The Cuban Missile Crisis

[montanafan]

The Cuban Missile Crisis had a lingering affect on me that I didn't even realize until later.

I was only 5 at the time, but I knew something strange was going on and back then parents didn't really talk to young kids about stuff like that so my older brother, an eight year old, told me that basically everybody was worried about the Russians dropping bombs on us. Well of course I thought he meant from an airplane, so everytime I heard a plane go over I would listen for the whistling noise of a bomb dropping like I'd heard on TV. It was especially bad at night. I can still remember being in bed and tensing up if I heard a plane going over before I fell asleep.

That feeling of tension would still come back to me for years later on when I'd hear a plane flying over at night even after I'd forgotten exactly why it bothered me. Then I mentioned something about it to my older brother when I was in high school and he reminded me of how it started. It never happened again after I realized what it was.

Good times. :laugh:

 

[BeauJangles]

Actually, I spoke with Ted Sorensen a few years ago (Kennedy's speech writer) and he told me that the US and Russia were far closer to nuclear war than everyone thought. He and a bunch of other high-level administrators from the Kennedy government went to Moscow in the late '90s and learned that a Russian nuclear submarine commander had actually ordered the sub to fire a nuclear torpedo at one of the US blockade ships, the XO approved it, and only the chief fire control officer demanded that they wire Moscow beforehand...

scary stuff.

 

[Brutuskend]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
I find the events and the resolution of this crisis quite fascinating. Anyone else familiar with it? Anyone here old enough to remember it as it happened? It was two years before my time. (I'm 42)

I remember it, though not as well as I remember the day that JFK was shot.

I DO remember that a lot of people were acting VERY up tight.

Edit: I'm 52 now so I was still quite young then.

WOW, I WAS young once!!!