And the World Held it's Breath: 50 years ago

[74-911]

I suspect the majority of you Pelicans weren't even around 50 years ago this week but for those of us who were and were old enough to know what was going on it was truly scarey as hell: the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I was sixteen at the time, living about 10 miles from the main runway of Dyess AFB near Abilene, TX, one of the largest SAC bases in the USAF with a lot of B-47 nuclear bombers sitting on the aprons. Within a 20 mile radius of Dyess were 12 ATLAS ICBM missile silos and also several Nike-Hercules SAM sites scattered around.

When the alarm sounded, Dyess was locked down and most of the B-47s launched and stayed airborne for days using aerial refueling. Everyone knew they were fully loaded with nuclear weapons.

And yes, we did the hide under your desk drills at school. We also knew that we were sitting at ground zero for any number of Russian ICBMs which would be targetted for Dyess and the Atlas ICBMs and the drills were a big joke. If anyone pushed the button, about 15 minutes later we would all be dead.

There are certain happenings in ones life they never forget: i.e., the announcement at School that JFK had been shot, watching the Apollo moon shots, particularly the first moon landing and Apollo 13, watching the towers fall on 9/11 and the fear seemingly everyone had the during that time 50 years ago that it all might end any moment.

[flatbutt]

Man do I ever remember air raid drills!

[johnsjmc]

I was 11 and my mother had a stash of canned food in the basement next to the water heater. I suppose we were to drink from the hot water tank after it cooled and survive the nuclear war for about 2 weeks then what?? I lived about 15 mi west of Toronto but 80% of Canadians live less than an hour drive from the US border. Buffalo NY would probably be a target even if Toronto wasn,t.
We also had under the desk drills.
In some ways the world is a safer place today and other ways it isn,t. Now we worry about being shot by some crazy person in a theatre or a school or a shopping mall. Then we were afraid of a nuclear war which could start anytime.

[masraum]

I'm 42, I've read about it, but I can't even really imagine what it must have been like to live it.

[GWN7]

I remember hiding under my desk. My uncle built a bomb shelter in his back yard. We never locked our doors back then.

[Rick Lee]

My folks were still in high school. But it was certainly covered in my textbooks. One thing I never understood was why Soviet missiles in Cuba were worth this crisis when both sides already had sub-launched ballistic missiles. SLBMs could hit much of the US with as little or less warning as ICBMs in Cuba. And why was it ok for us to have missiles on the Soviets' borders, but they couldn't have them in Cuba? Seems to me the whole thing was a dick-wagging contest and we got lucky.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Seems to me the whole thing was a dick-wagging contest and we got lucky.

Definitely that and seems it still is. Just the players have changed.
I'm thinking more and more that "disarmament" was a ruse in that mainly obsolete weaponry was taken off line only to be replaced with more sophisticated hardware.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Seems to me the whole thing was a dick-wagging contest and we got lucky.

We did indeed...

One reason the Soviets started the build-up in Cuba was to deter another Bay-of-Pigs style invasion of the island. They were also uneasy about the US missiles in Western Europe and Turkey and wanted to level the playing field. One of the tensest moments of the crisis came when Soviet ships attempted to run the US blockade around Cuba. At the last moment, the Russians backed down and a confrontation was avoided. In return for the Soviets pulling their missiles out of Cuba, the US promised not to launch another invasion of the island...and secretly agreed to dismantle the missile installations in Turkey.

I can remember being a kid and listening to a news bulletin about it while riding in the back seat of my parent's Chevy. Although I was too young to really understand the seriousness of the situation, I remember feeling scared just from the general tone of the broadcast.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by masraum

I'm 42, I've read about it, but I can't even really imagine what it must have been like to live it.

imagine being 10 years old and told that someone wants to kill you so you need to learn to hide. I still remember the feeling I got whenever they raised the alarm.

I'm sure it's nothing like the kids in the ME feel.

[widgeon13]

I was also 16 at the time and my father was stationed at Schilling AFB in Salina KS. He was the CO of the weather detachment on base. Remember the alert crews being scrambled and B 47s going off with JATO assist. Never did know if it was real or not, had to wait to see if the sirens went off.

[NY65912]

I was seven and remember the headlines in the papers. Mt folks wwere nervous with the possibility of going to war again.

