Cuban Missile Crisis

[oljames3]

I was in 4th grade during the Cuban missle crisis. I don't remember hearing or seeing anything about it at the time. I do remember the "duck and cover" drills.

Fast forward to today.

I spent 34 years with the Army's nuclear weapons systems. As a Pershing missile platoon leader, I had three missiles under my command, with live nuclear warheads, aimed at targets in the Warsaw Pact.

I also have a certificate from the Department of Defense verifying that I helped win the cold war. That and $14 gets me an hour at the local gun range.

[R DAVIS]

I was in high school at the time. I thought the whole duck and cover drills routine was a total waste of time.
So, I took a 9 volt battery and a large flashbulb to school.

Being a bit of a prankster, and troublemaker in general,when the next duck and cover drill was called, I set off that flashbulb while everybody was under their desks. It resulted in total pandemonium in the classroom (study hall). Some kids started screaming, some crying, and a couple of girls wet their pants. Some just took off and ran home terrified. I've never seen anything like it.

I was clever enough to be able to ditch the battery and bulb in the confusion, so I didn't get caught. Everyone knew it was me but couldn't prove it. I can only imagine how much trouble I would have been in had I been caught.

[philip964]

In school band class in San Fransisco, we could clearly see the aircraft carriers through the big picture windows looking at Alameda NAS. Our band teacher said that would be where the flash would come from.

We were to not look at the flash, but to hurry to the solid wall below the big windows and duck and cover.

I remember being worried about it really happening.

Little did I know Russia probably could not hit Alameda and it probably would have landed right on us.

[philip964]

If you looking for a interesting fictional exchange with Russia I would suggest Miracle Mile with Anthony Edwards.

[chuck j]

I was 12 years old , can't really add much more than the others have . Adults talking so we would not hear , everyone scared . most of the bomb shelters were nothing but a 12' diameter steel bubble buried shallow . No more than 'might' survive the initial blast , we lived about 8 miles from Shepard Air Force Base , was a sack base , prime target .

Best I can remember we didn't wonder 'if' the Soviets would drop an A bomb on us , we wondered 'when' they would drop the bomb . I remember everyone on the street out in the yards looking to watch Sputnik pass overhead , we didn't know what it was capable of but it was not good .

[Charles L. Cotton]

I was in high school at the time. I thought the whole duck and cover drills routine was a total waste of time.
So, I took a 9 volt battery and a large flashbulb to school.

Being a bit of a prankster, and troublemaker in general,when the next duck and cover drill was called, I set off that flashbulb while everybody was under their desks. It resulted in total pandemonium in the classroom (study hall). Some kids started screaming, some crying, and a couple of girls wet their pants. Some just took off and ran home terrified. I've never seen anything like it.

I was clever enough to be able to ditch the battery and bulb in the confusion, so I didn't get caught. Everyone knew it was me but couldn't prove it. I can only imagine how much trouble I would have been in had I been caught.

Being a connoisseur of the practical joke, I love this story!!

Chas.

[Jim Beaux]

I was 11 when this happened and Nikita Khrushchev blinked before Kennedy surrendered Cuba to the Soviet Union. The Military Channel ran a program on the Cuban Missile Crisis several years ago. The U.S. Navy shrunk it's blockade of Cuba at least twice (maybe more, I don't recall) as the Soviets got closer. The program noted that Kennedy's last orders to the fleet were not to engage the Soviets. Kennedy would have let Cuba become a major nuclear missile base for the Soviet Union and the cold war would have been lost overnight. Khruschev's prediction that they would defeat the U.S. without firing a shot would have come true.

