You are on page 1of 5

APUSH MP3 Extra Credit

Dr. Strangelove offers a bizarre satirical commentary on the Cold War


paranoia of the 1960s. Filled to the brim with hilariously inept characters and a
seemingly crazy plot, the movie does not accurately portray the events in the
Cold War simply because of the films entirely fictional premise. However, despite
the obvious factual inaccuracies, Dr. Strangelove succeeds in capturing the
essence of 1960s Cold War hysteria by openly mocking it throughout the film
through the various characters and their conversations.

To begin, Dr. Strangelove contains an innumerable amount of factual


inaccuracies, as all the events and characters are entirely fictional. The
producers included a disclaimer in the beginning of the movie: "It is the stated
position of the United States Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the
occurrence of such events as are depicted in this film. Furthermore, it should be
noted that none of the characters portrayed in this film are meant to represent
any real persons living or dead." Consequently, the events of the film are
completely fictional in nature. Many of the military procedures and politics
involved in the film are also dumbed down so that the layman audience of the
film would be able to understand the plot easily. For example, the complicated
the Department of Defense and the Pentagon, along with the intricate
communications between the different government branches and offices that
would occur in real life if the prospect of nuclear war was impending, are
simplified to fit into one room. This is the so-called War Room portrayed in the

film, in which the United States President sits together with all his military
generals and advisors in a round-table fashion. Of course, such a method of
congregation and concentrated planning (and instant execution) does not exist in
real life; actual politics during a crisis would be far more complicated and simply
would never fit into a single room. The War Room somewhat parallels the White
House Situation Room (a conference room and intelligence management center
in the basement of the West Wing of the White House used by the president and
his staff in crises); however, the Situation Room is still only used as a central hub
of information concentration during emergencies. Many other parts of the large
American government in other buildings and states interact with the occupants of
the room to agree on or reject decisions unlike the condensing of politics
shown in the film. The film also pays no heed to the role of the politically
ubiquitous American Congress in deciding war strategies and American policy,
presumably also to simplify politics enough for the average filmgoer to
understand. The president is shown to have all the decision-making power in a
time of emergency while only taking advice from others; this does not work in the
real world because of the American governmental system of checks and
balances. Before the president can act on any decision regarding the nation in
real life, Congress must approve of it. The president also may not directly call
another world leader on a standard phone and engage in open diplomacy, as the
films fictional president does constantly in the War Room. Many other logical and
factual discrepancies exist: Under no circumstances, for example, would anyone
other than the United States President be able to authorize a nuclear strike. And

even then, the president would have to have his Secretary of Defense agree with
his decision to utilize nuclear arms under the two-man confirmation rule. As such,
the premise of the films rogue nuclear launch is essentially real-life
impossibility, simply because of how serious the governments concern is over
nuclear arms authorization access.

Although Dr. Strangelove contains many factual discrepancies with real-life


American politics and standard procedure, it does reflect the Cold War hysteria of
its time period to a good degree of accuracy. The fictional crisis depicted in the
film closely parallels the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, in which the threat of total
nuclear annihilation seemed very close to becoming reality. In life, President
Kennedy also held the position that America was not prepared against Soviet
power in the event of an attack during his political campaign. The "missile gap"
became a buzzword when discussing America's position in the arms race; this
fear of being left behind in the nuclear arms race is shown in the movie when
the Russian premier announces that his country built a doomsday device
because they were falling behind in the race and were afraid that they would be
wiped out in a nuclear conflict with the United States. The doomsday device is
also the movies way of criticizing the idea of mutually assured destruction (the
idea that the knowledge of equal retaliation following an attack will prevent
nuclear warfare). The device is an exaggeration that accurately characterizes the
many radical plans made to discourage nuclear attacks that were made during
the 1960s out of fear; the craze of bomb-hoarding that resulted from Cold War

tensions can quite reasonably be compared to a doomsday device that could be


set off at any moment by any act of foreign aggression. The characters of Dr.
Strangelove also serve to portray the Communist hysteria well. The main
antagonist of the film, General Ripper, symbolizes the mentalities of many
Americans who were convinced that Communist subversives were everywhere in
the United States. Just as Rippers theory and fear of fluoridation is a
completely baseless and unfounded reason to believe in the existence of
Communist conspiracies, so were the fear-mongering and seemingly random
accusations of those like Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. In addition, the
character of Buck Turgidson further characterizes the attitudes of fear-driven
Americans during the real Cold War. Turgidsons attempts to convince President
Muffley to strike the Soviets with nuclear missiles of their own mirror in many
ways the aggressive military strategies favored by many government officials at
the time of the Cold War craze. Strategic Air Command's General Curtis LeMay,
for example, favored preemptive strikes just like the fictional Turgidson. He
believed in attacking the Soviets before they got off the ground. Of course, such
a policy of preemptive nuclear arms use would have lead to catastrophic results
in hindsight. Turgidson also symbolizes the stubbornness of both Americans and
Soviets in prolonging Cold War hostilities when he hilariously continues
pressuring the President to stockpile nuclear arms as safety measures against
the Soviets even after the doomsday device has fired and destruction is
imminent. Although his antics are laughable, they prove a historical point: People
on both sides during the Cold War, American and Soviet, distrusted each other

so much that in many situations even basic common sense became warped by
their fears and doubts.

Overall, Dr. Strangelove has many historical, factual, and logical inaccuracies.
However, in this case, it is not the filmmakers duty to present the film as a 100%
accurate depiction of the time period in question. This is because the films
purpose is not to focus on the facts regarding the Cold War, but is instead to
portray the hysteria, fear, doubt, and radicalism during the Cold War period and
criticize it using satire. And to this end, Dr. Strangelove ultimately succeeds as a
historical film.

You might also like