Thoughts while staring into space: Adlai Stevenson (twice-contender for the U. S. presidency in the 1950s) is credited with originating the phrase "gloom and doom."

The G&D message seemed ubiquitous in the sermons and writings of evangelical voices in those days. In Stevenson's time, the "Red threat" was peaking, and there was a bevy of "Christian" itinerants who traveled the country heightening our sensitivity to a communist conspiracy that was said to be plotting a world takeover by 1974. Evidence of this plan's actual existence was never offered. As one then edging into his teen years, I can recall sobbing myself to sleep on many nights, paralyzed with fear by the things I was hearing from the G&D communicators.

In the mid-1970s, I recall being approached by a representative of a well-respected organization who said of his leader, "B____ has just visited the Pentagon and has been told that the entire Russian nuclear submarine fleet is positioned off the East and West coasts, and the Soviets ...