In the fall of 1962, when the United States and the USSR stood inches away from the brink of an international blood-letting, word reached the Kennedy administration that the hard-line Soviet government did not desire to lead the world hand-in-hand into the furnace. In a flex of diplomatic bravado, Secretary of State Dean Rusk boasted: “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked.”
Although the images of sirens blaring in the streets and four-minute warnings droning over loudspeakers seems like something more fit for an Orwell or Bradbury, the threat of nuclear exchange in a world with a political construct heavily laced with political and religious fanaticism should still be on the American consciousness, especially more so since Robert Gates’ recent trip to China.
In a diplomatic trip equipped with terse talk and impromptu demonstrations of aeronautical might that was largely ignored by the American public, Mr. Gates dropped a bombshell when he announced that North Korea was five years away from having a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the American mainland.
While most Americans have grown weary of saber-rattling in the light of two draining military conflicts, the danger of the North’s pursuit, mixed together with its location and its hazy ties, is an issue that must be addressed. We feel that placing economic or diplomatic handcuffs on a country, one that appears more than willing to have its eye cut out than blink, has run its course. The time may soon be at hand when America must once again draw from its sheath.
