FALL OF THE

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 2

BERLIN WALL VISA-NOW AVAILABLE IN EAST BERLIN
Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 3
 IN THIS ISSUE:
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

FEATURES:
JOSEPH MCCARTHY’S
“WITCH HUNT”
PG. 8
-NIK SORVARI

THE SPACE RACE

PG. 13
-NIK SORVARI

THE “FORGOTTEN WAR,”

PG.14
-NANCY RODRIGUEZ

CRISIS IN CUBA
PG. 16
- MATTHEW BUCCI

SPECIAL
FEATURE:
DEFEAT IN VIETNAM
PG. 10
-MATTHEW BUCCI

OTHER
ARTICLES:
THE BAY OF PIGS
INVASION

MUTUALLY ASSURED
DESTRUCTION

THE TURMAN DOCTRINE

THE BERLIN BLOCKADE

THE BERLIN WALL

The Space race:

5 7 9 12 13 15
Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 4
Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 5
LettersWHERE OUR READERS LET US KNOW HOW CRAZY THEY REALLY ARE
Dear Editor,
Are you a communist? If
not, why do you personally feel
capitalism is better than
communism? I think that it is
individualism that makes us
better than the soviets, without
individualism where is the motive
to succeed. If the outcome is
always the same, why work
harder to get there?
From your articles it
often seems like you are not
enthused by this idealism and it
often makes me question your
political stance. Do you not love
America? You often seem to
portray US military intervention
such as the Vietnam War in a
negative tone. If you feel the US’s
actions were so “brutal” why not
consider the brutality of living
under a totalitarian communist
regime. Sometimes bold actions
are needed to confront menacing
threats.
~Matthew Bucci
Dear Matt,
Thanks for reading. I
wonder, have you taken your
medication? Did you get out of
the institution recently? Your
logic seems to be as illogical as
that of someone with disordered
cognition, and I would highly
advise that you continue to take
your anti-psychotic drugs. Once
off them one often experiences a
rapid decline in mental health
and I fear this may be the case
here. Thank god we are not all as
crazy as McCarthy and you.
Dear Editor,
Do you agree that if nuclear weapons
were not created that the world would be a
safer place? Sure the philosophy of MAD is able
to keep one super power from directly
confronting one another, but does it outweigh
the destruction caused by the fear of nuclear
war and the proxy wars fought instead?
I think that without nuclear weapons
we would have directly confronted the soviets
long ago and the war would have been over
without nearly the amount of bloodshed
resulting from the juxtaposition of communism
and capitalism.
~Nancy Rodriguez
Dear Nancy,
Sure, if I had the choice to live in a
world without nuclear arms I would, but that is
not the case. Unfortunately in reality we are
always going to look for a better way to kill one
another. It seems to be simply human nature
for tensions to build and erupt in these often
bloody wars. In an ideal world we wouldn’t
need to kill one another at all.
Sunday, March 28, 1985
Dear Editor,
Do you feel the US was justified in
instituting a military blockade of Cuba? How far is
too far when dealing with direct confrontation with
the soviets? Do you feel they were justified in
wanting to have missiles within Cuba?
I personally feel that it was hypocritical
to impose military action against the soviets when
they had nuclear facilities within the same range of
Russia. I however feel that steps should have been
taken to assure that tensions did not rise, but I feel
that a more diplomatic solution should have been
reached which would have also served as yet
another step toward nuclear disarmament.
~Nik Sorvari
Dear Nik,
I feel I have to agree with you that
something had to be done, but we had to show the
Russians we would not allow them to do whatever
they pleased. In fact I feel we might have been too
lenient in simply blockading them, although I’m not
completely convinced military action would have
been any more productive in diplomatic relations
with the soviets and there was a high risk of starting
world war III, so I stand by JFK’s decision and feel
that it was most likely the best choice one in his
position could have made.
pg. 6
Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 7
Features
THE WORLD IS A SCARY PLACE. WE MAKE IT SCARIER.

The Sky Is Falling: McCarthy’s Witchunt

Tensions were high during the cold war, and
America was paranoid about communism. Joseph
McCarthy was one of the lead paranoid anti-
communists. When he first popped up in 1954, he
claimed to know about 205 state department members
who were communists. Unfortunately, since the public
was too paranoid to allow fair trials, any “suspects” that
he claimed were communists were forced to testify to
the House of Un-American activities committee.

Joseph’s paranoia spread through the

branches of the United States. If a politician wanted
to give free polio vaccines to children, they were
accused of being communist due to the idea of free
ownership by necessity. In schools, students had to
swear their allegiance to the United States and that
they weren’t communist. Many actors in America
were being put on a blacklist of who was suspected
communists. These actors were accused based on
what society had seen of them, which conflicted with
their right to the freedom of fear.

