Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

BIAD - I had that same acid rain thought yesterday. Also the town name which I can't help think about the atrocities over in Palestine.

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Feb 14, 1964: “Seven Days in May,” adapted from the best-selling 1962 novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, opened at the Trans-Lux theater in Washington, DC. (It would open in New York City on February 19.) And DR. STRANGELOVE's DC opening was not far behind.






Moorer-Radford Affair:
The Pentagon ran a spy ring on the Nixon White House, stealing classified documents from Haig and Kissinger on things as top secret as troop levels from Vietnam, and Bob Woodward served under one of the admirals involved in his time as an ONI officer before becoming a reporter.

One of the most frequent comparisons is to the novel "Seven Days in May", about a military coup in the United States, which was filmed at the White House in 1963 with JFK's approval, as he thought the plot was something that could really happen, despite being fictional.

American Conspiracy Files: The Stories We Were Never Told


The 1964 film SEVEN DAYS IN MAY is about the JCS staging a coup to overthrow the US president, who has just signed a treaty of nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union. There's plenty of direct comparisons to be drawn with multiple presidents too...

JFK's personal friend urged him to read the novel in the summer of 1962, and the president found its premise quite realistic, saying not only that a military takeover of the gov't could happen, but even drew direct comparisons to himself, with the Bay of Pigs crisis.

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (pg 12-13)

JFK felt the film would be incredibly important to warn the public of the dangers of this possibility. He encouraged the director, John Frankenheimer, to film inside the White House, and remarked that the Pentagon didn't want the film produced.

The press found the novel eerily realistic as well. Ben Starnes of the Washington Daily News wrote an article saying the CIA was a malignancy growing out of control, and he cited a high US official who said if there was ever a Seven Days in May, it would come from the CIA.

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Pg 195):

JFK was alarmed by that article about the CIA's uncontrollable nature, and he brought it up in a meeting with his NSC members the next day. 6 weeks later the first lady was picking up pieces of his brain matter off the back of the presidential limousine.

However, it wasn't just the JFK administration that drew comparisons to the film. When the Moorer-Radford Affair was revealed in 1974, about a military spy ring embedded inside the white house that went all the way up to CJSC Thomas Moorer, the parallels were obvious.

The press made several comparisons to the film (including TIME magazine), as did Pentagon investigator W. Donald Stewart, who added that Moorer should've been court-martialed, and the senate whitewashed it.

It's clear Oliver Stone also took a lot of inspiration from the film too, and it's worth mentioning that the base where the coup is staged is "Site Y", and in the movie JFK the lansdale stand-in is "General Y". Lansdale has been ID'd in dealey plaza but that's a whole other thing.



“Seven Days in May” features the first on-screen depiction of the Presidential Emergency Satchel (aka the “Black Bag,” aka the “Football”), which helped to perpetuate the (incorrect) idea that it is always handcuffed to the wrist of the military aide who carries it.




In 1988, BBC’s excellent three episode “A Very British Coup” (adapted from the 1982 novel of the same name by Chris Mullin), explored very similar themes. The miniseries was broadcast in the United States on PBS’s “Masterpiece Theatre” in January 1989.




Historical footnote—on January 12, 2021, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a public memorandum to all service members: “We support and defend the Constitution. Any act to disrupt the constitutional process is not only against our tradition, values, and oath; it is against the law.”




Feb 14th 2016: On his television show "The World of the Psychic", Peter Venkman's guest, Elaine, claims an alien told her the world will end on this day in Ghostbusters II.



Feb 14th 2016: The basic pleasure model replicant, Pris Stratton, was incepted.