American Strategic Deception Bureau

　In a bureaucracy that strives to avoid responsibility, once something goes wrong, no one bravely steps forward to take responsibility, instead resorting to perfunctory measures and procrastination. Finally, when public outrage boils over and no one can do anything about it, mainstream public opinion pushes someone to take the blame.

　The person who took the blame could not solve the problem, but apologize, resign, leave a well-written suicide note, and then commit suicide calmly, using his life to calm the public's anger, and then the matter would be settled.

　If Hugh Scott were to make the decision, he would probably make the same choice.

　But the problem is that the current Speaker Hugh Scott happens to be the unlucky guy who has to take the blame - he doesn't want to be used as a punching bag!

　So, seeing that no matter how he explained, it would only backfire and bring further shame to the country, President Nixon simply lay down.

　Whether the explosion in New York City was an imported Soviet nuclear bomb or a domestically produced one, it was a catastrophic disaster caused by the reckless behavior of New York State during the rebellion. What does it have to do with the federal government, regardless of their own actions?

　However, the White House can lie flat, but the US dollar exchange rate cannot lie flat.

　In fact, even before the outbreak of the American Civil War, when the already exhausted US military was suddenly forced to join the Middle East war, the US dollar exchange rate in the international market had already begun to plummet. After President Nixon bombed the White House and the Civil War began, the US dollar exchange rate fell even more drastically.

　From the end of June to the end of August, the US dollar exchange rate plummeted by 60% to 70% across major global markets, while prices in the United States soared by 100% to 200% in just two months! From gasoline to bread to Coca-Cola, prices skyrocketed!

　Of course, tuition fees for primary and secondary school students, car washing fees at car wash shops, and other service fees have also soared.

　In this booming and hazy inflation boom across the United States, the only thing that has plummeted is probably the real estate prices in New York - from the world's financial center to a nuclear contaminated area, how much must the land prices fall?

　At the same time, American citizens' confidence in the White House and the Pentagon plummeted. Countless angry protesters took to the streets, chanting chaotically, "The government spent huge sums of money and messed up so many things in order to confront the Soviet Union, and now it wants to irresponsibly turn a blind eye?"

　"The United States has spent a huge amount of money in recent years to create

　Are all those nuclear weapons they have intended to annihilate their own people?"

　Chapter 511, Wall Street Collapse (Physics), Nixon...got nothing to eat!

　According to rough estimates by White House economic advisers, the U.S. economy suffered a devastating blow during the two months of civil unrest and the New York catastrophe, with at least $2 trillion lost from the national economy in one go, roughly equivalent to the U.S. GDP for one year.

　However, the material and financial losses are only the most obvious manifestations. The negative spiritual and political impact is even more harmful.

　For example, President Nixon was stunned to discover that, despite the physical collapse of Wall Street and the crushing defeat of the "Jewish bloc" that once opposed him, his power as president had not expanded much.

　Simply put, Wall Street collapsed, but Nixon got almost nothing.

　Why is this so?

　Isn't power just being fought over and over between Congress and the White House, but simply evaporating and disappearing?

　How should I put it? It seems to be true.

　Well, to be precise, power disappeared from the capital, Washington, and moved to the states below.

　You know, even though during this period, the president and Congress were fighting for power and fighting to the death, they seemed to be irreconcilable.

　But in the eyes of citizens in states across the United States outside the capital, both sides are corrupt politicians in Washington, and are birds of the same feather who are bringing harm to the country and the people.

　Therefore, after experiencing this catastrophe, citizens across the United States generally felt extremely dissatisfied with the central government that caused this terrible disaster.

　On the contrary, state governments and state legislatures that actively resisted central government orders and openly challenged Washington have turned a disaster into a blessing and are considered more reliable.

　In this way, with a broad public opinion base and the organization and operation of local politicians in each state, and President Nixon uniting local forces in each state, he smashed and disintegrated the old Congress (Senate), that is, destroyed the highest central power organ of the federation.

　As a result, the actual power of the entire Washington central government was greatly reduced.

　——Generally speaking, the American political tradition has always emphasized the separation of powers, with the Supreme Court, Capitol Hill, and the White House forming the three pillars at the center.

　But this is only the situation in the capital. At the local level, the states are actually on the same level as Washington, and there is no actual hierarchical relationship.

　Like the president, governors in the United States are elected. The president has no power to remove governors, and Congress has no power to interfere or dissolve state legislatures.

　According to the founding spirit of the United States, the United States first established "states" and then established a "country", so it is called a federation.

　All of the federal government's power comes from transfers from the states. To unite and support each other, the states have ceded some power and finances to the federal government in the capital, allowing it to coordinate and allocate resources to respond to various domestic and international emergencies.

