Old mustached German (OMG) called and said: "I just watched Dr. Strangelove again, and that brought back a weird memory from the old days, you wanna hear another Dr. Strangelove like episode?"
TheEditor listened and decided to go for it. Since it dates back over a generation, we'll use our once upon a time opener.
Once upon a time, there was great concern that the Soviet Union would send their many thousands of tanks west into West Germany and on for breakfast and dinner in Paris.
The movie Dr. Strangelove is one window into these crazy days, but there are smaller windows, and OMG let us peek behind one curtain.
People were throwing around all kinds of ideas, explained OMG, one of these was known as zapping Soviets. It went more or less like this: if they want to make it to Paris, the Soviets will have to cross several rivers. Stopping them is really hard, but let's look at the rivers some more. Hey, said some, aren't there power plants on rivers because that's where all the water for cooling is? The electrical grid will go down a few minutes into war, but what if you have a still functioning plant and some Soviets in the water, couldn't we run some thick cables and zap them?
What a sick little story, TheEditor thought. Is it true? It is really only hearsay, and OMG might be one crazy old coot, maybe simply watching Dr. Strangelove can do this to a person.
"Is it true?"
"I don't know. There was beer involved, and people talked a lot, but some of the crap turned out to be true, like the paratroopers who had to do pushups over a knife in the ground, pointy side up."
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