"GACAAF"--The portion of "The Barn" You Didn't Get To See

[Tom Yost]

Gentlemen.  You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

[Mike Benham]

"Houston, we have a problem"

[Mike_Cirba]

Is there a reason I can't see the picture in Tom(my)'s first post?

The Dr. Strangelove/Tom Paul pics are perhaps the funniest thing I've seen here since either Tommy's Stephania/Jim Croce, or my own Yoda/Donald Ross/Wilfred Brimley or Roughrider Teddy Roosevelt with his hand on dainty Dev Emmett's backside pictorial essays. 

[Tom Naccarato]

Mike see if this will work. My thinking is that you can't see it because of imageshack and maybe some work access issues. Lets see if Photobucket will work.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tommy,

BINGO!

Thanks...that's completely priceless. 

Love the distant "redan" in the middle picture.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

I'm sorry I didn't go upstairs to see this new facility on Wednesday night. It wasn't there at my last visit to the "barn."

[Tom Naccarato]

You wouldn't have found it there.

The GACAAF is located some 200' below the barn's ground level and is accessed through a myriad of tunnels and elevators; armed check points.

[Mike_Cirba]

It's interesting to note that Tom Paul still hasn't breached Tom MacWood's "Buckeye Ivory Tower" lair and setup a similiar GPS-"Truman Show" 24-hour surveillance system as he obviously has done with David Moriarty. 

There are some non-obvious advantages to never going outside, I guess.   

[Doug Wright]

Tommy
Nice one!
My question - who will play the Slim Pickens character riding the bomb down?

Who else but one Tom Huckaby...

Tommy this is priceless--brilliant!

PS Both Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe were great movies.

[Tom Huckaby]

Oh Doug, I could not do that justice.  I was thinking more Dave Schmidt.

 

But yes Tommy this is priceless.  And you movie buffs might be pleased that even a cinematic rube like me uses that line all the time... that is "you can't fight in here, this is the war room!'... My Dad first used that on me and my brother when I was a teenager I think, and now I use it on my kids... oh they don't get it, but I get to chuckle.

TH

ps - concur with Doug that Strangelove and Fail Safe were each great.

[John Moore II]

That is some funny shit!


I don't think General Buck (or whatever George C Scott's character's name was) would have let ANYONE into the Tom Paul GACAFF War Room.

It was General Buck Turgidson. I think Wayne Morrison would have been a good fit for that character. "MacWood? But Mr. Paul, sir, you can't let him in here. He'll see everything. He, he'll see the big board."

[Peter Pallotta]

"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I DO say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks...."

[John Moore II]

"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines."

" If the pilot's good, see, I mean if he's reeeally sharp, he can barrel that baby in so low... oh you oughta see it sometime. It's a sight. A big plane like a '52... varrrooom! Its jet exhaust... frying chickens in the barnyard!"

[Michael Blake]

It was General Buck Turgidson. I think Wayne Morrison would have been a good fit for that character. "MacWood? But Mr. Paul, sir, you can't let him in here. He'll see everything. He, he'll see the big board."

Thanks John.  Good stuff.

George C Scott was hilarious in that role.  He really did make some great facial expressions and deliver some great lines.

I think I'm ready for a Kubrick weekend.  Maybe 2001 tonight.

[TEPaul]

That roll by George C. Scott in Dr. Stranglove sure was hilarious. I guess in some ways he reprised the idea when he played Gen George Patton who was dying to go after our allies, the Russians, just at the end of WW2. At the end of the movie he said something like: "Jeeesus, if we'd just agree to do it, I'll start the damn thing myself."

[Steve_ Shaffer]

General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) was my favorite character:




General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.
General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.

[John Moore II]

Yeah, Jack D Ripper was funny too. Sometimes in random conversation (if I'm drinking water) I'll say I only drink water to preserve the purity of my precious bodily fluids. I do it just to see who gets the joke. Its somewhat rare that someone understands. But when they do, they laugh like crazy.

I need to see that movie again, its incredibly funny.

[TEPaul]

Dr Strangelove and those scenes in the War Room were really funny but a few events that apparently went on in the War Room during the Cuba Missile Crisis were pretty remarkable too, such as Gen. Curtis Le May apparently publicly questioning the new young President Kennedy's strength in standing up to the Russians before Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara basically let Gen. LeMay have it! 

LeMay had an ultra active military imagination such as his idea to strap mini-explosives on bats and let them loose out of planes over Tokyo.

It might've been that Buck Turgidson's character was taken from Gen. Curtis LeMay.

[John Moore II]

Dr Strangelove and those scenes in the War Room were really funny but a few events that apparently went on in the War Room during the Cuba Missile Crisis were pretty remarkable too, such as Gen. Curtis Le May apparently publicly questioning the new young President Kennedy's strength in standing up to the Russians before Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara basically let Gen. LeMay have it! 

