Dr. Strangelove was released during my junior year at Muskingum College. It was the talk of the campus. This was especially true in The Arts, a ten-hour required class you could take in either your junior or senior year. Louie Palmer taught the class, which consisted of two two-hour lectures and one sub-section weekly. What fascinated me was that Louie was an excellent lecturer and could engage the students in the smaller sub-sections.

I remember several weeks when Louie wanted students to voice their opinions of Dr. Strangelove. The students who responded to his challenge spoke about how Peter Sellers played three characters in the movie. He was an RAF officer, the president of the United States, and Dr. Strangelove, a former Nazi and a nuclear bomb expert that was confined to a wheelchair. In this scene, Sellers is the president talking to Dr. Strangelove.

Students would debate the comic nature of the movie, but at the same time, they were concerned about the actual arms race with the Soviets. Little did I know that I would write about Dr. Strangelove six decades after first seeing it. James Earl Jones was one of the cast members. It was his debut as a movie actor. During his life, he was in over 70 other films.

In Dr. Strangelove, James Earl Jones was Lt. Zogg, the bombardier on a US Air Force B-52 bomber. The B-52’s destination was a city in the USSR. The general that sent the B-52 was not authorized. He did so because he thought the godless commies were going to pollute “precious bodily fluids” that Americans possessed. That wacko general sounds like Donald the Dumb and how immigrants are “poisoning our blood.”

This scene is of Lt. Zogg attempting to open the bomb bay of the B-52. The captain, played by Slim Pickens, realizes that he must physically open the bomb bay.

I wonder whether Stanley Kubrick picked James Earl Jones as Lt. Zogg in Dr. Strangelove due to his drive. Jones was a driven person outside of acting. Interestingly, while he is driven in life, it is a drive mixed with caring and softness. That is why I posed the question about Kubrick’s choice.

A great example of being driven, combined with his caring and softness, can be seen in the Field of Dreams. James Earl Jones is one of my mentors. I am equally driven, but I lack his caring and softness.