The Cold War

[Flyingcursor]

Since there's been all this nostalgia lately (green school buses, duck and cover), I thought I'd like to see what those old enough from around the world thought about the "cold war".
How did you feel about the countries involved? Any particular moments you recall? Feelings you had?

[Martin Milner]

I recall as a pre-teen being terrified that the world would be destroyed (or at least my bit of it) by some button-pushing maniac, before I got a chance to do any real living. It kind of lent a "why bother?" air to some of my formative years.

I'm still not too keen on nuclear power stations, and would rather have a wind farm in my back yard (figuratively speaking) than another "disaster waiting to happen" anywhere in world.

The UK party that has a good environmental policy is likely to get my vote on 050505.

[GaryKelly]

We had a right old chuckle at the Civil Defence Presentation when our intake had finished at Police Training College. This chap from the civil service turned up to explain what our duties would be in the event of nuclear war...

It was actually quite risible for those of us who in previous lives had some understanding of NBC. Not so risible for the young WPCs on the intake.

We would be issued with dosimeters, we were told, but no batteries for them, since batteries had a shelf-life. After a nuclear strike on Portsmouth (where I was based), our first duty was to get to the nearest Dixon's and 'commandeer' a set of batteries for our dosimeters. We were then to assist the injured to 'safe locations' for medical treatment. Oh, and we'd let off maroons to tell the population when radiation levels had dropped to 'all clear.'

There would of course be warnings, including 'heightened political tension.' During which time we might be assigned to 'sensitive locations' such as power-stations, communications centres, and supermarkets. We would be on the look-out for Russian Special Forces (truck-drivers, apparently there are/were lots of 'em about) who would be armed and bent on sabotage. We would of course repel these highly-trained enemy operatives with our trusty truncheons and whistles (and the Words of Power against which none can prevail: "You're f'kin nicked, me old beauty!").

It was generally agreed amongst us older recruits that in the event of a "Bikini Red" alert, we would be down the nearest garage commandeering motorcycles on which to get to the hinterlands of Wales as fast as possible, and we wouldn't be stopping for batteries on the way.

[missy]

as I said on the green school bus thread - I lived right next to the antenna farm for Voice of America (this was also right next to WLW radio, which at the time broadcast at 500,000 watts - AND my dad was an amateur radio operator).
There was a Cuban "blocking" broadcast that would bleed over into our TV, and onto our phone lines. And kids would pick up WLW on their braces, and we'd get Red's Games on the PA at school.
Also - living right in between General Electric and Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and next to VOA, we were constantly told we were "a major target".

Missy

[ChrisA]

(moved from the schoolbus thread)

I don't remember any green buses..........

But - slight hijack:
Chris wrote:
"I can't imagine realistically fearing a 'suprise' airstrike in Iowa or such"

I don't know about a school bus being hit - but growing up in Mason, OH - half way between Cincinnati (General Electric) and Dayton (Wright Patterson Air Force Base) and having the towers for Voice of America practically in our back yard - we did fear an airstrike. We were told repeatedly we were a prime target through much of the Cold War.

Missy

Well, the Cold War era is a different thing; when a nuclear missile can strike anywhere in
the world, this is a perfectly realistic fear. I meant, though, that during World War II, in
order to strike at Ohio, you're looking at either a ground war across a thousand miles, or
trying to drive an aircraft carrier up the great lakes. The first is hardly likely to happen overnight,
and the second puts the aircraft carrier at such risk that I can't imagine any single target
would warrant it. Which puts us back to only doing it if there's a ground war coming in
from the east coast that needs support... which isn't happening overnight.

The Cold War was a different thing entirely, though, I wouldn't think you'd fear an airstrike
so much as a nuclear strike. There was really -nowhere- in the nation that wasn't potentially
a nuclear target at the time. It seems there's always a nearby military base or important
industry (probably because, well, people live near places where there are jobs... I suppose
there are places in far corners of Idaho and Montana that might be safe... unless we had
our own missiles sited there...)

Every now and then, I find it kind of amazing we came out of the cold war intact. I certainly
grew up with the impression that, more likely than not, there would be a nuclear holocaust
within my lifetime. Troubled as the world is to-day, I feel confident that there will still be a
world tomorrow.

I was not yet in school - not even in pre-school - when I first had the concept of a nuclear
bomb shelter explained to me. One of the buildings on the army base had a big radiation
sign on it, IIRC, and I'd asked about what it meant. That particular sign was to indicate a
fallout shelter. (Though it seems to me now, that it doesn't make sense to use the same
symbol for -both- 'danger, radioactive' and 'safety from radioactivity, hide here!' ...)

