Seeing red again ... finally

(c) 2010 by Steve Martaindale

Originally released for publication June 30, 2010

Things are looking up; we have new hope our nation might be on the path out of a 20-year case of the doldrums.

Last Sunday, 10 people were arrested in the eastern United States and charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general. Yep, they are accused of being spies.


Wait, it gets better. They are accused of being spies for Russia. That’s right, Russia, as in the major remnant of the Soviet Union, the USSR or, as we became accustomed to during the Olympics, the CCCP.

Yes, maybe the Cold War is on the way back. Maybe we will again be able to put a face on our enemy, pretend to negotiate disagreements, even discuss treaties that will be broken if they’re ever even signed.

Happy days are here again.

OK, OK, there were plenty of bad things about the Cold War – that’s why it’s called a war – but it did offer us so much more.

There were great movies. There were great spy novels.

But the main thing was we had a great enemy.

Had there been no Cold War with the Soviets, when would we have gotten to the moon? Perhaps never.

The Space Race was one of the most amazing stories of human endeavor, going from a flat-footed start to setting foot on the moon in just a matter of years.

We cut through red tape and “got ’er done” because we absolutely had to beat the Soviets to the moon.

Not as well known, just a few years earlier, the United States won the ultimate cold race of the Cold War, beating the Soviets to the South Pole to set up a permanent station there.

In 2006, for the 50th anniversary of the mission, I interviewed Lt. Cmdr. Conrad “Gus” Shinn, the pilot who was the first to land a plane at the South Pole, and he talked about why they made the trip.

“Admiral (George S.) Dufek made a talk sometime after we got to McMurdo (Station, the main U.S. base in Antarctica) and said that we had to get (to the South Pole) quickly because he thought the Russians would pre-empt us,” Shinn said. “He never discussed it with us other than that. There was no pre-planning. As far as that goes, he wanted to go to the Pole, so we went.”

Isn’t that a beautiful picture. The admiral wanted to attempt something that had never been done before, something not known to even be possible, something that could end up killing everyone involved (including the admiral, by the way) ... yet it was attempted with little preparation because we were afraid the Soviets would beat us to it.

You’ve got to love it.

Consider also the 1980 Winter Olympics, the “Miracle on Ice,” when the upstart amateur U.S. men’s hockey team defeated the vaunted Soviet professionals in the semifinals and went on to win the gold medal. There were few Americans who knew or cared about the U.S. Olympic hockey team ... until it beat the Soviet enemy.

Sportscaster Al Michaels’ famous call still resonates 30 years later: “Do you believe in miracles?”

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, since the fall of the Iron Curtain, our nation has had trouble unifying. The terrorist attacks on 9-11 brought us together but failed to keep us focused. Why? Because we had no face on the enemy.

Al Qaida, the Taliban, even Osama bin Laden are shadowy enemies. It’s hard to fight such a war and it’s almost impossible to measure success.

When the German citizens climbed atop the Berlin wall and started tearing it down, we celebrated. We had won.

Then, like a retired champion boxer, we faced a life without meaningful battles, fighting opponents we could not identify.

Now, we look at spies infiltrating our borders and, forgive us, we think, “Yes, maybe things will start picking up again.”