July 02, 2005

Fun with initials

If you recognize more than a few of these initials, you're of a certain age, I suspect. NAACP, CORE, SNCC, SDS, VVAW, SCLC, VISTA, FSM, NUL, ICBM, MIRV, SEATO, NATO, SALT, SAO, EEC, SMERSH, SPECTRE, UNCLE, THRUSH, and KAOS.

What are they? Answers below the fold.

NAACP=Nat'l Ass'n for the Advancement of Colored People; CORE=Congress Of Racial Equality; SNCC=Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee; SDS=Students for a Democratic Society; VVAW=Vietnam Veterans Against the War; SCLC=Southern Christian Leadership Conference; VISTA=Volunteers In Service To America; FSM=Free Speech Movement; NUL=National Urban League; ICBM=Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile; MIRV=multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles; SEATO= Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; NATO=North Atlantic Treaty Organization; SALT=Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; SAO=Secret Army Organization; EEC=European Economic Community (Common Market); SMERSH=Smyert Spionam (Bond); SPECTRE=Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (Bond); U.N.C.L.E.=United Network Command for Law and Enforcement; THRUSH=The Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity; KAOS=nothing.

Posted by Linkmeister at July 2, 2005 02:40 PM
Comments

[written before checking the answers]

Depends what you mean by "recognize". I think I know where SMERSH, SPECTRE, UNCLE, THRUSH, and KAOS come from (though I might not have them correctly assigned to the right show), but couldn't tell you what all the initals stand for.

The only one I don't recognize is SAO. Then again, I'm of that certain age.

Posted by: N in Seattle at July 2, 2005 03:47 PM

SAO would only be familiar if you knew what the French were doing in Algeria, I guess. I remember it from a Helen MacInnes novel (The Venetian Affair).

Posted by: Linkmeister at July 2, 2005 03:53 PM

Nope, doesn't ring any bells. I know next to nothing about Algeria, aside from having read Camus's The Plague.

Posted by: N in Seattle at July 2, 2005 06:07 PM

"Shtarker, this is KAOS! Ve don't pfffft here!"

Posted by: Lance Mannion at July 3, 2005 01:59 PM

Whoa, I not only recognize them, but I know the acro expansions for all but a few. What age does that make me? Cold War something, eh?

Posted by: NTodd at July 3, 2005 02:49 PM

I tried to make 'em all from the Sixties, NTodd, so...

Posted by: Linkmeister at July 3, 2005 03:10 PM