July 2nd, 1954

Washington, DC

President Walt Disney looked over the copy of the bill that lie in front of him. On its face, it made sense - the bureaucrats up on the Hill hated the idea of the Presidency using atomic weapons unilaterally, due to their impact and international perception - but in practice it meant for a number of legal headaches in the instances of fighting undeclared conflicts, the kinds of conflicts congress much preferred due to their ability to brush off the consequences. These headaches seemed to be avoidable in most instances, at least, and it was clearly just part of a more overarching political move to couple with the list of subpoenas he had been handed this morning. He looked at those again and chuckled, the cowards had not even dared to call him to testify.

Not everyone, however, was so unworried about the whole affair. This camp, mainly, were those in Douglas MacArthur's camp, who saw any reach of congress to try and constrain the military as an affront on the military as a whole. Disney looked up, still seated at the Resolute Desk, and watched as the General continued to angrily pace around the Oval Office. He sighed.

"Look, Mac," he finally said, "I get you don't like it - I don't like it either. But that's POLITICS! We accept the bill now while everyone is busy freaking out over our decision, then we spend the next year reminding people of how necessary the bombs were, and by 1956 we have a group in congress who is fully onboard with our ideas and we just repeal it then!"

MacArthur continued to pace angrily. "You aren't going to give in to those... those... PINKO sons of bitches in Congress, Walt! You can't! Think of the military! We're being handcuffed!"

Disney chuckled. "Barely, Mac, the cuffs are made of rubber bands. Roy has poured over the bill and assures me that we can usually still justify whatever we need to do - it just makes extreme fringe cases impossible without congress. Hell, the strikes we just did in Vietnam would be allowed under the bill! We will be fine."

MacArthur, having paced his way over to the wall, slams his palm against it in frustration. "I can't work under these conditions! Most of these boys were giving Truman handies in the bathroom over there while I was out there WINNING THE GODDAMNED WAR! I won a Medal of fucking Honor for it too! 10 years later I do the same thing and they want me hanged!"

He paused. "I'm going to resign, Walt."

Disney sighed again, he appreciated flair but the melodrama was a bad look on the General. "Look, I get it. I have to talk with these damn bureaucrats eight hours a day. It's exhausting, and they never have a damn clue what they are talking about."

He then looked down at the glass of scotch on his desk, but after a moment elected for some water instead. "But here's the thing, Mac, every single one of those boys in Congress only REALLY cares about one thing - their next election. I know damn well that that's what Kefauver is gonna want to focus on in every damn hearing. But that's gonna be their Achilles Heel, because they seem to forget that while they might not like what we did, America loves us, loves you for it. Every hearing they drag us to is gonna be televised, Kefauver will see to that, meaning we are gonna have free goddamn airtime to rip into these assholes and remind them who the REAL American heroes are, who actually knows how to run a damn war, and what Americans from Providence to Portland really think about all this."

MacArthur looked up, pondering this. "You think they're going to give me a hearing?"

"They already have," Disney responded, holding up one of the subpoenas in front of him.

MacArthur's thin lips curled into a wry smile. Eventually his teeth poked through, and he let out a little chuckle. "I think Kefauver is going to have a damn heart attack when they let me rip into him. At the very least he'll be pissing his neat little britches."

Disney smiled, stood up, and walked over to the General, patting him on the shoulder. "Mac, I will enjoy that immensely."

July 4th, 1954

Washington, DC

President Walt Disney looked into the broadcast camera set up in the Oval Office, one that he was, by now, very familiar with. He smiled, and waited for the light to go red.

My fellow American Pioneers,

 

Today is the 178th anniversary of the founding of our great nation. 178 years since our brave Founding Fathers put quill to paper and announced to the world that now-famous declaration: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

178 years later, and the enforcement of that declaration has not been without heartache, strife, and challenge. We have overcome wars of all sorts - civil, international, and global - and emerged victorious from the fire and flames of conflict each time. We have seen threats both foreign and domestic who wished to bring an end to the American way of life, and all have failed. Our strength is undeniable, our beliefs unshakeable, and our commitment to freedom and democracy unyielding in the face of any foe. It is what makes all of us true Pioneers; it takes every single American to blaze the new trail for freedom that the world so desperately craves, and time and time again we have proven that we can and will rise to that challenge.

