[BRIEFINGS] - Cold War and the Nuclear Arms Race
Here you will find transcriptions of the Briefing Files in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker involving Huey. Be warned, here there be spoilers.
The Manhattan Project
BB: Doc, I'm starting to sense your feelings about nukes are a little different from your colleagues.
H: How do you mean?
BB: Your little chat with Coldman back there.
H: I... told you my father worked on the Manhattan Project, right? You're familiar with it?
BB: The basics, yeah. It was the project that kicked off the nuclear age.
H: That's right. Some of the finest minds of the 20th century, including multiple Nobel Prize winners worked on it. They spent over two billion dollars - and that's in 1940s money. It culminated in the successful nuclear test at Alamogordo on July 16, 1945.
BB: And the first use in combat a few weeks later.
Huey: [sighs]
BB: Doc?
H: ...I can't walk. My spine isn't shaped like everybody else's. I can't move my lower body. So I've never taken a single step, not since I was born.
BB: What's that got to do with your dad being in the Manhattan Project?
H: As a result of his research, my father was exposed to high doses of radiation. It can't be a coincidence that my chromosomes are messed up.
BB: That's...
H: That's why I didn't want for those nukes to be another sword of Damocles. I wanted to give them a real purpose: to be a deterrent against war.
BB: Doc...
H: And Coldman... We have to stop him. Whatever it takes!
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
H: August 6, 1945 - Hiroshima. August 9 - Nagasaki.
BB: The atom bomb attacks on Japan.
H: My father was married to his work. I don't have a single memory of going places or doing stuff with him on weekends. But even as a kid I knew on some level that it was for his family - I respected him. My mother used to tell me all the time, "Your father is a brilliant scientist. He saved countless American boys from death. You should be proud of him."
BB: Yeah, you could say the war ended because of those bombs.
H: When I was in the fifth grade, a Japanese student transferred to our class. She showed me photos of Hiroshima after the bomb. I couldn't believe my eyes. A city of over 350,000 people, reduced to a scorch mark on the ground by a single atomic bomb. Houses blown off their foundations, burned to ashes... The only things left standing were the skeletons of steel-framed buildings. It wasn't just the buildings. Blackened corpses on the side of the road. Survivors covered head to toe in severe burns. Within a few months, over 70,000 had died in Nagasaki - twice that in Hiroshima. For years after that, I couldn't talk to my father - couldn't even stand to look at his face.
BB: I know how you feel, Doc. But your father's your father.
H: If he hadn't worked on that project, my body wouldn't be like this! I could be researching something else! I could have lived a normal life.
BB: [Sighs]
Cuban Missile Crisis
H: It wasn't so long ago the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.
BB: Just over on the other side of the Carribean.
H: I was 17 at the time. I'd skipped a few grades and was a sophomore at MIT. I remember feeling kind of apathetic about the news that came in every day. It seemed clear to me that as long as they had a grasp of the concept of nuclear deterrence, there was nothing to fear.
BB: Hn... Either that, or they were fanning that fear on purpose.
H: As a way to secure a bigger defence budget...? Heh, I can see that. But if that was their plan, it kind of backfired.
BB: Because it ushed in the era of Dètence between East and West.
H: Coldman's really going to do it this time. Once the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, the yoke of deterrence is going to be meaningless. People will die. Cities will burn. We have to stop him now, before it's too late to turn back.
The Space Race and the Cold War Arms Race
BB: So you've been doing nuclear research your whole life?
H: No, not really. At first I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. For me, the Sputnik launch was a good shock, not a bad one. I thought the age when science was used for war was over and that a glorious age of space exploration was dawning. The year I skipped ahead and got into MIT, Gagarin went into orbit, which made me more excited than ever. Of course, even back then, I knew the space race was just another facet of the Cold War...
BB: Mm... Moscow had a leg up on us, and we were desperate to catch up.
H: I know. But for me it was a happy time. I joined NASA - got to do the kind of research I loved. Our nation's prestige hinged on our work. They gave us whatever resources we asked for. I knew you could turn a rocket into an ICBM by fitting it with a nuclear warhead, but that didn't bother me so much. It didn't last long, though. The space and nuclear arms races took up enormous sums of money. America beat Russia to the moon, but that's where it ended.
BB: Then came Dètente.
H: Exactly. NASA's budget was slashed as a result. My father being a nuclear expert and all, they put me to work on a more obvious deterrent: missiles. At NASA, I'd been researching a locomotion system for lunar exploration. ...Tires aren't suited to driving around on the moon, you know. And that's how I caught Coldman's eye.
The Cold War and Peace
H: But you know... there's something I've never been able to figure out. Is the Cold War really a war, or is it really peace...?
BB: Doc, what are you...?
H: People called it a "cold war," but I disagreed. Sure, nuclear stockpiles are increasing, threats are multiplying, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have enough power to destroy the human race a hundred times over. But nobody's actually being killed. Small-scale conflicts and proxy wars, maybe... But nuclear deterrence has averted another world war. The world's far more peaceful today than it was before. And the breakthroughs we've made in space exploration thanks to Cold War competition - fantastic, don't you think?
BB: No... We didn't need to rush into space like that... Going into space may have been mankind's dream, but good people were sacrificed in the scramble.
H: ..Maybe so. NASA's definitely got some skeletons in its closet...
BB: Same goes for the nuclear arms race. Atomic testing has killed civilians and exposed thousands to radiation.
