2023-08-26 00:03:23
Dr. Tobias Nanz (Kronach, Germany, 1976) is a scholar in media history and popular culture. Linked to universities in Germany, Austria and Denmark, he is currently working with the ‘Marie Skłodowska-Curie’ grant from the European Commission on his research on the hotline as part of his project ‘Crisis communication and deterrence: the interaction of fact and fiction ‘ at the University of Southern Denmark.
– In a 2014 article about the red phone, he defines it as a ‘hybrid object’. How do you explain this concept?
– I chose this term because hybridization points to the mixture of two things or entities, in my case ‘facts’ -telephones exist- and ‘fictions’, which deal with fear of the Cold War and nuclear escalation. It made sense to people that politicians would use phones to discuss political issues. And although transatlantic communication existed since the 19th century, the red telephone is a fiction. It never existed as an actual object on a White House desk; it was a projection screen for Cold War fears and processed the threat of nuclear war and annihilation by accident or miscalculation. Thus, the material object is enriched with the fictions and fears of the Cold War and is reshaped with each new crisis situation.
– How has popular culture managed to turn the red telephone into an almost real object?
– The world of the Cold War was caught in the so-called ‘balance of terror’ due to the absurd arms race and the nuclear threat by accident or miscalculation or, even worse, by a madman in power capable of launching atomic weapons. Political and military leaders downplayed such scenarios, so it was up to popular culture to point out and discuss the dangers of this threat. The ICBMs of the 1960s could devastate the enemy in 30-45 minutes. Movies and literature, as part of the Cold War, offered an obvious and realistic escalation situation and advanced possible future scenarios. The repeated appearance of the red telephone made it credible.
Spanish poster of Kubrick’s film.
– McLuhan said that the medium is the message, but the red telephone, as a medium, puts the message at risk. Do the technologies used avoid risks?
– For McLuhan, the communication infrastructure, that is, the medium, is the most important thing: it changes the development of societies, regardless of the content transmitted. But it is true: in a situation of political crisis, noise on the channel or a misinterpretation of the message could aggravate the whole situation. This is one of the reasons why the red phone was not established. Politicians have to answer the phone spontaneously and can be impulsive or irrational, aggressive or submissive, and the translator can be wrong. After the 1967 Six Day War, where the ‘hotline’ was used with teletypes, an official proposed improving the connection with a telephone: the White House immediately rejected it. There is no secure channel, but a ‘hotline’ system, which is slower than a telephone, allows more controls and a gain in time, which can increase the margin of action.
– Was there an atomic paranoia?
– I don’t know if paranoia is the right term. But, as Joseph Masco argues in his study ‘The Theater of Operations’, we can identify a real and latent fear of the Cold War. Crisis situations, proxy wars, civil defense exercises, the arms race, accidents, and fictions about nuclear war all contributed to this enduring fear. I don’t see that Cold War paranoia was a mass phenomenon, but stage paranoia was attractive to popular culture. General Jack D. Ripper from ‘Dr. Strangelove’ is perhaps the best example: himself launching the nuclear attack on Russia, seeing communist infiltration and conspiracy everywhere, and concerned about his “precious bodily fluids.”
Batman talks through his red phone in 1966.
– There are mentions of the red telephone in literature prior to 1963, which sometimes served as the basis for films. What is your favorite?
– Sidney Lumet’s film adaptation of the Burdick/Wheeler novel ‘Fail-Safe’, a thriller that addresses the escalation and de-escalation of a crisis situation, incorporating contemporary game theory and the use of the red telephone. In addition, two great actors (Henry Fonda as the president and Larry Hagman as the performer) portray emotional negotiations and fear of nuclear war in a very theatrical style and intense close-ups. The introduction of an interpreter, already present in the short story ‘Abraham ’59’, is a great idea for an emotional film, but on the other hand it may not be a good solution in real crisis situations. Hollywood needs excitement, but it is advisable that international politics follow a different protocol in case of crisis.
– What is your take on ‘Dr. Strangelove’?
– Kubrick was an expert on the Cold War and analyzed game theory, military and political articles. The first script was serious, rather than satirical, with a narrative quite similar to ‘Fail-Safe’. But he decided to rewrite it, feeling that the threat of nuclear weapons needed to be portrayed through a satirical story. In the definitive version the leaders use the red telephone; perhaps the most famous scene is when the voice of a drunken Russian president is heard while the US president tries to remain calm.
#Films #novels #believable #Cold #War