Just FTR, Have you read any posts in this thread besides Der Trihs’s? Have you read Shagnasty’s? Stranger’s?
Yes, I thought the US and the USSR would nuke each other. It was just a question of when.
I can just barely remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. We may have lived in Canada, but like most Canadians, we lived very close to the US border, and blast and/or nuclear fallout, or an off-course missile, would get to us eventually. Of course, as a close ally of the US, Canada was probably targeted as well–let’s face it, Canada was a partner in North American Air Defense (NORAD), so we would have known first if the Soviets sent bombers over the North Pole. At any rate, we were sure we were on the target list. My mother was quite worried, and was ready to take me to shelter in about two minutes should it become necessary. In fact, I don’t think my mother was ever as worried about how world events would affect us as she was at that time.
By the early 1980s, things were heating up again. News reports told of Soviet SS-20 missiles deployed throughout eastern Europe, which were countered by various other missiles in western Europe. Graphic illustrations in newspapers showed how one MIRV could destroy a city. In other news, the US airbase at Greenham Common in the UK was beseiged by a group of anti-nuclear women protesters; the US tested cruise missiles in northern Alberta, Canada (which sent Canadian anti-nuclear protesters into a tizzy); the “No Nukes” concert and subsequent film were major cultural events; and the film War Games showed how easy it could be for a reliance on technology to allow things to get out of control.
It was easy to believe nuclear annihilation was just around the corner. Every day, in a number of ways, you were reminded of it.
I think your youth is why you had no fear. By the time you were 10 things were already thawing and the economy was good and our ally the UK was growing strong again under the Iron Lady.
For me the country was in a shambles when I was 10 and the Cold War was in earnest and I knew too many people that lost older siblings in Vietnam or that came back with their heads screwed up. My sisters are 10+ years older than me. They lost friends in Vietnam and one that returned was never the same. He had a daughter only a little older than you. I really think you were lucky enough to miss the Cold War fear by a generation.
I was convinced the Soviets would nuke us all anytime. Hell, it was drilled into us at school. The school principal would hold assemblies to tell us that the USSR would attack us at anytime! :eek: I was seven at the time of the Cuban Missle Crisis. My younger brother and I shared a room and we hid under our beds all night convinced we were gonna be fried by morning. Seriously, they scared hell out of us at school.
Yep. The entire USSR was poised to bomb and then invade downtown LaGrange, Georgia. Woolworth’s, J.C. Penny and the Rexall Drug Store were the envy of an entire nation according to what I was told. 
Remember, kiddies, Duck And Cover! You never know when an evil monkey with a stick of dynamite will strike!
Excellent recaps of the history of the 60’s and 70’s and why it sucked so bad.
Born in 1964. We used to have duck & cover drills at my elementary school near St. Louis. For tornadoes, we opened the windows to equalize pressure & prevent flying glass. For duck & cover, we left the windows closed and hid under our desks. In the 5th or 6th grade they showed us films about the Enola Gay bombing mission, the aftermath of bombing Nagasaki & Hiroshima including the destruction of both cities and the horrific injuries to the people there.
From that time until the Soviet Union dissolved I thought a nuclear exchange would happen by accident (one side falsely believing the other side had already launched their missiles and responding with a full-blown retaliatory strike) or in a General Ripper scenario. I thought a General Ripper scenario would be a limited exchange while a false positive would lead to a more total nuclear war. I was certain that neither the UK nor France would launch the first nuke, pretty sure that neither the USA nor USSR would, hoped that the Chinese wouldn’t and was worried about Israel.
in 1976 my family moved to Utah, home of the Tooele Arms Depot, where chemical weapons were stored and later incinerated, Dugway Proving Grounds where they were tested and where the pilots from nearby Hill AFB trained. Hill also housed the 526th ICBM Systems Wing, which develops, acquires, and supports silo-based ICBMs. Add to that southern Utah is downwind from the Nevada test site and there is a generation of people about my age with higher than average levels of birth defects from above ground tests.
I was also in the army in 1982, 3 & 4, When the films The Road Warrior, The Day After, War Games, and Red Dawn were released. I watched Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech from the barracks and guessed that we were nowhere near the technology necessary to build such a platform. Also when Stanislav Petrov saved the world by not launching a retaliatory attack when Soviet missile warning system threw a false alarm. Of course, we in the west never knew about that until 1998; but being at Ft. Hood, the largest armor base in the USA, I would have probably been nuked in the first or second wave of missiles.
To this day, Mutually Assured Destruction remains the main nuclear deterrent. Now that Iran is developing nuclear capabilities (and who can blame them?) I have a nagging feeling in my gut that it’s only a matter of time until one of the nicer parts of the middle east becomes a radioactive sandbox.
Born in 1955, Dad in the RAF and had been in some of Britain’s first atom bomb tests in Australia before I was born so I grew up very aware of the Cold War and the possivility of a nuclear exchange. As a teenager in the late sixties I read up more when I took up war gaming, I also read a fair number of post-apocalypse novels so, yes, I definitely thought it was possible, but, no, I didn’t spend my time worrying about it.
Firstly, I never thought it was that likely. I had a fair amount of faith in MAD as a doctrine. Secondly, I just wasn’t inclined to worry about things that so far outside my control. I was more worried about being an outsider at school and my parents divorce 
I was born in 1975, and was convinced that nuclear war was imminent, but would likely be the result of a miscommunication or other stupid fuck up (I did not believe that either party would intentionally begin a nuclear war).
I also thought it started once. I was at home alone and there was this great “roaring” windy sound then went on and on for like 5-10 minutes – extremely loud. I remember calmly thinking, “ok then, that’s the shockwave, this is the end.” The noise stopped and I never figured out what it was. (I grew up in NYC - a primary nuclear target.)
Your provincialism is showing. Reagan surrounded himself with people like Jerry Falwell and James Watt who considered the end of the world both inevitable and desirable ( as does Bush and other Republicans ). He made comments that he thought Russia and China fit the Biblical passages involving Gog and Magog. Just because America tends to write off the common Christian lust for the death of the world as a minor personality quirk, doesn’t mean the Soviet leadership was required to agree.
Why ? If they think that they are going to all be killed anyway by a fanatic, what’s so surprising that they’d consider trying to take us with them ?
Hardly. They really did think there was a good chance that he’d launch a first strike on them. With fairly good reason.
It’s amusing to watch people dismiss the idea that Reagan might have looked threatening to the Soviets, after watching so many people claim that Iran’s leadership would be willing to commit national suicide for religious reasons. What makes people think that the Soviets regarded Reagan as being any saner ?
Just want to thank those of you that have contributed to this thread. It’s chilling for those of us that weren’t around at the time and got to grow up in a post-cold war America.