14 MAY 1965, Page 9

Tailpiece

Cinema fans and the disarmers alike know that `defence intellectuals' such as Dr. Strangelove, and Professor Groteschole of Fail Safe, who terrifies the big brass with his easy talk of a multimegalon first strike, are supposed to be based on Dr. Herman Kahn, author of On Thermonuclear War, who has been described as the Clausewitz of the nuclear age. I sec the familiar phrases in a report of Dr. Kahn's recent speech in New York— escalation, upward nuclear spiral, proportionate nuclear reprisal, etc. etc. But fact blasts apart that Strangelove image, for Dr. Kahn, one reads, is 'a large fat man who laughs easily. . .

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