Dr. Strangelove Visions of America: The Cold War Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Quote #10

DESADESKI: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

Ambassador DeSadeski likes Strangelove's plan for repopulating the Earth, which includes assigning 10 sexually stimulating women to every manly man. Turgidson is a big fan of the idea too, making it one of the few moments of U.S.-Soviet agreement in the film. Americans, Soviets, and Nazis—the one thing every man can agree on is the subjugation of women. Nice.

Quote #11

TURGIDSON: Yeah. I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Soviet expansionist policy. I mean, we must be... increasingly on the alert to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do, thus, knocking us out in superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow...a mineshaft gap!

At the time the movie came out, this probably seemed like a pretty bleak ending. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. don't learn from the destruction their rivalry has caused, they just find a new thing to fight about. It seems to us that the movie is trying to show us in its ridiculous way how political conflict is an endless cycle.