The hive mind noted well the ominous power of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also realised that individual nuclear detonations were insufficient for its needs. What was required was the multiple, simultaneous, firing of so many nuclear weapons that a nuclear winter - and with it the possible elimination of all human life - would be engineered. The pigeons waited quietly for nearly twenty years as the United States and the Soviet Union accumulated their massive nuclear arsenals.
Then came the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The hive mind had done its work on Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviet Premier began erected missile silos in communist Cuba. An American U2 spotted them. The crisis began. Gleefully, the hive mind awaited the Third World War, expected to be quick and devastating. But just as the USSR's ships were heading unwaveringly towards the American blockade, the pigeon mind realised its mistake. A global nuclear war would kill pigeons and humans together! The Soviets had to be stopped. The hive mind, close to panic, managed to convince Khrushchev to turn his ships around at the last minute.
Again, the pigeons had failed. But their determination and patience would not abate.
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