For me it was a documentary on Nostradamus narrated by Orson Welles that came out when I was about 12 or so. If the original was in French and it’s cryptic and Orson Welles took time to read it, then it HAD to be true. And after all, the man had correctly predicted Hitler (except he got some letters of the name wrong and where and what exactly he’d do and he didn’t give dates or anything else that’s exactly pinpointable, but that’s not because he couldn’t have: he just didn’t want to spoil the surprise).
I was 12 in 1984 when Ronald Reagan accidentally said into a mic he thought was turned off:
This made me very angry, because I took the threat of nuclear war very seriously and couldn’t believe the President thought it was a funny joke to make. I watched The Day After and found the whole thing incredibly scary. It made me realize that I, too, could die in a terrble way and no one I cared about would be able to do anything about it, or be left alive to care.
It’s a sad commentary that so many of us who lived in urban areas (I grew up in NYC) were actually reassured by the idea that we would just be vaporized and were pleased by the thought that we wouldn’t have to die of radiation sickness instead. That’s screwed up.
I disagree. If you know you’re going to die one way or another, the painless, instantaneous way beats the hell out of dyas of intense suffering. I’d still much rather be fused with house I’m in over a nanosecond or so than spend days or weeks watching my hair and other bits fall of while blood leaks out of my various orifices.
I never gave any thought to it at all. I was born in 1981, though, which seems to be in kind of a gray area between genX and whatever we call the generation after that(genY?).
You disagree with what? The idea that it’s sad that kids find the idea of being turned into a black spot of radioactive ash to be a good outcome to their lives because “they know they’re going to die” and the alternative is worse? I think you misunderstood me when you said you disagreed. Kids shouldn’t be excited by the idea of their entire city being vaporized because that’s their best possible outcome. Kids should not be worried about the idea of megadeath and mutually assured destruction for their entire civilization. I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with that.
Born in '71.
I was worried about nuclear war, and felt it was a very real possibility, but I was also incredibly fascinated by it. I read everything I could about all things nuclear (physics, power plants, weaponry, foreign policy strategy, post-apocalypse predictions etc.), and did most of my school research projects on the subject. This made me a joy to my uncle (a nuclear engineer with three non-science-minded kids) and a mystery to my parents (both very education-minded, but leaning more to lit, music and history).
Dr. Strangelove is the only movie on my imdb list that I’ve given a 10 rating. I’ve seen it at least 30 times.
I did misunderstand you. I blame the heat and the number of tabs I have open.
Not at all. I found it interesting, read a couple of books about it (fiction and non-fiction), but I can’t say I was scared.
You mean like JFK’s non-existent missile gap? That damnable righty! 
Born in '66.
I, too, was also resigned to its inevitablity. It didn’t help that my city still held regular air raid drills up until the early eighties. To this day, that droning siren sound still gives me instant chills and goosebumps.
Born in '62. I also knew it was going to happen, and it was just a matter of time. The Russians were really and truly bent on our destruction, and AFAICT we were bent on their destruction as well. Pure luck that they stopped being able to pay for their arms race before we stopped being able to pay for ours.
It’s interesting that there are such varied responses to this and I wonder what accounts for it? Watching too much news/The Day After/ generally high strung and overly-aware, versus not? Crazy religious parents, versus not? How did everyone feel about “Red Dawn”?
With the Soviets, yeah, I think I was in 3d grade or something when a couple of new premiers snuffed it really quickly-- Konstantin Chernenko and someone else, and it felt really dicey, not knowing who the new guy would be. Yes, Glastnost was a huge relief.
I just remember having in the back of my head a sort of sense like I was in training for nuclear winter-- all that survivalist camp stuff – learning to build campfires and to fish–with some sense of post-apocalyptic purpose. Perhaps it’s much more specific than “Gen X”, and more like “people who were between the ages of 8 and 14 when the Day After showed” or something? Like, is it a born 1968-75 sort of phenomenon? I just remember, yes, parents attempting to comfort you because, after all, you’d be instantly vaporized in the best-case scenario.
Christ, what was the English animated film about the older people getting ready for the bomb and leaning their matresses against the hall wall and all of that? DE- PRESSING! And I remember that fucking Nostradamus HBO thing-- yes, stupid, but what a nasty load of shite to dump on little kids who don’t know any better!
Had a friend in 3d grade who dressed up as an MX missle for Halloween (1980 or 81). Was cool.
Born in 1972. To an Air Force sergeant.
I grew up on or near military installations - Webb AFB, TX; RAF Lakenheath, UK; Eglin AFB, FL; RAF Upper Heyford, UK; and Bergstrom AFB, TX. Obviously this colors my perceptions quite a bit. We had nuclear war drills all the time - especially in England, where they had war games (“alerts”) every few weeks. There was alarms green yellow, orange, red, and black. Red, I think, is when you would see every GI with their gas masks on. Black meant an attack was in progress and everyone was either inside or dead.