After all McCarthy’s accusations and the paranoia that he had started, he
couldn’t prove himself and was therefore kicked out of power.

How could we allow someone to accuse so many people of being

communists without proof? It turned out that barely .02% of the United States was
actually in the communist party, and in 1957 there were actually more CIA spies in
the communist party then there were communists.
Joseph McCarthy alone set off massive hysteria within the U.S., the idea
being that we were being crippled from the inside by Soviet spies. This red scare
could have gone far enough to put the United States into a state of chaos if
McCarthy had not been tested of his accusations. Russia, without putting in much
effort, could have won the cold war due to the red scare Joseph McCarthy set off.
Russia probably did not have hysteria of U.S. spies, because of their strict,
controlling communist government. In the future, there may be another phase of
hysteria in the United States due to the uncertainty of technology and the
uncertainty of enemy determination, or the United States might of learned from the
McCarthy incident and know not to be so paranoid. I certainly hope we have
learned from this foolish mistake and we will not allow it to happen again.
Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 8
 BEWARE OF THE COMMUNIST ARTISTS !!
THE PROGRESSIVE ARTS ARE JUST THE
FIRST STEP TOWARDS COMPLETE
GOVERNMENT CONTROL!
The Capriccios by William Gropper is a series of fifty lithographs that was completed between 1953 and 1956. Twelve of the set have been loaned to this exhibition
courtesy of the Syracuse University Art Collection.

Gropper was subpoenaed to appear before Senator Joseph McCarthy's Subcommittee on Investigations in May 1953 to answer the allegation that his map painting
William Gropper's America: Its Folklore distributed by the U.S. Department of State was inspired and backed by Communists. Gropper invoked the Fifth
Amendment and refused to answer any questions. He was subsequently blacklisted. While unable to obtain public or private commissions readily because of this,
Gropper found financial support from sympathetic individuals and created a series of lithographs inspired by Francisco de Goya's Los Caprichos, a series of satirical
etchings depicting the political and social setting of late eighteenth-century Spain. Gropper expressed his own disdain for the American ideological culture of the
1950s in his variation entitled The Capriccios.

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 9

Special Feature 1

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 10

Special Feature 2

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 11

Maps From the WAR: Vietnam
Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 12
Features
THE WORLD IS A SCARY PLACE. WE MAKE IT SCARIER.

Rocket Envy: How the race to space was won

Everyone knows about the nuclear arms race that
went on between America and Russia. But in 1957, Russia Then in 1969, the United States made a huge
started another race with its successful launch of an accomplishment when NASA successfully sent Neil
artificial satellite “sputnik”- the space race. Armstrong into space to land on the moon, and Americans
stood by intently as the first man set foot on the moon’s
Sputnik was relatively small, and could be sent surface. This accomplishment ended the space race with the
into space only to orbit the Earth. The sputnik caused great United States in the lead, and no more aggressive space
fear in America, because it revealed the possibility of actions have been heard of after. The United States, however,
monitoring the enemy or launching missiles from space. continues to advance its space technology but at a slower rate.
Because America was paranoid of Russian attack, it decided
to invest more money into space technology. So on
February 1st of 1958, the U.S launched its own satellite, the
“Explorer”. This satellite was bigger than Sputnik, but had
the same potential of the Sputnik. The Soviets one-upped
the United States by sending the first animal into space- a
dog. Again, the U.S. countered and sent a monkey in a
satellite into space. Russia then launched the first human
into space- Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Yuri Gagarin was the
first man to be in space, but he didn’t go much farther than
the artificial satellites, and The U.S. countered by launching
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. as their first human in 1961.

The space race was a very important event for

America. Even though neither side achieved to invent
something that could launch missiles from space. What they
did develop, they didn’t even use to their advantage

It’s was much like the cold war itself, both sides
developed intense weapons, but they didn’t use the weapons
because the technology is too dangerous.

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 13

Features
THE WORLD IS A SCARY PLACE. WE MAKE IT SCARIER.

The Korean War: What?

The Korean War began as a civil war between the communist controlled
north and the democratic south. It soon escalated as other countries
became involved seeing the war in Korea not as a civil war but a war to
contain communism. The Korean War is often called the “Forgotten
War” because many do not remember the war or what it stood for.
Before the war, the north and the south were divided at the 38th
parallel. Because North Korea wanted to unify Korea, it invaded the
south in 1950. In response, America sent troops to South Korea in hopes
of preventing the spread of communism.
Truman claimed the US involvement in the Korean War was a
“police action” because he knew declaring war on North Korea would
result in Soviet Union involvement, and a declaration of war would have
to be approved by congress before any military action could be taken.
Furthermore due to how recently the US had fought in WW2, many
would be opposed to fighting another war.

