ABSTRACT

This could be seen as the greatest discursive coup, the most effective convincing of the largest number of 'free' individuals of the sanity of an insanity that world history has ever seen. The resonant term 'Cold War' was always a deceit, covering up a series of 'hot' wars in, for example, Korea and Vietnam, where millions were killed. However, even this newstoriographical distortion was grotesquely superseded in the 1960s, when the most important issue became not petulant East-West confrontation, but the threat to the entire planet of nuclear holocaust. One might argue that, from then on, the continued use of the misleading term 'Cold War' in the political and economic interests of those promoting and pursuing it, successfully imposed and reinforced the accompanying mindset, and criminally distracted media audiences from the really vital issues.