H: Believe me, I know... And now... this... What peace was I trying to protect, anyway? The more I think about it, the less I understand!
The Manhattan Project
BB: Doc, I'm starting to sense your feelings about nukes are a little different from your colleagues.
H: How do you mean?
BB: Your little chat with Coldman back there.
H: I... told you my father worked on the Manhattan Project, right? You're familiar with it?
BB: The basics, yeah. It was the project that kicked off the nuclear age.
H: That's right. Some of the finest minds of the 20th century, including multiple Nobel Prize winners worked on it. They spent over two billion dollars - and that's in 1940s money. It culminated in the successful nuclear test at Alamogordo on July 16, 1945.
BB: And the first use in combat a few weeks later.
Huey: [sighs]
BB: Doc?
H: ...I can't walk. My spine isn't shaped like everybody else's. I can't move my lower body. So I've never taken a single step, not since I was born.
BB: What's that got to do with your dad being in the Manhattan Project?
H: As a result of his research, my father was exposed to high doses of radiation. It can't be a coincidence that my chromosomes are messed up.
BB: That's...
H: That's why I didn't want for those nukes to be another sword of Damocles. I wanted to give them a real purpose: to be a deterrent against war.
BB: Doc...
H: And Coldman... We have to stop him. Whatever it takes!
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
H: August 6, 1945 - Hiroshima. August 9 - Nagasaki.
BB: The atom bomb attacks on Japan.
H: My father was married to his work. I don't have a single memory of going places or doing stuff with him on weekends. But even as a kid I knew on some level that it was for his family - I respected him. My mother used to tell me all the time, "Your father is a brilliant scientist. He saved countless American boys from death. You should be proud of him."
BB: Yeah, you could say the war ended because of those bombs.
H: When I was in the fifth grade, a Japanese student transferred to our class. She showed me photos of Hiroshima after the bomb. I couldn't believe my eyes. A city of over 350,000 people, reduced to a scorch mark on the ground by a single atomic bomb. Houses blown off their foundations, burned to ashes... The only things left standing were the skeletons of steel-framed buildings. It wasn't just the buildings. Blackened corpses on the side of the road. Survivors covered head to toe in severe burns. Within a few months, over 70,000 had died in Nagasaki - twice that in Hiroshima. For years after that, I couldn't talk to my father - couldn't even stand to look at his face.
BB: I know how you feel, Doc. But your father's your father.
H: If he hadn't worked on that project, my body wouldn't be like this! I could be researching something else! I could have lived a normal life.
BB: [Sighs]
Cuban Missile Crisis
H: It wasn't so long ago the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.
BB: Just over on the other side of the Carribean.
H: I was 17 at the time. I'd skipped a few grades and was a sophomore at MIT. I remember feeling kind of apathetic about the news that came in every day. It seemed clear to me that as long as they had a grasp of the concept of nuclear deterrence, there was nothing to fear.
BB: Hn... Either that, or they were fanning that fear on purpose.
H: As a way to secure a bigger defence budget...? Heh, I can see that. But if that was their plan, it kind of backfired.
BB: Because it ushed in the era of Dètence between East and West.
H: Coldman's really going to do it this time. Once the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, the yoke of deterrence is going to be meaningless. People will die. Cities will burn. We have to stop him now, before it's too late to turn back.
The Space Race and the Cold War Arms Race
BB: So you've been doing nuclear research your whole life?
H: No, not really. At first I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. For me, the Sputnik launch was a good shock, not a bad one. I thought the age when science was used for war was over and that a glorious age of space exploration was dawning. The year I skipped ahead and got into MIT, Gagarin went into orbit, which made me more excited than ever. Of course, even back then, I knew the space race was just another facet of the Cold War...
BB: Mm... Moscow had a leg up on us, and we were desperate to catch up.
H: I know. But for me it was a happy time. I joined NASA - got to do the kind of research I loved. Our nation's prestige hinged on our work. They gave us whatever resources we asked for. I knew you could turn a rocket into an ICBM by fitting it with a nuclear warhead, but that didn't bother me so much. It didn't last long, though. The space and nuclear arms races took up enormous sums of money. America beat Russia to the moon, but that's where it ended.
BB: Then came Dètente.
H: Exactly. NASA's budget was slashed as a result. My father being a nuclear expert and all, they put me to work on a more obvious deterrent: missiles. At NASA, I'd been researching a locomotion system for lunar exploration. ...Tires aren't suited to driving around on the moon, you know. And that's how I caught Coldman's eye.
The Cold War and Peace
H: But you know... there's something I've never been able to figure out. Is the Cold War really a war, or is it really peace...?
BB: Doc, what are you...?
H: People called it a "cold war," but I disagreed. Sure, nuclear stockpiles are increasing, threats are multiplying, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have enough power to destroy the human race a hundred times over. But nobody's actually being killed. Small-scale conflicts and proxy wars, maybe... But nuclear deterrence has averted another world war. The world's far more peaceful today than it was before. And the breakthroughs we've made in space exploration thanks to Cold War competition - fantastic, don't you think?
BB: No... We didn't need to rush into space like that... Going into space may have been mankind's dream, but good people were sacrificed in the scramble.
H: ..Maybe so. NASA's definitely got some skeletons in its closet...
BB: Same goes for the nuclear arms race. Atomic testing has killed civilians and exposed thousands to radiation.
H: Believe me, I know... And now... this... What peace was I trying to protect, anyway? The more I think about it, the less I understand!