The Korean war can described as a “proxy war” because both

global powers involved understood that the direct utilization of nuclear
weapons would result in Mutually Assured Destruction. Therefore, both the
United States and the Communist powers used the Korean conflict as a means
of indirect global warfare.
US President Harry Truman sent Douglass McArthur to lead the
military operations within South Korea. McArthur was able to not only push
back the North Koreans back to the 38th parallel, but also drove the US forces
deep into North Korea. However, when North Korean forces had ceded much
of their territory, the leader of China, Mao Zedong came to the aid of North
Korea; sending troops to help the North Koreans regain their territory and to
unify the north and south territories. Mao Zedong did this because both China
and North Korea have a communist government and by helping one another
communism would spread to other nations. If it had not been for the
intervention of Mao Zedong and his troops, North Korea would have lost the
war and today North Korea might have a democratic government. Instead, the
war ended with a stalemate in 1953 at the 38th parallel. In the US and abroad,
public opinion on the Korean War was negative, and many believed that the
war was a waste of resources for all countries involved. However the Korean
War sent a clear message to the Soviets that the United States would do
anything to stop the spread of communism.

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 14

COMMIES GOT YOU DOWN?

ARE YOU FEELING

SOCIALLY AND RELIGIOUSLY
OPPRESSED?

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 15

Features THE WORLD IS A SCARY PLACE. WE MAKE IT SCARIER.

Crisis in Cuba: Why the Soviets need to get off my lawn

In the summer of 1960, President Eisenhower gave the
CIA permission to secretly train hundreds of Cuban exiles for an
invasion of Cuba called at the Bay of Pigs. While this invasion failed,
the US’s audacity did not go unnoticed. In order to “defend” Cuba
the Soviets began to send shipments of nuclear weapons to Cuba.
The Soviets insisted it was simply for defense.

The US saw the Soviet action in a completely different

light. The US felt the Soviets were expanding their first strike
capability and that perhaps Khrushchev may have “gone off the
deep end” and we would soon be facing World War III. They felt
that it was unacceptable that the Soviets could have missiles within
close proximity of the US, and even though it was completely
hypocritical of the US, they were outraged with the Soviets.

It was clearly agreed upon that the US could not allow the
Soviets to setup nuclear launch sites in Cuba because it would
severely compromise national security. The question was, how
should the US react? The US had five different options:

1. Do nothing
2. Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to
remove the missiles
3. An air attack on the missiles
4. A full military invasion.
5. The naval blockade of Cuba, which was redefined as a
more selective quarantine

Unanimously, the Joint chief of staff agreed that a full-

scale attack and invasion was the only solution and that any
other means would fail and show that the US was weak. They
thought that the Soviets would not act to stop the U.S. from
conquering Cuba. Kennedy however was skeptical and felt that
if Cuba was attacked, it might lead the soviets to attack West
Berlin and then NATO would defend West Berlin, which would
trigger the start of world War III. In the end, Kennedy decided
on a Naval Blockade of Cuba, and the crisis ended with the
agreement of the US to remove its missiles from the Russian
perimeter if Russia would remove its missiles from Cuba.
Thanks to JFK’s quick decisive action and choice to use
diplomacy rather than bullets not only was the crisis resolved,
but both countries took a step towards disarmament by
removing their close proximity nuclear sites.

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 16

GAGA FOR THE WAR

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 17

Other Articles
STUFF THAT IS ONLY MILDLY INTERESTING

Cuban Exiles Storm Bay of Pigs

When Fidel Castro came into power, many Cubans fled in fear of him and his communist government. When the Cubans fled most went to the state
of Florida because it was closest. While in Florida many Cubans planned to overthrow Castro. Saw Castro as a traitor because Cuba had just overthrown a
dictator. With the assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the exiled Cubans and President Eisenhower devised a plan to overthrow Castro. When
Kennedy took over he approved the plan reluctantly. However he chose not to directly involve any US forces. He did not want the Soviets to retaliate if Cuba
was attacked. The exiled Cubans were not prepared to fight Castro and his soldiers. They fought with US military castoffs from World War 2 and few had
military training. On the day of the invasion the Cuban exiles showed how ill prepared they were. Castro and his soldiers defeated the Cuban exiles in less than
72 hours. They were able to accomplish this because Castro knew that the invasion was going to occur. With this information he was able to create a plan to
destroy the exiles. The exiles were counting on the Cubans in the island to join the invasion, but this never occurred because Castro had locked up any Cubans
that might have participated in the invasion and executed them. Castro’s soldiers were also better equipped; the Soviet Union had provided their ally with
weapons. The soldiers captured the invading Cubans and after negotiations Kennedy was able bargain for their release. Some US government officials thought
the failure of the Bay of Pigs would be seen as weakness in other countries. Not only had Kennedy failed to overthrow Castro but also he lost 53 million dollars
for the captured Cubans release.

