Maybe President Donald Trump remembers watching the Portland-set civil-defense film "A Day Called X" when he was a child and so figured the Rose City would be able to handle the risk.

This week has seen the release of various excerpts from journalist Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, "Fear: Trump in the White House." The one that's received the most attention involves Trump allegedly ordering the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But there's another scene from the book that should be of particular interest to Portlanders. It zeroes in on National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster explaining to the president that the U.S.' Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) is located in South Korea because, in the event of war breaking out on the Korean peninsula, thousands of American troops stationed there would be immediately vulnerable to a North Korean nuclear attack.

Trump's response: Has South Korea paid for the missile-defense system? The president will go on to say that THAAD should be placed in Portland instead.

"It's actually a very good deal for us," McMaster says of the U.S.' agreement with South Korea, according to Newsweek magazine, which obtained a copy of Woodward's book. "They gave us the land in a 99-year lease for free. But we pay for the [defense] system, the installation and the operations."

Woodward writes:

Trump went wild. "I want to see where it is going," he said. Finally, some maps came in that showed the location. Some of the land included a former golf course.

Trump, the New York real-estate mogul, wasn't impressed with the real estate.

"This is a piece of s--t land," Trump is quoted as saying in the book. "This is a terrible deal. Who negotiated this deal? What genius? Take it out. I don't want the land."

Woodward writes that the president said the multi-billion-dollar missile-defense system should be deployed in the United States.

"F--k it, pull it back and put it in Portland!" he told McMaster.

In Portland?

Well, the Rose City might have been ready for such a spotlight role in the nuclear-arms game back in the 1950s, when it was the gold standard for civil defense, with a specially equipped underground facility at Kelly Butte to keep the region operational in case of a nuclear strike and a well-trained populace ready to duck, cover or race out of town.

On Sept. 27, 1955, local officials launched Operation Green Light, an ambitious civil-defense drill that emptied central Portland's streets. Some 100,000 people exited the "test area" in less than an hour.

This brought about "A Day Called X," a 1957 CBS public-service film featuring Portland Mayor Terry Schrunk and narrated by actor Glenn Ford. The 27-minute program caused a stir across the country.

But perhaps Trump never saw "A Day Called X" and simply picked Portland out of the air to make a point. At any rate, despite the president's alleged insistence that THAAD be moved to the Rose City, the defense system has remained in South Korea.

McMaster, however, did not remain in the White House. Earlier this year, Trump replaced him with John Bolton.

-- Douglas Perry