　——In other words, the process of establishing the United States actually follows the same procedures and routines as the establishment of the European Union and the European Community.

　At least initially, state power was superior to the federal government, and every citizen owed loyalty to the state before to the federal government.

　From this we can see that the actual power held by the first few US presidents was probably not much greater than that held by the President of the European Union in the early 21st century.

　However, by the time of the Cold War, the United States had already been around for nearly two centuries, having weathered countless trials and tribulations. The federal government's path to centralization had been bumpy and bruising for so long. Naturally, the central government in Washington, D.C., seemed more authoritative than the European Union.

　(Twenty years after the establishment of the European Union, young people in many European countries have blurred the concept of nationality and have begun to call themselves Europeans.)

　But the problem is that the fundamental cause of the outbreak of the Civil War - "state rights" - has not been eliminated, but has only been patched up.

　Just like the Soviet Union, whether strong or weak, was always just an alliance and the right of the member republics to withdraw was not abolished.

　So, now that the states have begun to use public opinion to take back the powers they previously ceded to the federal government, how should Washington respond?

　——Although it will not cause the collapse of the United States, it is entirely possible that the authority of the White House and Congress will plummet and return to the state of the early 19th century.

　Of course, in order to prevent the federal government from splitting and disintegrating, successive great American presidents, from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt, have already patched up the United States with layers of laws, systems, and ideologies, like iron hoops, gradually kneading this loose country together.

　Then they try every possible way to instill the "sanctity of the law" into the minds of American citizens like an ideological stamp.

　This makes the Federation appear more and more like a centralized state where orders are strictly enforced.

　Unfortunately, in this civil war, most of these layers of patches were broken through by an implosion.

　First, the Jewish groups and the military-industrial complex joined forces to manipulate Congress, forcing members of Congress to go against public opinion and attempt to send large troops to the Middle East to fight a nuclear war with the Arab coalition supported by the Soviet Union even though the people were already extremely tired of war and the military was about to get out of control.

　Then, states across the country reacted violently. Faced with the dominance of the war faction in the capital, two-thirds of the states organized votes and illegally recalled their state representatives and senators in Washington, declaring that they would no longer represent their states - equivalent to

　It is illegal to deprive Congress of its legitimacy.

　Next, the White House and Congress each mobilized their own armies, engaged in a bloody battle in Washington, D.C., and committed murder, essentially violating every law imaginable. Thus, in just two months of turmoil, Congress violated the Constitution, the President violated the Constitution, the states violated the Constitution, and the military violated the Constitution. Ultimately, the Supreme Court itself was forced to violate the Constitution in order to quickly end the Civil War and prevent the complete disintegration of the United States.

　In this case, since everyone treats the Constitution as toilet paper, where is the sanctity and majesty of the law?

　——Of course it has been completely destroyed!

　According to a New York Times commentary, the United States now has "an illegitimate president, an illegitimate Congress, and a Supreme Court that openly violates the Constitution." The legitimacy of the entire Washington regime has been completely shattered. From a legal perspective, it is almost an illegitimate regime.

　Of course, even if there is no legitimacy, as long as there is a military to back up violence, it is acceptable and may even be more important than legitimacy.

　After all, the only truth in this world is that the one with the biggest fist is the boss.

　Otherwise, how did those rulers throughout history who came to power through civil wars and coups manage to hold on to their power?

　Violence is not the only solution, but it is always the final solution!

　But the problem is that President Nixon was not a strong man. As president, he not only lacked legitimacy, but also had no military support.

　——Nixon is neither Caesar nor Napoleon. He has never commanded a powerful army and does not have much prestige among the soldiers.

　To be honest, President Nixon at that time was not even as good as Mussolini who led the black shirts into Rome, or Trump who was later supported by the "MAGA" red hat group. He didn't even have a fanatical voter fan base - his popularity was far not that high!

　What's even more terrible is that in this dimension, he, as the president, did not come to power through elections, but by luck!

　The Civil War was not won by Nixon's ability, but because Congress went crazy and ended up killing itself.

　In the eyes of most Americans, Nixon was just a lucky guy who won easily and reaped the rewards, rather than an awe-inspiring strongman or tough guy.

　In this case, everyone will only envy him but not respect him - the decline of the president's power has become a foregone conclusion.

　As a result, President Nixon had no guns in his hands, no fan base behind him, and the legitimacy of his presidency was in doubt...

　In summary, there is neither law, nor force, nor popularity.

　Then, when he negotiates with representatives of various state forces, he will be very unconfident in his words, and even if he wants to be tough, he won't be able to do so!

