1:06:34
They look warlike?
1:06:36
Jesus Christ
we're lighting off nuclear weapons

1:06:38
like it's our own
private Fourth of July

1:06:40
You know what?
1:06:41
We should have brought in the guys
from the Atomic Energy Commission

1:06:44
and talked this through
1:06:46
Looked at these tests a little harder
1:06:49
before just giving the go-ahead
1:06:53
You know, last summer I read a book
"The Guns of August"

1:06:58
I wish every man on that blockade line
had read that book

1:07:01
It's World War One
1:07:02
There's thirteen million killed
1:07:04
It's all because the militaries
of both alliances believed

1:07:06
that they were so highly
attuned to one another's movements

1:07:09
and dispositions, they could
predict one another's intentions

1:07:12
But all their theories
were based on the last war

1:07:14
And the world
and technology had changed

1:07:16
and those lessons
were no longer valid

1:07:19
But it was all they knew
1:07:20
so the orders went out
1:07:22
couldn't be rescinded
1:07:27
The man in the field, his family
at home, they couldn't even tell

1:07:29
the reasons
why their lives were being destroyed

1:07:35
But why couldn't they stop it?
1:07:38
What could they have done?
1:07:41
Here we are 50 years later
1:07:44
Say one of their ships
resists the inspection

1:07:47
and we shoot out its rudder
1:07:49
and board
1:07:51
They shoot down
one of our planes in response

1:07:55
So we bomb their anti-aircraft sites
in response to that

1:07:59
They attack Berlin

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