(Funny story - I worked as a middle schooler as a summer employee at the Consolidated Base Personnel Office - CBPO. I think I was hiding out in a loo one morning to avoid getting more work, when I realized that the lights were out in my office. I was in there typing on a IBM Selectric when a GI in a gas mask taps on the window. “IT’S ALARM BLACK. GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE.” I can’t remember where I was sent…)
We also knew that we were a few minutes from destruction from the Soviet Union - I think it was supposed to take 5-6 minutes for missiles to reach England. There was also the “Protect and Survive” PIFs that were on TV in the UK that scared the hell out of us. One even told what to do when dead people were in your house after the nuclear attack. (I think it’s parodied in one of the Young Ones episodes.) I did see The Day After but the BBC had a programme called Threads which scared me even more, because it seemed so real. I remember one of the scenes was of a bomb going off and a mushroom cloud rising over an English city (Leicester?) while a lady with her shopping bag watched. She dropped the bag and you could see a trickle of pee running down her leg. Scary stuff!
Both Lakenheath had front-line F-111 fighter-bombers so we knew the Russians were coming after us pretty quick. RAF Greenham Common had B-52s so they were going to catch hell. Not to mention the satellite stations at smaller bases like RAF Feltwell and Croughton. So we grew up with a real fear of it happening.
The Air Force had a propaganda program called “Project Warrior” and they had all of these books about the Cold War in the base library, so that was another source of fear/information. I was definitely most scared during the Reagan-Brezhnev years, and MAD was a meme in popular culture - music, TV, books. But I remember my childhood being pretty happy, so I guess we didn’t think about it too much. But when you did, you were scared shitless. When Gorbachev became premier, it was like, “We’re going to live!” But then they rolled out AIDS and scared the shit out of us with that, too.
The biggest fear, I think, was not that the US and the USSR would go to war over some issue. It was the idea that some accident would take place, and MAD meant they would bomb before they knew what happened, and we’d all be dead or burning in twenty minutes. I was in seventh or eighth grade when Chernobyl happened. We couldn’t eat fresh food or dairy for a few days. That was a particularly scary time as well.
Reagan just seemed like such a cowboy, that if anything ever sounded like it might be attack, he’d hit the button and destroy the world. Like Rubystreak said, when Reagan made that joke I was like, “Can he be arrested or fired from being President?” Can you imagine how scared we would be if GWB was president back then?
Born in '73. I wasn’t scared so much as I was concerned. I mean, I knew that both the US and USSR had nuclear capabilities, but I figured that the people who were in control knew the consequences of using them. The way I looked at it, they would both bluff each other and see if the other would blink.
If it did happen, I figured I wouldn’t be around long after it happened, so why worry?
Interesting perspectives. I don’t think we were ever afraid of the Russians. Maybe from our Canadian perspective, we just figured we were too small to be noticed by anyone. We were fairly well-informed in my household, too - watched the news every day.
You know what really scares me now? Seeing the U.S. turn fundie in front of my eyes and regressing back into the stone age. The stuff you guys post here as business as usual in your country scares me spitless.
Born in '72. I remember reactions to Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech (and his “we begin bombing in 10 minutes” insanity). Between Reagan and his detachment from reality, and the Soviet Union and their succession of semi-undead leaders in the early-to-mid Eighties, it was pretty much assumed that a nuclear exchange would occur. This was accentuated by a variety of events. Shortly after the initial broadcast of “The Day After”, medical students at University of Kansas Medical School were agitating for distribution of cyanide pills in the case of nuclear attack.
I remember waking up one afternoon, after staying home from school with the flu, to an EBS broadcast, coincident with the sort of massive Midwestern thunderstorm only that area can experience, under the assumption that a nuclear attack had already occured. It was just a fact of life at that point.
It could still happen, though not (likely) to the extent possible in the dark years of the Cold War.
The U.S. return to Cold War-ish dogmatism concerns me likelly as much as featherlou. “Homeland Security” sounds like nothing but Orwellian fascism to me, an excuse to restrict Constitutional freedoms in the name of alleged–but not actual–security.
Stranger
When the Wind Blows (1986). A very touching film.
I was born in 1966 and saw that the Soviets were bullies. Once Maggie Thatcher retook the Falklands (showing the Soviets that we would stand up for ourselves) and the Soviets got themselves mired in Afghanistan and lost the image of invincibility of the Red Army, it was all over bar the shouting.
I may be a tad too old to be considered a GenXer (born in 1961.)
But no, I never thought of it as a real threat.
Born in '75 and while I was somewhat obsessed with all things Soviet, the military, global relations and the cold war in general, I was never really FEARFUL of nuclear war. I was well aware of the risks but I always had the feeling that self-preservation on both sides would keep anything from actually happening, barring some bizarre accident. I guess you could say I was a believer in MAD.