Discussing Liberally Salt Lake City

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The Original Proposal was first posted in Sec. 3 (Possible Topics for Future Meetings) on 10/15/2023 for the stated purpose of studying how history is repeating itself –

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel’s 7 nuclear missiles enabled Israel to avoid becoming the answer to a trivia question (What WAS Israel?) and now it looks like the world is headed to a nuclear holocaust between Iran and Israel with the only question being “How Soon?”!!!

Three comments are in order.

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Our focus book (The Samson Option by Seymour Hersh – Random House 1991) about, inter alia, Israel’s 7 nuclear missiles at the time of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, reports the only reason why Israel survived was due to its policy that if it ever reached the point of fewer than 24 hours to go to complete annihilation, before “turning out the lights” it would fire its 7 nuclear missiles at Russia’s 7 largest cities.

HOWEVER, the 10/15/2023 Original Proposal did NOT contain Random House’s book description and author bio from the book’s dust jacket because (1) Amazon.com which usually parrots that info, was no longer doing so, and (2) Yours Truly’s copy was buried in “perma-frost.”

[Most of our members have heard more times than they care to remember that I was married 1967-2000 to the co-author of the nation’s best-selling High School World History textbook (McGraw Hill with National Geographic illustrations) as a result of which my “real job” (vs. my “day job” as an attorney) was to read 12-15 thick historical tomes/bios PER YEAR to unearth overlooked nuggets for possible inclusion in the next edition, of which there were 6 during the 33 years of marriage. And “since old dogs do NOT learn new tricks,” the total of tomes/bios is now well over 1,500.]

Unfortunately, my original 1991 copy of The Samson Option is contained in one of the zillions of storage boxes dating from my 1967-2000 marriage – the exploration and cataloguing of whose contents have always been too painful.

Luckily (or perhaps due to self-discipline), I have always been blessed with a photographic memory for anything that seemed important and/or interesting.

The Samson Option qualified in both categories.

Accordingly, the two dozen references to it on our bulletin board going back to 2008, the earliest of which was featured prominently in the 10/15/2023 Original Proposal, were like the proverbial “falling off a log.”

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On 11/15/2023, another copy of The Samson Option was obtained from Amazon.

Accordingly, in addition to the 10/15/2023 Original Proposal based solely on memory, there is posted in this section Random House’s book description and author bio from the book’s dust jacket which Amazon has ceased publicizing but which typically comprise the bulk of our Original Proposals.

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The recently-mushrooming price of “The Samson Option” –

The 10/15/2023 Original Proposal quoted Amazon’s price as “$19.00 Hard Copy ($23.43 Paperback) + shipping or $7.99 Kindle.”

Today (11/16/2023), Amazon’s price is -- $67.53 Hard Copy ($139.00 Paperback) + shipping or $12.99 Kindle.

I would like to think this recently-mushrooming price on Amazon is due solely to my actions –

(1) Introducing “The Samson Option” into the weekly Zoom Chats since 10/7/2023 of my Harvard Law School Class of 1967.

(2) Introducing “The Samson Option” into the recent Salt Lake Committee on Foreign Relations meeting on “The Gaza War: How did we get here?” featuring a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

and, perhaps, most importantly –

(3) Posting the Original Proposal 10/15/2023 on our website which gets quite a bit of traffic, particularly from academics and members of the media.