LeMay had an ultra active military imagination such as his idea to strap mini-explosives on bats and let them loose out of planes over Tokyo.

It might've been that Buck Turgidson's character was taken from Gen. Curtis LeMay.

Yeah, I actually took an upper level history class while in college where Strangelove was a required watch, the class was on US History post 1945. But we talked about it, Turgidson was somewhat based on LeMay. LeMay was a crazy man. He just didn't care, he would have done something a lot like what Ripper did in the film, I think, if given half a chance. He wanted the Russians gone, and didn't really care about using nuclear weapons.

[RJ_Daley]

Jeez JKMoore, did you major in pop history interpretations at UW Madison too? 

[TEPaul]

Yeah, I actually took an upper level history class while in college where Strangelove was a required watch, the class was on US History post 1945. But we talked about it, Turgidson was somewhat based on LeMay. LeMay was a crazy man. He just didn't care, he would have done something a lot like what Ripper did in the film, I think, if given half a chance. He wanted the Russians gone, and didn't really care about using nuclear weapons."


John K:

You took an upper level history class on US history post 1945 did you? That's nice but please don't tell us that proves what the real history was post 1945 because enough of us have lived through the entire era.

In my opinion, LeMay may've been something of a crazy man but in those days (and before) but the world of communism vs anti-communism was real and not just in some reactionary mind of a military operative like LeMay. It was the real world of geopolitics back then and don't forget, we were the only country that ever dropped "The" bomb! Given the same basic circumstances do you really think the Russians would've had more or less compunction about it than we did?

[John Moore II]

Yeah, I actually took an upper level history class while in college where Strangelove was a required watch, the class was on US History post 1945. But we talked about it, Turgidson was somewhat based on LeMay. LeMay was a crazy man. He just didn't care, he would have done something a lot like what Ripper did in the film, I think, if given half a chance. He wanted the Russians gone, and didn't really care about using nuclear weapons."


John K:

You took an upper level history class on US history post 1945 did you? That's nice but please don't tell us that proves what the real history was post 1945 because enough of us have lived through the entire era.

In my opinion, LeMay may've been something of a crazy man but in those days (and before) but the world of communism vs anti-communism was real and not just in some reactionary mind of a military operative like LeMay. It was the real world of geopolitics back then and don't forget, we were the only country that ever dropped "The" bomb! Given the same basic circumstances do you really think the Russians would've had more or less compunction about it than we did?

No, I don't think I know much about history after 1945, just a little bit. I was just meaning, in reference to LeMay, that he was a bit more, how should I put it...ready and willing...to use "The Bomb" than most. I am not sure how the Russians would have reacted. Under Stalin, there probably would have been bombs dropping, but with Khrushchev, I think we would have seen similar results; he didn't want the end of the world any more than we did. And I think it was known by both sides that essentially 'the end of the world' is what would result if nuclear bombs started falling.

I don't claim to know much about what really happened. I certainly wasn't alive in 1962. I was just stating that LeMay was a bit out there, willing to use nuclear weapons, and if not for cooler heads on a few occasions (same as MacArthur) we might not be here today typing on this website.

[TEPaul]

John K:

Like all those things back then of course it's hard to know what might have happened (or even what really did happen) but it seems to me from studying that Cuban Missile Crisis relatively carefully (and actually watching those fateful 13 days unfold) that the Kennedy Administration's back channel gamble with the Russians----eg R. Kennedy's suggestion to respond to Kruschev's first message rather than the second, was based on the fact that we (Kennedy/MacNamara et al) felt Kruschev may've been getting some real pressure (perhaps even to the point of being overthrown) by a really aggressive contingent in the Kremlin (like their LeMays) that we did not want to have to deal with. What happened with that aerial reconaissance plane and the standoff of the naval blockade was not movie drama, it was real, and definitely about the highest stakes nucleur chess game type standoff I think this world will ever want to see. And I will never forget what I felt hearing old Adlai Stevenson's now famous remark to the Russian UN Ambassador; "Sir, I'm prepared to wait for your answer until Hell freezes over." Stevenson was considered to be sort of past his prime and he actually had been something of a Kennedy nemesis but everyone back then knew he was an incredibly bright man and a incredible debater and just when we really needed something like that old Adlai came through with the right stuff, and apparently right off his cuff!

But to truly understand how things got to that point and how even personal dynamics may've contributed to it one has to go back to the Bay of Pigs in April 1961 and most certainly the summit in Vienna in June 1961. In retrospect I feel lucky to have heard the recollections of one James (Scotty) Reston, perhaps the dean of Op Ed writers at that time, on Vienna. He said he was sitting alone in a room in that palace in Vienna when his friend Kennedy came flying in with his aide Kenny O'Donnell. Kennedy was completely livid feeling that Kruschev had totally and purposefully embarrassed him and tried to test his potential weakness on a world stage. What Reston said Kennedy said to O'Donnell at that moment is pretty withering when one considers what history brought us in the years to come.