[GaryKelly]

This is indeed a genuine road-sign

[Martin Milner]

This is indeed a genuine road-sign

You gotta love the Brits!

[jim stone]

We often had airraid drills at school, where we would
file into the halls and sit down. Students made little
cushions to sit on.

Then sometimes, in the middle of an English class or something,
the teacher would shout: 'Sneak attack!'
And we would all dive under our desks
to escape flying glass from the windows of our
school that would have been incinerated
in a millisecond.

I had an afterschool job in the Empire State Building.
On the radio, people were always saying things like--
'If a hydrogen bomb was detonated over the Empire
State Building it would devastate....' and on the
subway into Manhattan from Brooklyn I would
pray: 'Please God, not today!'

[Jerry Freeman]

I've come to the conclusion that the real threat today is from climate change.

Everything I've been able to learn indicates that it's too late to stop the melting of massive amounts of ice. An expert climatologist on the radio Friday was saying that the biggest immediate threat is not from melting polar ice, but from the Greenland glaciers, which are definitely melting, and will raise sea level 24 feet in the process.

I've looked at contour maps of my local area to see if my house will be flooded (it won't, even though we're only about ten miles from lake Ontario -- we're about 700 feet above sea level). I expect towards the end of my life or during my children's lifetimes, there will be a massive migration away from the coast, in which this sparsely populated area will change radically as a result.

I'm afraid millions or even hundreds of millions will perish in places like Bangladesh, which are already vulnerable to flooding and would have no way to absorb such a massive change. It's certainly possible that the pressures of such disasters could lead to major conflicts among the peoples of the world.

In talking to her patients, Arleen sometimes uses the example of boiling a frog. If you drop a frog into scalding water, he will jump out immediately. However, if you put a frog into luke warm water and gradually raise the temperature, he'll make no effort to save himself and will be killed. Even though we may have come close to nuclear confrontation a time or two, the situation was more or less obvious and we reacted in time. However, the process of climate change has continued to build momentum, with hardly any response on our part at all, much like the frog who doesn't respond to the gradual heating of the water he's swimming in.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Caj]

This silliness hasn't yet gone away. Wasn't it 2003 when the White House was suggesting we cordon off a danger room with duct tape and plastic sheeting, in the case of some kind of terrorist attack?

But, what kind of attack? By whom? Ask yourself: what kind of attack could possibly happen on the US, that would necessitate people all across the country setting up a room with plastic sheeting on the windows?

And our alert system is siller. There are really only 3 alert levels, and they are all some synonym for "high."

Caj

[OutOfBreath]

But, what kind of attack? By whom? Ask yourself: what kind of attack could possibly happen on the US, that would necessitate people all across the country setting up a room with plastic sheeting on the windows?

Well, the point wasn't that everyone all across the country would need to seal their living space, but that everyone across the country would be prepared to do so if an attack were to occur in their area. (For the record, I didn't bother to stock up on such supplies because I felt, and feel, that the chance of a terrorist attack in my neighborhood was vanishingly remote - there are too many readily accessible targets that are much more attractive to a terrorist.)

As for duct tape and sheeting to seal the living space - that actually does have the potential to save lives in several types of chemical/biological attacks or even in the event of a train derailment, for example. Most airborne particulate weapons are heavier than air and will settle over a period of hours depending on weather conditions. Anything that limits exposure during the first few hours can save lives and/or health. I had the additional duty of being a "disaster preparedness NCO" for several years in the Air Force and the sheeting and duct tape is, or was at that time, a "plan B" for an improvised CBN shelter. In fact, add a filtered fan (to maintain a positive pressure of clean air inside the enclosure) and a shower (to decontaminate those entering the shelter) and you basically have a military style airliftable shelter.

Was the duct tape and plastic recommendation an overreaction? In hindsight, probably. Was it useless advice? No.

[I.D.10-t]

In talking to her patients, Arleen sometimes uses the example of boiling a frog. If you drop a frog into scalding water, he will jump out immediately. However, if you put a frog into luke warm water and gradually raise the temperature, he'll make no effort to save himself and will be killed. Even though we may have come close to nuclear confrontation a time or two, the situation was more or less obvious and we reacted in time. However, the process of climate change has continued to build momentum, with hardly any response on our part at all, much like the frog who doesn't respond to the gradual heating of the water he's swimming in.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.htm

The legend is entirely incorrect! The 'critical thermal maxima' of many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a frog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so.

I went to amazon.com to read the reviews of "Red Dawn". It became apparent how old people were by their reviews. The younger people thought that it was ridiculous while some of the older reviewers seemed to say that that was the atmosphere at the time.

