The Most Explosive Love Story Ever: Transatlantic Nuclear Discourse

Cordle, Daniel

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-51308-3_2

Daniel Cordle²

549 Accesses

Abstract

A famous satirical image, a spoof film poster for Gone with the Wind, depicts Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan embroiled in the “most explosive love story ever”, shadowed by a mushroom cloud. Controversial figures, their Cold War policies and socio-economic reforms provoked debate on both sides of the Atlantic, both about nuclear weapons and other issues.

This chapter discusses the nuclear transatlantic in 1980s literature. It finds depictions of the relations between Britain and the United States in novels by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, David Graham, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and James Thackara, and also explores how geopolitical forces refashioning the transatlantic relationship were more broadly and subtly manifested in the decade’s literature.

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Notes

1.
The Victoria & Albert Museum lists Christmas 1980 as the date of original publication. V&A Search the Collections: Gone with the Wind <http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76710/gone-with-the-wind-poster-houston-john/> [accessed 20 January 2016]. The image became a well-known satirical poster.
2.
Henry Kissinger, a former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, was still influential in public life. Edward Heath was the Conservative British Prime Minister from 1970–1974. Keith Joseph was Secretary of State for Social Services under Heath and later became Secretary of State for Education and Science under Thatcher.
3.
Barbara Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 61 (Epstein 1991).
4.
Walter M. Miller, Jr., “Forewarning (An Introduction)”, in Beyond Armageddon, ed. Miller and Martin H. Greenberg, new edn. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), xii (Miller 2006).
5.
Barbara Goodwin, The K/V Papers (London: Pluto, 1983), 90 (Goodwin 1983).
6.
Ian McEwan, The Child in Time (London: Vintage, 1992), 34 (McEwan 1992).
7.
Kate Hudson, CND—Now More Than Ever: The Story of a Peace Movement (London: Vision, 2005), 138 (Hudson 2005). For a fuller description of the Pentagon Actions see Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution, 161–163 (Epstein 1991).
8.
“Women at the 1981 women’s Pentagon action wove webs around the doors of the Pentagon, symbolically closing them, and this activity has been used elsewhere.” Alice Cook and Gwyn Kirk, Greenham Women Everywhere: Dreams, Ideas and Actions from the Women’s Peace Movement (London: Pluto, 1983), 126 (Cook and Kirk 1983).
9.
Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution, 163 (Epstein 1991).
10.
Don Willcox, “The People”, in Marianne Philbin and Lark Books Staff (eds), The Ribbon: A Celebration of Life (Asheville: Lark, 1985), 17 (Willcox 1985). For a discussion of the history of political fabric art out of which the Ribbon emerged, see Linda Pershing, Ribbon Around the Pentagon, 70–86 (Pershing 1996).
11.
Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, Warday and the Journey Onward (London: Coronet, 1985), 332–335 (Strieber and Kunetka 1985).
12.
Strieber and Kunetka, Warday, 50–51 (Strieber and Kunetka 1985).
13.
Strieber and Kunetka, Warday, 223–224 (Strieber and Kunetka 1985).
14.
David Graham, Down to a Sunless Sea (London: Pan, 1980), 15, 46 (Graham 1980).
15.
Martin Cruz Smith, Stallion Gate (London: Pan, 1996), 57 (Smith 1996).
16.
Smith, Stallion Gate, 15 (Smith 1996).
17.
Smith, Stallion Gate, 47 (Smith 1996).
18.
James Thackara, America’s Children (London: Chatto & Windus, 1984), 4 (Thackara 1984).
19.
Thackara, America’s Children, 4 (Thackara 1984).
20.
Thackara, America’s Children, 15 (Thackara 1984).
21.
Thackara, America’s Children, 82 (Thackara 1984).
22.
Thackara, America’s Children, 87–88 (Thackara 1984).
23.
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: Penguin, 2013) (Orwell 2013). In Orwell’s 1949 vision of a world ruled by totalitarian states, Airstrip One is part of Oceania, constantly at war with Eurasia and Eastasia.
24.
McEwan, Child in Time, 76 (McEwan 1992).
25.
McEwan, Child in Time, 204 (McEwan 1992).
26.
McEwan, Child in Time, 209 (McEwan 1992).
27.
McEwan, Child in Time, 88 (McEwan 1992).
28.
McEwan, Child in Time, 88 (McEwan 1992).
29.
McEwan, Child in Time, 33 (McEwan 1992). McEwan’s choice of an Olympic moment as one that, absurdly, nearly sparks nuclear war reflects the way in which the United States and Soviet Union used the Games for Cold War posturing in the 1980s: both the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics were marred by superpower boycotts.
30.
McEwan, Child in Time, 32 (McEwan 1992).
31.
Martin Amis, London Fields (London: Vintage, 2003), 2 (Amis 2003).
32.
Amis, London Fields, 13 (Amis 2003).
33.
Amis, London Fields, 13 (Amis 2003).
34.
Amis, London Fields, 2 (Amis 2003).
35.
Amis, London Fields, 137–138 (Amis 2003).
36.
Amis, London Fields, 3 (Amis 2003).
37.
Amis, London Fields, 70, 233 (Amis 2003).
38.
Amis, London Fields, 78 (Amis 2003).
39.
Amis, London Fields, 263 (Amis 2003).
40.
Amis, London Fields, 365 (Amis 2003).
41.
Amis, London Fields, 366 (Amis 2003).

Bibliography

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Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Daniel Cordle

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Cordle, D. (2017). The Most Explosive Love Story Ever: Transatlantic Nuclear Discourse. In: Late Cold War Literature and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51308-3_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51308-3_2
Published: 29 October 2016
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51307-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-51308-3
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