 

But these threats continue, and they evolve into stronger and more evil forms. Communism is simply the latest and greatest of these threats that seeks our complete and utter destruction. It seeks to turn our own people into agents of chaos, taking the unyielding scales of justice to keep at bay. It corrupts the minds of our leaders, both of high standing and of the everyday, and poisons the heart of even our brightest scientists. The Communist disease is truly a cancerous rot, a deadly virus that seeks to subsume all it touches into its orbit of godless terror and violence.

 

And my fellow American pioneers, it cannot be overstated how the rot of Communism abroad threatens to spread its tentacles to the good hearts and minds of innocent Americans. Just as the Soviet Communists march the Red Army into Prague, using force to impose their political will, so too do subversives at home try to use violence to break our very souls, both in Chicago and the Capital. Each ally claimed by this cancer is one less shield, one less defense against this ever-present darkness, and we must ensure that out commitment to our friends abroad fighting this menace is never in doubt.

 

This assurance, however, always comes at a cost - every American hero who volunteers to serve our nation fighting Communism abroad hopes to keep it as far from our shores as possible, but in doing so is risking their own life to protect ours. It is therefore our duty, my duty to ensure that wherever our heroes land, we are doing everything in our power to ensure that they make it back unharmed when their mission is done. To that end, it would a vast dereliction of our duty, both to our allies and ourselves, to ever take options off the table that would end these conflicts more quickly, more successfully, and at as little risk to our heroes as possible.

 

Most recently, this goal has necessitated the deployment of atomic weaponry in support of our Vietnamese allies fighting the Communist insurgency within their borders. This, as with any decision I make in the furtherance of combat and defense, was not one I made lightly, but one I made knowing that it was our single best option to ensure the total destruction of this violent and tyrannical Communist threat while also ensuring the safety of our own heroes on the ground keeping them at bay. It it one I did not hide, nor back down from, and one I would make again in a heartbeat given the same circumstances.

 

Yet there are some in Congress who see this not as our latest of victories against the greatest threat to the American way of life this world has ever seen, but as an opportunity to try and divide us as Americans in pursuit of greater political power and influence. These opportunists in the Capital wish not to celebrate our great history as a nation in opposing people and ideas that would threaten the very foundations of freedom and democracy, but rather to take a wedge to our great heroes and paint them as villains for doing what was necessary to bring about our victory. Through pressure and deceit they have put a bill on my desk demanding further control over when we can and cannot use atomic weaponry, a bill that is all politics and no substance, one that would not have opposed the bombings we undertook two months ago even had it already been passed! I have already signed it into law, as they have spoken in capacity as your representatives in their wish to make such a political statement, despite my belief that such meaningless constraints on the ability of our heroes to defend our way of life are antithetical to our very being.

 

And now these same opportunists wish to tear apart my administration, the one that you, the American people, voted so overwhelmingly to put in this position, through a piecemeal summoning of military leaders to testify in politicized hearings over the use of these atomic weapons. Yet despite the fact that only one man - me - was able to give the final authoritative order to use these weapons, I seem to be the only one not summoned to these hearings. Truly there can be no clearer evidence of the sham nature of these proceedings than the fear of the men who assembled them to let me remind them, and you the American people, why this decision was not only the necessary thing to do, but the moral thing to do, the American thing to do. If they genuinely wished to understand the decision-making process behind using these weapons, then surely they would have asked the person who made the decision to state their case. Yet they do not.

 

My fellow American pioneers, remember not to let yourselves be divided. On today, as with all days, remember that as long as America has been around, its enemies - whether they be opportunists, subversives, or communists - have tried to tear us apart at the seams, hoping to paint us not as United, but as separate. But they have always failed, because whether in 1776, 1942, or today, we are the United States of America, pioneers blazing a trail once thought impossible, and doing so hand-in-hard to serve as a shining beacon of liberty to a world hell-bent on breaking us apart. As we take this day to celebrate our freedoms, remember that this is what our heroes have fought and died for, the very foundation upon which our great nation is built. It is a foundation, an idea, a belief that we will never back down from, never surrender, and never let anyone stop us from defending. God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America.