　One manifestation of this is that the Federal Reserve, controlled by Wall Street in New York, is doomed. But President Nixon was unable to reclaim the Federal Reserve and the right to issue currency.

　Because the newly formed Congress in Washington had already decided the fate of the Federal Reserve. Of the twelve banks that originally made up the Fed, the New York Fed, which had participated in the rebellion and lost over seven thousand tons of Federal Reserve gold, and the Philadelphia Fed, which had been an accomplice, were kicked out. Then, the remaining ten banks were allowed to form a new Federal Reserve, and the Fed headquarters was moved from New York to Chicago. That was all.

　President Nixon had no way to refuse: the senators and representatives elected by the states said that if President Nixon did not agree with their arrangements for the Federal Reserve, they would vote to allow each state and each autonomous entity to have the right to issue its own US currency!

　The US dollar has now abandoned the gold standard and is now a completely credit-based currency. Therefore, theoretically, issuing US dollars now doesn't require any reserves. Any government can print a bunch of colored paper and use it as money!

　But if this happens, we will not discuss how the US inflation rate will skyrocket.

　Just imagine, there are at least hundreds of different banknotes circulating in the United States at the same time, so that currencies have to be exchanged between states and even counties, and ordinary people basically barter or secretly trade in pounds, francs, and even yen...

　President Nixon felt that it was better to not be able to get the Federal Reserve and the right to issue currency than to see the US dollar completely destroyed.

　In fact, under normal circumstances, the old Congress would never have proposed such an outrageous bill as "allowing states to print their own US currency," which undermines the very foundations of the federal government. This is because, after years of coordination and collusion, the members of Congress gathered in Washington, D.C., have long since formed a central political group in the capital. Once elected, they no longer simply represent the interests of their states; they begin to consciously safeguard the interests of the central government.

　Of course, there will always be some thorny figures who don't fit in. But the majority of members of Congress ultimately sit on the side of the center.

　Therefore, no matter how Congress and the White House fight, when facing the states, they will generally work together to maintain the supreme authority of the central government.

　The problem was that the old Congress had been completely wiped out. All the original senators and representatives had been dismissed, and some even faced prosecution and imprisonment. The newly arrived "illegal" senators and representatives were, for the time being, puppets of the governors and state legislatures. They dared not defy the will of local governments, and were, in effect, all potential secessionists.

　Since the central government should be maintained

　The government would lean towards the local government, and Nixon himself was unpopular with both the military and the people. What else could he do except acquiesce?

　——Today's United States has essentially degenerated from a federation to a confederation.

　If he had taken a few more wrong steps, it would not be impossible that he would have ended up in the same fate as the Soviet Union's collapse in another timeline!

　At this moment, in the Oval Office of the White House, President Nixon sat behind the famous "Resolute Desk", looking at the reserved Dr. Kissinger and Acting Major General Ferry King in front of him. For a moment, he couldn't help but feel a little distracted, and he didn't know what expression to show on his face.

　Hey, should I praise you for your excellent work and for defeating the rebels with one move?

　Or should we reprimand you for being so careless and nearly bringing down the federal government?

　Isn't it just that I want you to go to New York and talk to those people on Wall Street? If the talks fail, then you can make trouble and teach those Jews a lesson.

　As expected, Dr. Kissinger's talks collapsed. But, Major General Jin, weren't your subsequent actions a bit too radical?

　How can you still call this causing trouble? How can you use an atomic bomb to cause trouble?

　Is the commander of the Space Force so "broad-minded" that he thinks burning a planet is a normal thing? So, nuking a city is even less of a big deal?

　According to your concept, will bad kids have to throw grenades in future Halloween pranks?

　Not to mention, they also flew red flags over Manhattan and created something politically incorrect to the extreme, such as the "New York Commune."

　In the political environment of the United States, this is even more against the law than the massacre in New York!

　Others complete their tasks at 200%, and thus mess things up; I'm afraid the completion rate of your task will exceed 100,000%, right?

　Is it my blessing or my bad luck to have subordinates like you who are "energetic and highly motivated"?

　The above series of messy thoughts flashed through President Nixon's mind like a revolving lantern, causing the President's expression to change unpredictably and making Dr. Kissinger and Fieri more and more uneasy.

　But in the end, President Nixon rubbed his forehead and turned all the worries in his heart into a long sigh: "Hey, tell me, what on earth did you do in New York? How did you even collude with the Reds? And where did that nuclear bomb come from?"

　"Mr. President, I only contacted some religious groups and gang members in New York and asked them to go out and cause trouble. I never contacted the Bolsheviks (this is a lie). As for the atomic bomb in the Bronx, I have no idea about it (this is the truth)..."

