Letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

In Johnny’s Issues, opinion column from last week, he said: “Unlike 1962, in current day America we live under a constant threat of nuclear attack”. Well, Boy Howdy, we sure did live under a constant threat of nuclear attack back then, starting with 1945 and Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Everyone knew the Soviet Union would get the bomb, and Joseph Stalin promised us that the Soviets would get the bomb. We would never be safe again. Then, when certain Manhattan Project scientists decided it would be a good thing for world peace to give them the critical research, the Soviets moved rapidly forward. On September 23, 1949 the White House announced to the world that the Soviet Union had exploded an atom bomb (actually they exploded it in August, 1949, but Harry Truman had to think awhile about telling the rest of us). On November 1, 1952, the United States tested its first ever hydrogen or “super bomb” at Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific. (I hadn’t quite arrived yet. My brother was 9 years old). On November 22, 1955 the Soviets tested their first hydrogen bomb. This was especially scary as Stalin had died in March 1953 and still nobody was quite sure who was running the store in Moscow. My brother and my parents told me all about those early days, how everyone lived in constant extreme anxiety. The whole world figured we were all toast. Later, in civics class we learned about it, too. (Yeah, we had that class then, even for us little ones. The adults thought it was important). So even as a little kid I had been aware of nuclear weapons for several years before 1962. The “drop and cover”, “under your desk”, and “downstairs into the basement corridor” drills at school had started when I was just 6 years old, in 1959. At first we only had a long ringing class bell. We didn’t get our siren from Civil Defense until ‘61. Moving on ...

I was 9 years old, and I clearly remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. We had lived in constant threat of nuclear attack for over a decade already. By then, the Soviets were developing better missiles than ours. On August 6, 1957 the Soviets announced a successful test of an ICBM that they claimed could reach anywhere in the world. The whole world went ape, of course. So, the 90 miles off the coast in Cuba gave them the whole Eastern Seaboard and possibly all of North and South America (we figured they had exaggerated a little, but it still was way scarier than Swamp Thing). So when the Cuban Missile Crisis popped (16 October – 20 November 1962) a few people were clipping the bomb shelter instructions out of the paper and starting to dig. Folks’ reactions ranged from severe tension to stark terror. Apparently, some people even committed suicide. We did get through it, but it was so very close. You see, we didn’t have anything worked out yet, like Mutual Assured Destruction, Nuclear Test Ban treaties, or Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. It was completely unstable. That is the difference between then and, up until Ukraine, now. Nuclear war then was very real and in our faces. That is why the comparisons with Putin and Ukraine have some validity - we are back in an unstable situation with a dictator who may just be a madman.

Best to all,

Peter Canney

Navasota, TX 77868