Anyone here remember the cuban missile crisis?

[katkintreats]

Anyone with memories from October 1962, where were you and what was it like?
Not asking for any particular reason, I’ve just been reading about it and am curious.

I do. I was 7 years old and live in the US. It was terrifying. All the boys in my second grade class thought it would be so great if there was a war (!!) but I was so afraid. Every time I heard a police siren, I would run for home. I was afraid to leave the driveway sometimes. My sister was only 1 and I kept wishing I were her age so I wouldn't know what was going on.

Yes, I was 10 years old at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I have memories of hearing about it on the radio news, and my Dad saying there was going to be a nuclear war. I was only vaguely aware that it was something between Russia and America. Russia had replaced Germany as the Bad Guys in my mind. I spent a lot of my childhood being afraid of nuclear war, having nightmares of the sky full of planes helicopters and rockets. The dreams still seem so vivid to me now in my 70s. Now, when I think of children growing up in countries like Gaza and Ukraine, I realise how incredibly lucky I was to have spent my life safe from war, unlike children actually growing up (or not getting the chance to) in war torn countries such as Gaza and Ukraine.

Thanks for replying. It’s interesting that the peril felt so real for you as children, even though the main sources of news were TV and radio. I wonder what it would be like today with 24h news updates and social media.

Part of the fear I felt was from the palpable fear the grownups were feeling. WWII was only over for 17 years and the dreadful effects of the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan were barely becoming understood at the time. The Korean War wasn't long over. And a confrontation with the Soviet Union was always looming. No one expected to survive a nuclear war, so the terror was real and reasonable.

I was a teenager at school. It was a bit 'tremble' for a few days. We always had the news on at home, but I don't remember anyone particularly giving big opinions about it. We certainly talked about it at school, among ourselves.

The generation before me had not long been through WW2 when 'Uncle' Joe Stalin had been our ally in theory. By the time I was growing up the Russians were 'red' and the 'enemy' more or less.

It was only in the last few years, when Lucy Worsley did the programmes about big fibs, that I learned that it was a bargain - Nikita Kruschev(sp?) would rein back his missiles which were situated in Cuba and the Americans would rein back something which they had in Europe, pointing towards the USSR.

Yes, only because I overheard that the neighbours were very worried that there’d be a war, and their just-about adult sons would be called up. I don’t recall any angst from my DPs.