The hawkish attitudes of President Ronald Reagan and UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher were considered as key to the fall of the Soviet Union and the underpinnings of this hawkish attitude like any passionately held view seeks confirmation bias. The integrity of Western knowledge and culture in contrast to the wilful corruption of information and crafting of knowledge was a cornerstone of western attitudes in the 1980's, the Soviets were the bad guys because they told the big lies.

The post world war 2 ogre of a looming Soviet threat from nuclear weapons was made tangible for families throughout the West in 1963 during the Cuban missile crisis when children for the first time learned to cower under desks in schools under threat from an adult enemy. At the time people were advised to paint their windows with white window paint to help withstand the effects of nuclear fall out almost a metaphor for close your eyes. The story and the lived experience became one and the reality that there was never any danger beyond human error was lost. systemic whitewashing of female oppression, gambling and political corruption in Washington set the tone for the whitewashing of politics in the USA and its relationship with Hollywood productions stars during the McCarthy era when the shadow of the Soviet nemesis