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I remember many drills. The air raid siren would sound off and if you were in school, you followed the school protocol. Going under the desks, marching in quick time to the underground shelter, all the cautions about not eating snow (yes, they were serious - said it was because of nuclear fallout coming onto the snow and we would not see it).
The Civil Air Defense handed out free blueprints for homeowners wanting to build an underground shelter. My Dad never built one. His reasoning was that if there were to be a nuclear blast, there would be nothing safe left on Earth anyways. Besides, even if you survived tucked away in your shelter, how would you propose to go about your life after? If you could even find a safe place, how would you get there? Your gas station would be gone, you would not have any funds, etc.
Saw many films about how Communists infiltrate the population. It was a clear message not to trust anyone. My best friend's parents could have been Communists, my own family could have been for that matter. No one would have guessed but everyone was suspected.
People would drive by our house and throw rocks - my family's heritage is German from Russia - they would yell out, "go back where you came from!" How stupid was that? My Great-Grandparents immigrated because of persecution and the desire for freedom. Why go back to a country that killed members of my family?
Conditions are much more dangerous now than during the "cold war". The majority of citizens didnt obsess about the threat of nuclear destruction. Major countries knew that they would suffer tremendously from retaliatory attacks (especially from nuclear subs). We now have countries that thrive on suicide and more and more of them are gaining access to nukes plus the dirty bomb threat. I lived thru the cold war but didnt feel that the threat was nearly as serious as today. The most serious episode was the Cuban missile crisis but the threat was so ominous that the leaders were very determined to negotiate a settlement. No 110 story skyscrapers fell in the US during "cold war"! Only advice I can give to young people is support the military and control the borders.
I was a "duck and cover" kid in school and the Cuban missile crisis happened when I was a senior in high school. The next year I was fighting the Cold War as an Air Force Policeman involved in the security of nuclear weapons-Minuteman missiles in North Dakota. I received alot of training on Cold War doctrine, I have studied alot of that stuff after my militay service, and could spend alot of time answering your question but I will try to keep it brief.
Fist of all, the person who thinks that world conditions today are more dangerous than during the Cold War does not understand the horrible threat to humanity that existed during that time. There were thousand of nuclear weapons ready to launch during that period-do a search for Carl Sagan and nuclear winter and you will find out what would have happened had those weapons been used. There was the real possibility that every human on earth could have died. That possibility dioes not exist today.
Secondly, many people do not know much of what happened during the Cold War. Many, many secrets were kept from the American people at that time.I hope to write a book or article about it some day. For example, on the day President Kennedy was shot, all the nuclear bombers (B-52's) on alert launched and were headed for Russia. Believe me, this is not known to most people, but we were very near to nuclear war on that day. The Russians had trawlers all over the North Atlantic monitoring our flights and they knew we were coming.
Another danger, the extent of which may never be known, was the result of over 2000 above-ground nuclear tests that continued into the 1960's, putting vasts amounts of nuclear dust in the air. The early Atomic Energy Commission made many errors in the early years that costs the lives of many uranium miners and others who suffered from the misplacement and mishandling of nuclear waste and other radioactive materials.
The space race was actually a part of the Cold War as well. Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, scared the hell out of Americans in 1957-you could actually see it in the sky and at the time, we couldn't put one up there and the thought was that if the Russians can do it, they can hit us with a nuclear missile.
But the Soviet economy was not strong enough to compete with us in the arms and space races, and they folded up. Disarmament treaties showed that both sides were afraid of nuclear war. We are better off now than then, but the instability in the world today and the advances that make nuclear technology come in smaller packages, concealed on a boat or in a van, still pose a real threat. But not a threat to every person on earth. We have to be strong and vigilante. We have to have a world-wide intelligence network to pick up on every possible threat to our way of life that might arise.
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