The cold war defined many parts of life. Sometimes it infringed on civil liberties (McCarthyism) and at other times protected them. I remember that freedom of movement was something that was often held up as a great US right and that we were not like Russia in that way.

The competition had negative and positive influences. Resources being used to make weapons was a drawback, but I doubt that we would have entered space to the extent we did without the cold war.

Now the Enemy is not defined and we do not have a convenient “Them” to point to and say we are not Them.

[Wormdiet]

I'm scrambling to get the cold war era covered in my history courses before their AP exams.

one of the real tragedies is the fact that the third world and its problems got ignored unless they gave either side an edge in the Cold war.

Case in point: afghanistan.



I grew up in the 70s and 80s. I alway think of thoses stupid reagan-era action flicks like Rambo.

[Charlene]

This silliness hasn't yet gone away. Wasn't it 2003 when the White House was suggesting we cordon off a danger room with duct tape and plastic sheeting, in the case of some kind of terrorist attack?

But, what kind of attack? By whom? Ask yourself: what kind of attack could possibly happen on the US, that would necessitate people all across the country setting up a room with plastic sheeting on the windows?

And our alert system is siller. There are really only 3 alert levels, and they are all some synonym for "high."

Caj

My blind friend really worries about this. He has a room in his basement that he has a door cover made for out of 2x4s and plastic sheeting, and has the basement windows covered with plastic. He has 5 gallon plastic water containers filled up and stores his canned food downstairs. He has a sterno stove and fuel for it (a blind man attempting to use fire - THAT is scary!! - especially since he wears a habit with long flowing sleeves) He's also had solar panels installed and has a small microwave downstairs, on the theory that if the electricity goes out he can switch to solar power and use the microwave and keep his freezer from thawing out.

He also was sure Y2K was going to be the end of the world.

I figure we're about 10 miles from an Air Force base that used to have nuclear warheads on the B-52s, and may still have some stashed away for all I know, and we're downwind, so if the base gets nuked the first thing I know about it will be when the fallout hits and I'm dying, so why worry.

Funny - even though I grew up on Air Force Bases, I don't remember the "duck and cover" type of drills - only tornado drills. I do remember going to some home show with my parents and one of the houses had a fallout shelter - I thought that would be a neat playhouse. We used to get booklets in the mail from the Civil Defense office showing how to shelter under a mattress propped up against a basement wall.

I used to have the old emergency broadcast system announcement memorized. This newer one just doesn't flow like the old words did.

[Cynth]

I lived on the West Coast and, as I mentioned in the other thread, I do remember in kindergarten (maybe 1954) having practices of getting under our desks in case of an atomic bomb---it would have made some sense if it had been for protection from an earthquake. We never saw those horrible films. But my husband, who lived on the East Coast at that time does remember seeing them.

When I was a few years older, I was often quite fearful about the atomic bomb. Luckily I didn't know the details, but my impression from the little things you overhear from grown-ups talking was that the whole world would come to an end.

I remember seeing fallout shelters downtown and hearing that some people built their own. I thought we should have one, but it turns out that they cost a lot of money----I remember hearing about one fellow in school whose family had one and they were rich.

I remember my mother having fits about Krushchev banging his shoe in the United Nations and telling me that the Russians wanted to "bury" us.

I remember asking my mom what communism was and she said it was a system where God was stamped out and that no one could love each other. I remember thinking that it seemed like it would be hard to keep people from loving each other.

My most scared time was in junior high school during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I didn't really get quite what was going on, but people were darn tense. Our principal came on the intercom and said some things. Then, later, a big pile of trash cans fell over outside and I thought that it was the bomb (obviously I hadn't heard about "the flash"!). It was a pretty rough day.

As an adult I remember seeing a "60 Minutes" program that showed these two men waiting by our atom bomb switches in a silo in the Midwest somewhere. Their whole job was to sit all day to wait for a message to send off the bombs. They each had a gun. That was in case one of them went insane and decided to shoot off a bomb on his own. Then the other man would have to shoot him before he did it. That definitely disturbed me.

Surprisingly to me, when the Soviet Union broke apart, long after all the scary stuff, and the wall came down, I felt some sort of relaxation inside. I really think I felt deep inside some sort of feeling like now I don't have to worry about the atom bomb.

When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were hit by the terrorists, I heard the news second-hand and at first I thought I was being told an atomic bomb had been dropped. Once I learned what had happened I didn't feel fearful for myself, just very shocked and sorry. I have a much younger friend who was very fearful personally and I told her maybe the difference was that I had lived through the Cold War thing but she didn't seem to think the atom bomb would be nearly as scary as the terrorists.

I am just relating what the atmosphere was like, not any factual things. And as Jerry has pointed out, there are greater threats to the world right now than the bomb actually was.