MAD with Power

In 1945 the United States created the atomic bomb. This new power quickly showed that it was unlike any other weapon
previously created when in 1946 the US dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending the war. The Soviet Union
did not want the US to have complete control over this new power and soon began its own nuclear weapons program. With this action the
nuclear arms race began. Both countries began to build up their nuclear arsenals with bigger and better nuclear weapons. For the simple
reason of having enough weapons to destroy the other country, should they attack. This is also better known as Mutual Assured Destruction
(MAD). The US believed that if they had the most nuclear weapons then the Soviet Union would not dare attack. However, neither side knew
exactly how many nuclear weapons the other country had, so by the early 1980’s both the US and SU had thousands of warheads. Many US
citizens lived in fear of the SU and its nuclear weapons. Many citizens build bomb shelters underground, so if an air raid siren was sounded
then they would be “protected.” Some government officials saw the nuclear weapons as a means to end war quickly. However no president
since Truman has used nuclear weapons, but they have used them as leverage for negotiations. Using the warheads as leverage enabled the
US to end negotiations quicker and in favor of the US in the negotiations surrounding the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II.

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 18

Other Articles
STUFF THAT IS ONLY MILDLY INTERESTING

The Truman Doctrine: Why we support democracy

The Truman Doctrine was created out of the inherent fear that communism
would spread throughout the world. When Truman learned that Great Britain could no
longer support the nations of Turkey and Greece with economic aid he knew the US had
to step in and intervene, under the assumption that if Greece and Turkey fell, then if
would not be long before their neighboring nations would adopt communism as well.
Harry Truman created the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to provide aid to any country that
was fighting communism. He based this philosophically upon the inherent idea that the
United States had an obligation to help countries resisting communist oppression.

With the financial aid of the United States, Greece and Turkey were able to
fight off the communist rebellions within their countries. If the United States had not
supported them they would have surely fell, and communism would have spread easier
and quicker throughout Europe. The Truman Doctrine in some ways made it easier for
the US to fight communism all around the world however it did have its consequences.
As the US became more involved in the fight against communism, it plunged deeper
into debt by hundreds of millions. Furthermore, even with US support not all nations
were able to fight off communism

The Berlin Blockade:

The Berlin blockade was established from June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949 by
the Soviets. The idea behind the blockade was to block the Allies railway and road
access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control, which would then force the
western powers to allow the Soviets to supply Berlin with food and fuel, thereby giving
them control over the entire city.
In response, the Western powers started a program called “the Berlin Airlift”
to carry supplies by plane into West Berlin. In less than a year over 200,000 flights were
flown, which provided West Berlin with 13,000,000 tons of food. By April the airlift was
delivering more cargo than had previously flowed into the city by rail and the effort was
humiliating to the Soviets who had said it would be an impossible task. In the end the
blockade was lifted in 1949.
In the end the Berlin blockade turned out negatively for the soviets because it
accomplished two major tasks. It convinced Western leaders that the Soviets did indeed
pose a threat and because of that many countries that had been on the fence about
joining NATO joined in order to protect themselves from the communists.

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 19

Other Articles
STUFF THAT IS ONLY MILDLY INTERESTING

The Berlin Wall

The Berlin wall was put up in 1961 to create a border between east
and West Berlin and was more than 140 kilometers (87 mi) long. The east was
controlled by communist Russia, and the west was supported by the U.S. and
was a democracy. Too many people were emigrating from the east into the
south because they didn’t like the government in the east. The wall was put up
so no one could get out of East Berlin. The east was strict and aggressive. The
government starved the citizens and because many had commuted to West
Berlin for work, they lost their jobs. To stop anyone who tried to run and
escape to the west, guard towers were put up along the wall. These towers
actually killed citizens who got too close to the wall. West Berlin citizens saw
this cruelty, and protested against the wall. They also protested against the
United States because the country wasn’t doing much to help East Berlin’s
people. On the west side, the whole Berlin Wall was covered in graffiti and
symbols in protest.
Then one day, Soviet tanks rolled in on one side, and U.S. tanks
rolled in on the other side at what was called checkpoint Charlie. There were
many tanks just standing by for the word to attack the opposite power. If
there was an attack, it would have been the start of World War III. Fortunately,
both sides recognized that it would mean the end of either side, and ended up
pulling the tanks out one by one.
Finally, in 1989, Ronald Reagan held a negotiation with Gorbachev
and they agreed to take down the Berlin wall. Once again Berlin was one city
and there was much rejoicing.

Sunday, March 28, 1985 pg. 20