　Chapter 512: Whichever congressman votes for war, let his state soldiers go to fight!

　While Fieri and Dr. Kissinger were reporting to the President in the Oval Office, on the first floor of the White House, in a small lounge with fire-scorched curtains and bullet-riddled sofas, Marita was drinking coffee with her legs crossed while flipping through a booklet titled "48 Hours That Shook the World."

　The author of this pamphlet is David Halberstam, a leading contemporary journalist and New York Times war correspondent known for his coverage of the Vietnam War. Halberstam not only experienced life and death in Southeast Asia, witnessing countless historical events, but also returned to the United States to report on the civil war.

　During the New York City turmoil, this man ventured into dangerous territory, personally interviewing Che Guevara and Jim Jones, two leaders of the New York Commune, and filming countless breathtaking scenes. In the end, amidst the flames of war, rampant crime, and nuclear fallout, this journalist managed to escape unscathed with a large bag of film, avoiding the raging flames of war and successfully making it to Washington, D.C.—he was truly as tough as a cockroach.

　Since The New York Times was forced to cease publication after the nuclear explosion in New York, David Halberstam, who had extensive connections, contacted familiar publishers in Washington, D.C., and slightly modified the manuscripts he had written during this period, compiled them into a bound volume, and published and sold them as a booklet.

　Well, don’t ask how this pamphlet passed review - is there any functioning publication censorship department in the United States these days?

　President Nixon has been carrying out a purge recently. Civil servants in the capital are being laid off department by department. Even the IRS has laid off a large number of people. Unemployed civil servants have even attempted to assassinate the president several times. Who has the time to carry out news censorship?

　But this is still considered good. A lot of senior executives and senior spies from the FBI, CIA and NSA were directly laid off and sent to hell - some committed suicide, some had heart attacks, and some intelligence officers defected to the Soviet Union because they were afraid of death. There are so many of them these days.

　So, just like laid-off programmers in later generations who would angrily delete their databases and run away, these American civil servants who have lost their jobs are also burning files and account books to vent their anger. Even those civil servants who have not been fired yet are facing soaring prices and delayed salary payments, and morale is low. No one has the heart to work properly, but instead they are looking for connections or ways to find new jobs.

　In short, due to the paralysis and incompetence of the federal government, as well as David Halberstam's extensive connections and unconventional methods, while gunfire was still ringing in the streets of New York, the clearly left-wing pamphlet "48 Hours That Shook the World" had already become an instant hit in Washington, D.C.

　——The reason why it is named "48 Hours that Shocked the World"

　This is because David Halberstam wanted to pay tribute to a predecessor: John Riedel, who wrote and published "Ten Days That Shook the World" forty years ago, telling the world about the process of the Russian October Revolution.

　Furthermore, David Halberstam's booklet does indeed primarily describe the series of thrilling events that took place in and around New York City, from the night of July 31, when the New York Commune uprising began, to the 48 hours between the nuclear explosion in New York and the fall of the red flag on August 2:

　The Manhattan riots on the night of July 31st, filled with magic and mysterious forces;

　the red flag with the hammer and sickle that flew atop the Empire State Building at dawn on August 1st;

　Che Guevara's speech at the United Nations headquarters on the afternoon of August 1st, and the Federal Reserve gold distributed by communards on the streets that evening;

　Mercenaries ordered to quell the rebellion set fire and looted Manhattan at night, while Black Panther guerrillas and West Point cadets fought in the Bronx.

　Finally, on the morning of August 2nd, the mushroom cloud erupted. Over half of West Point's graduating class, along with their faculty, perished in the nuclear explosion. Admiral LeMay, the "Eagle of the Cold War," was crippled in Manhattan, and nuclear refugees wandered the streets of New York like the walking dead.

　Although it is just a booklet, "48 Hours That Shook the World" uses exquisite coated paper and publishes a large number of color and black-and-white photos. It is rich in pictures and texts, fascinating, and amazing.

　David Halberstam uses his brilliant pen to vividly describe the bizarre and chaotic events that took place in New York during these exciting 48 hours - some were brave, some were heroic, some were mean, some were brutal, and more were crazy, weird and indescribable.

　Finally, David Halberstam wrote in his pamphlet about the historical evaluation of the New York riots: "The doomed New York Commune uprising organized by Che Guevara and Jim Jones condensed a brutal war that could have lasted for years into just 48 hours, concentrated within the confines of a single city.

　On the other hand, although they accelerated the course of the Civil War and shortened the time people suffered from the war, they failed to reduce the number of casualties in the war, causing New York to shed more blood in those 48 decisive hours than the United States shed in the entire Second World War.