I was six when I had an eye operation and one of the gifts was a ICBM set with various short range and long range missles that mounted on a rail system on a mobile launche, powered by a rubber band. Along with duck and cover they were getting us ready. How about the air raid sirens. Geez, we lived across from a public school and it would blare. Usually they were scheduled blasts and were mentioned in the papers for the next day.

Are we any better off than 50 years ago? I think not.

[Ronbo]

Yep, I remember the alert sirens and the drop and cover drills. Crazy stuff thinking about it now.

[sc_rufctr]

I'm 47 so all I know about what happened is from the recorded history of the event.

My take on the whole thing... We were very lucky but there must have been some really competent people on both sides making good decisions.
The what if factor is scary but I wonder how many times has he world come close to total nuclear war and we never really heard about it.

Also... What don't we know about the war on terror?

[patssle]

We were very lucky but there must have been some really competent people on both sides making good decisions.

There were a lot of incompetent men that were heavily pushing for war. I'm sure the Soviets had their war mongers telling Khrushchev to attack first too.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion was the only solution.

Good thing the civilian leadership had more brains than the military.

[imcarthur]

I was only 8 & we had left DC the year before & left the air raid desk warnings behind.

But before tonight, I had never heard about Vasili Arkhipov & how it really all boiled down to his decision not to press the button.

Ian

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

My take on the whole thing... We were very lucky but there must have been some really competent people on both sides making good decisions.

We were very lucky the incompetent men who caused all this didn't end the world. It was an unnecessary crisis and both sides could have gotten what they ended up with short of threatening a nuclear holocaust. Krushchev had the cooler head.

[mossguy]

I was a private in the infantry, 28th Division PANG, and I remember being on alert for that and for the Berlin Crisis.

[varmint]

Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union planed to leave 100 nuclear weapons on Cuba
The Soviet Union secretly planned to leave 100 nuclear weapons on Cuba after the end of the crisis but were so scared by Fidel Castro's instability that they made up a law to retrieve them.

Documents released by the US National Security Archive disclose how close Cuba came in 1962 to becoming Latin America's first nuclear power.
Minutes of a meeting with Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet deputy prime minister, show Castro was furious at the USSR ending the crisis by agreeing to remove its strategic missiles.
Unknown to Washington, the Soviets had left 100 tactical nuclear weapons on Cuba, and documents suggest they planned to train Cubans how to use them.
But Mikoyan was so concerned at Castro's erratic behaviour during a diplomatic visit that he wrote back to Moscow that they must urgently take back the remaining bombs.
"What do you think we are?" an emotional Castro asked during the four-hour November 22 meeting. "A zero on the Left, a dirty rag. We tried to help the Soviet Union to get out of a difficult situation."
Mikoyan was driven to cite a non-existent Soviet law banning the transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to other countries. "And when are you going to repeal that law?" Castro asked. "We will see," he said.
The documents, which came from the archives of Mikoyan's late son, feature in a new book titled The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis.

Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union planed to leave 100 nuclear weapons on Cuba - Telegraph

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

My folks were still in high school. But it was certainly covered in my textbooks. One thing I never understood was why Soviet missiles in Cuba were worth this crisis when both sides already had sub-launched ballistic missiles. SLBMs could hit much of the US with as little or less warning as ICBMs in Cuba. And why was it ok for us to have missiles on the Soviets' borders, but they couldn't have them in Cuba? Seems to me the whole thing was a dick-wagging contest and we got lucky.

I'm no expert on the topic, but I believe the boomers of that era were slow, loud, had limited missile range, carried a limited payload, and had to surface to launch. In short, I don't think they were very good or a very serious threat.

[nota]

we were in miami [coral gables]

the rich cuban next door had guys in fatigues marching in his backyard pre-bay of pigs

missile crises time was TOTALLY NUTS
the Italian's across the street were in Naples in WW2
their garage was stacked floor to ceiling with food
others were trying to get together shelter digging groups
dad decided to get out of town so we headed north on the turnpike
it was full of military traffic long lines of duceandahalfs with jeeps mixed in
most had trailers some 105's or hawk missiles all nose to tail at 45mph for miles

''WE WERE EYEBALL TO EYEBALL AND THE OTHER GUY BLINKED ''

STUPID REALLY HOW CLOSE THOSE FOOLS GOT

btw I was 12 in 62