Word: wars
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...world of print provides only part of the evidence of sharpening interest in the war. Novels such as The Boys from Brazil, The Eagle Has Landed and Soldier of Orange have found their way into the movies, and Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle is about to-even as he puts together yet another World War II saga. If World War II films have naturally been less numerous than books, they have also-ever since George C. Scott swaggered across the screen in Patton in 1970-tended to be more spectacular and ambitious. TV is cluttered with World...
...impossible not to wonder why the nation has got caught up in such a welter of war lore. True, some keen public curiosity needs no special explanation. After all, most Americans now over age 34 experienced the war in civvies if not in uniform: the war is their own story. There are, however, some other specific reasons for the new intensity of interest...
...disclosure of previously secret documents. Britain took the wraps off its secrets in 1972, and the U.S. did the same in stages completed in 1975. Authors promptly went lurching after never-told-before stories. A notable example came out last month with a most unwieldy title: Ultra Goes to War: The First Account of World War II's Greatest Secret Based on Official Documents. The secret: how the Allies did and did not use intercepted German coded information...
...shift away from confrontation with Russia to its present policy of détente has also impelled many scholars to take a fresh look at the cold war, that byproduct of World War II. Many of the origins of the cold war sprang from decisions made during hostilities. The Allied decision to halt Patton on his dash toward Berlin, for example, isolated the German capital and made it a focal point of confrontation in the postwar era. Says History Professor Robert Dallek of U.C.L.A.: "We have to go back. Where we are now is a direct result of what evolved...
Oscar Wilde professed to believe that war is fascinating because it is thought to be wicked. His theory: "When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular." Obviously, war's vulgarity has not yet vanquished its wickedness or the sense of adventure it engenders, even if vicariously. That aside, World War II is likely to remain a popular subject in the U.S. for a long time to come, if only because, for millions, it is still viewed as the nation's most splendid hour...