Timewatch

Baiting the Bear (1996x11)

: 08, 1996

Investigation into how close the world came to a nuclear war in the 1960s. Looks at evidence that between 1948 and 1964 Curtis E LeMay and Thomas Power, who controlled the nuclear bombers of US Strategic Air Command, built up a huge nuclear arsenal and made plans for a US first strike called "preventative action" without presidential knowledge. It claims they tried to provoke the USSR into a nuclear strike with over-flights of US spy planes. Also considers the war mentality and state of minds of LeMay and other top American generals of the time and the Cuban missile crisis.