When we think about the Boomer's youth we think of Hula Hoops and Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol, maybe black and white television and Studebakers that looked the same coming and going. We think about the hot days of the Cold War but we don't really think about the impacts on 10 and 11-year-old kids. I know it scared the living bejesus outta me.
We were literally bombarded with images of impending doom on the nightly news. We were told nuclear war was inevitable but we still had to do our homework. Our parents had been scared to death by real-world events unfolding around them thru out their lives. They had to do their homework. They were born into a time where homelessness and starvation was a real and present threat. Most forms of serious illness were a death sentence. Even the President had had polio. Smallpox outbreaks were relatively common into the 1940's. Kids died of whooping cough, chicken pox, measles all the time. If that wasn't enough; Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito were real guys killin folks left and right. Eventually, our parents got drafted to go fight them guys and nearly a half million got killed for their trouble. It's no wonder they built a country so strong it dare not be opposed and also no wonder they built a society where privation was basically outlawed. Vaccinations, for smallpox and polio were the LAW of the land. It would be hard to describe the relief a young parent must have felt when Doctors Salk and Sabin rode to the rescue. I could swim in a lake or a stream but never in a public pool. We all knew kids who had had polio. Some died, some were in iron lungs, many wore braces on withered limbs. Loud, boisterous, strong, rough and ready they certainly were but even our parents were obviously apprehensive and we, their children noticed.
Another thing no one mentions about the revolution in public health in those days. The abject fear of venereal disease surely did encourage public morality. You don't hear about it much anymore but people we called spastics actually were victims of spinal ataxia. That came from mothers with untreated syphilis. It was just one of a myriad of ailments associated with promiscuity. Men are pigs but most of the women got the message. Adultery led to the bedroom farce but the lurking threat of venereal disease subconsciously refined it, kinda gave us Tennessee Williams. I have digressed. They were tough but the Cold War sacred them. We noticed. Everybody got that?
So, we did these air raid drills in grade school. Duck and cover or my favorite: We would file out into the hall and kneel against the wall and freely imagine all that concrete block raining down on our very young heads. The really bad part about that was we knew even if we managed to crawl out of the rubble with our frail bodies semi-intact we would die from radiation poisoning. How did we know that? They told us so pretty much every day on the TV. And not just any "they". Walter Cronkite for Chrissake! It's not like it was Fox News.
We did that for five or six years and then it was autumn of 1962. The greatest of all fears was played out for the better part of two weeks for all to see. The tension was palatable. As real as it gets. It came to a head that would be resolved one way or another, we all knew, the following day. We did our homework, ate our vegetables and slept fitfully at best, contemplating our predicted doom. That sounds like an exaggeration but that is literally true. That happened. I was there.
In all honesty, the rest of the Cold War was anti-climax. Reason and humanity won. The rest was like filling in a by-the-numbers painting.
Here's a question that has never been adequately asked: What if Nixon had won the razor thin, 1960 election? Seeing his later disastrous performance as President what could have been the outcome? What would his pronounced paranoia have wrought? He was a man remarkably lacking in the finesse of Kennedy.
What would that war have looked like? Between the superpowers, there were less than 300 nuclear weapons that may or may not have functioned properly. The carnage may have been terrible but it would not have been anywhere near the end of the world. It would have been the end of the Soviet Union but it would have been only a severe challenge to us. Argue that conclusion from any angle you chose. It's inescapable.
What about now? Does anyone really believe we have the command and control in place to survive a crisis like the Cuban Crisis of 1962, in 2017? Do we really believe the military has enough respect for current civilian authority to avoid immensely fatal mistakes? Do we believe the Pentagon has calmer heads in place to avoid fatal mistakes?
These certainly seem like legitimate questions. I don't know those questions are much different from the questions our kids have now, in active shooter drills. Are those drills any more or any less traumatic? Probably not and it's a damn shame we can't seem to do better.
Sleep well.
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