It’s pretty grim stuff to see what even a “fake” official US plan for World War III from 1958 looked like. I know of nothing else like it. Below is my annotated version of plan QUICK STRIKE — read the post for more.

April 09, 2026 - 16:31 UTC

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The clustering of targets isintwresting snd makes sense…
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As a point of comparison, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated how many people globally would die as a result of a similarly-sized attack in 1961, the number they came up with was around 600 million people. Ten Holocausts, as Daniel Ellsberg put it. Just an incredible thing to contemplate.
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Separately, I'm kind of obsessed with identifying this actor. He was in dozens of PSA and US government films in the 1950s-1960s by MPO Productions. Attempts to use "identify this face/actor" apps have all produced, at best, links back to other films of his that are uncredited. I'm just curious.
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One hundred, surely?
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This is horrifyingly fascinating, thank you! I have so many questions. You mention that some of the lines just seem to end at the Soviet early warning line. I was wondering if maybe there were plans to have some first reconnaissance wings go to & follow the line but not trigger it?
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🤷‍♂️
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