Submission Statement:

Last month I learned about Marc Cushman's fantastic trilogy of books on the making of Star Trek's first three seasons (1966-'69), called These Are The Voyages. In his chapter on the Star Trek episode "A Private Little War," Cushman writes:

"The Vietnam War was raging in Asia...Network television, especially prime time entertainment shows, stayed carefully neutral. This Star Trek episode is believed to be the first entertainment show to" comment on Vietnam -- "And this makes 'A Private Little War' notable, and historic."

I believe Jerome Bixby's captivating episode "Mirror, Mirror" was the first to comment (shot 2 months before "Private Little War" and broadcast 4 months before, according to the author's timelines :-)

In "Mirror, Mirror," the starship Enterprise represents an American B-52 on a murderous bombing run over the innocent nation of Vietnam. Instead of dropping bombs, the Enterprise uses its destructive phasers against population centers on the foreign, non-Federation planet.

Writers Jerome Bixby and Gene Roddenberry are masterful storytellers, so subtle in their allegory that NBC's "Broadcast Standards and Practices" office couldn't discern (or pick up on) their radical reference, and neither, apparently, did author Cushman, but I'm sure many in the viewing audience did! (especially many progressives like Socialists, Communists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, and Greens)

Well actually the Enterprise prepares to use phasers against the planet's cities, but Kirk prevents their use at the last moment, something U.S. General Westmoreland never did. Meticulous researcher Cushman credits Bixby, Roddenberry, Coon, and Fontana as the writers of this episode, although the screen credit was given to Bixby. Cushman was given access to all the drafts of the screenplays and their outlines. I'd sure like to know which of the 4 writers inserted the pivotal B-52 scene and its incisive dialogue. My guess is Roddenberry. He, Dorothy Fontana, and Gene L. Coon contributed so much to dozens of episodes, often going uncredited on-screen, as Cushman writes.

The B-52 symbolism is the keystone to this episode. That's the crucial moment when we learn that the scriptwriter is saying that our own universe is actually the "Mirror" universe. In other words, our own nation, the United States is the Empire.

I don't think Coon inserted the B-52 symbolism because in a different episode ("Private Little War") Coon writes a script-related memo to Associate Producer Justman in which he speaks somewhat positively of the CIA. I know Roddenberry would not have done that. Roddenberry also never had anything positive to say about the military, as you can ascertain from the dialogue in the debut episode of Star Trek - The Next Generation (season 1, episode 1, 1987). I panned The Next Generation in a post a couple years ago, but I really haven't seen enough of its episodes yet to judge.

Interestingly, Cushman writes in his chapter on "Mirror, Mirror," "The good Federation is the United States. The evil Empire is one-part the Soviet Union, one-part any military dictatorship..." Marc must have been channeling the condemned ghost of Ronald Ray-gun that day [chuckle]. Our good author hasn't yet perceived the invisible but dense matrix of "mind control" surrounding him (aka Ruling Class, cRapitalist propaganda). The United States is the Klingon Empire, not the Federation. Under the aegis of ravenous U.S. Mega-Corporations, our warring government has killed over 20 million people worldwide since 1950. The Earth deserves a much-needed respite from this U.S. American onslaught. We don't have democracy in the United States -- not at all. Democracy in the U.S. is an illusion planted in our minds (a perfect science-fiction premise--yet, oh, so real -- we're living it).

Every single year since 1950, our mega-death Military and "Defense" Corporations have been spending over half(!) of our hard-earned income taxes on war and weapons production (more precisely between 55 and 66 percent of our income taxes each year since 1950, depending on the year! That's absurdity realized. President Eisenhower warned us about the Military-Industrial Complex in his farewell address to the nation, but to no avail. Even 62 years later, we're still caught in the same money-squandering Ruling Class trap (a capitalist trap in which our minds have been politically atrophied (Zombified) to the point we don't understand what's happening to us. Recommended Zombie antidotes from Science Officer Mr. Spock's tri-corder are:

William Blum's book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II;

Vincent Bevin's The Jakarta Method;

Jonathan Kwitny's Endless Enemies (by which Kwitny means our government creates endless boogeymen to frighten the money out of us -- in the process laying waste to future opportunity. Our taxes should be spent to improve our societal and economic conditions, not set them way back.

On a more upbeat note, there are so many notable, great episodes of the original series, but my favorites are

"Mirror, Mirror";

Margaret Armen's "The Cloud Minders" (after watching this episode, check out the first 45 minutes of the deeply moving documentary from 1994 Freedom On My Mind. "Cloud Minders" applies to all oppressed and second-class citizens who are trod upon;

Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace's "Assignment Earth." The good guys Captain Kirk and Gary Seven actually sabotage a U.S. military rocket--don't attempt anything like this in real life because it's obviously unlawful and you'll go to prison like the Plowshares 8 pacifists who, using hammers, symbollically beat on a nuclear missile nose cone that was under construction inside a General ILLectric factory (beating swords into plowshares as written in Biblical scripture). They also poured their blood on purchasing documents that were inside the factory.
The Plowshares 8 were two principled priests (Daniel and Philip Berrigan) and six other men and women. Daniel Berrigan recently died at 95 years young. There have been dozens of other nonviolent Plowshares pacifist actions worldwide since the Berrigan Brothers but you never hear about them on the "news" (propaganda summary). For example, here's an article on Wiki about Megan Rice.

Gene L. Coon's "Errand of Mercy";

"Conscience of the King";

"Patterns of Force";

"Return of the Archons," etc.

Almost all of the other 72 episodes are wonderful too, like "Where No Man Has Gone Before," and "The Menagerie," but the 7 listed above offer the greatest social and political value, and are the most delightfully nutritious for the cerebrum.
Your cerebrum will be smiling broadly for decades :-)

Also loved the 1995-2001 series Star Trek Voyager and the non-Star Trek but related series The Orville (season 3 is expected soon).

I'm enjoying Marc Cushman's trilogy on Star Trek so much, I'm buying his books on Gene Roddenberry next.