We were not aware of the final orders to the fleet, but we were very much aware that the Soviets were challenging the U.S. blockade and our fleet was withdrawing each time. This fueled fear not only for the near term, but for the long term as well. Most Americans had little faith that Kennedy would stand up to the Soviets, due in large part to the deadly cowardice he exhibited in his botched Bay of Pigs invasion. Early shopping malls had companies displaying their backyard bomb/fallout shelters and, as others mentioned, atomic bomb drills were commonplace in schools. At just a few weeks shy of 12 years of age, I realized that none of us might see the next day and that political leaders had better be willing to fight. I suspect that event led me to be a political activist because I in was in full campaign mode by 1964 with the Goldwater/Johnson election.

I case there's someone who hasn't picked up on it yet, I despise everything related to the Kennedy family.
Chas.

Charles we share the same sentiment on the Kennedy's. Totally despicable people....and they hoodwinked the world.

For those who are too young to know, Ted Sorensen was a Kennedy insider. His NY Times obituary described him as one who, "did much to shape the president’s narrative, image and legacy, "

The Soviet side of the bargain was public, but the central U.S. concession was kept secret. The Kennedy administration feared that it would appear weak if its agreement on the missiles in Turkey came to light. But the missile swap was hardly a mere "sweetener," as Allison claims; it was the main reason the Cuban missile crisis ended peacefully.

The facts of the compromise were long veiled. It was not until 1989 that Kennedy's former speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, confessed that he had edited out the details of the missile swap from the published version of Attorney General Robert Kennedy's diary. It is now clear that President Kennedy engaged in two sets of negotiations: one with Moscow and the other with his ad hoc team of high-ranking advisers, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm). And in his negotiations with the latter, Kennedy made sure that only his few most trusted advisers were privy to the crucial missile concession.

Without full knowledge of how the crisis was settled, U.S. policymakers exalted in an apparently unqualified victory.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... -revisited

Seems everything about JFK was inept & bogus. From my reading, Kennedy was as qualified to be president as obama - not much. He was an apathetic & irresponsible senator whose daddy bought the seat for him. JFK was a playboy who hardly ever showed up at the capitol to even vote.

JFK should have been brought up on charges for the PT Boat 109 fiasco that instead garnered him acclaim as a hero & according to journalist Drew Pearson, Ted Sorenson also wrote "Profiles in Courage" that won JFK a Pulitzer Prize. The joke going around the senate at that time was, "Jack, I wish you had a little less profile and more courage."

The assassination, a fawning press, a young widow with children, and the Sorenson myth's are what fed an empty JFK legacy. Funny what a little money can buy.

[b322da]

In school band class in San Fransisco, we could clearly see the aircraft carriers through the big picture windows looking at Alameda NAS. Our band teacher said that would be where the flash would come from.

We were to not look at the flash, but to hurry to the solid wall below the big windows and duck and cover.

I remember being worried about it really happening.

Little did I know Russia probably could not hit Alameda and it probably would have landed right on us.

Your mention of SF and Alameda reminds me of an unpleasant sea story, Philip.

I was in the service at the time, stationed in San Francisco on a flag staff assignment, living in Alameda, enjoying my first tour of duty ever on the beach and home with my family in the evening. I was actually able to take a week's leave, and I and the family went camping in northern California -- no newspapers, no TV, no radio -- a very happy moment. One day I had to run in to the nearest town to get some groceries, and there I saw a newspaper saying all military leaves had been cancelled the day before, and all military personnel were to report to their duty station ASAP. I found myself to be AWOL. I was for some unknown reason categorized as being "essential," and was one of a few members of a flag staff required to relocate to "an undisclosed location" when intel suggested a nuclear attack appeared to be possible. So I had the wife load up the house with groceries and gas up the car, and I disappeared into a relocation site (a hole in the ground) well away from SF, for several days.

I was no longer a happy camper, and it was a difficult few days, knowing my family was out there in a prime target area.

Jim

[Rex B]

I was in 5th grade at the on-base elementary school at Walker AFB, Roswell NM. Walker was a SAC base with a B52 squadron and about a dozen Atlas silos around Roswell. Dad was a TSGT servicing the silos.
About the only thing I recall was that we did not see Dad for about 2 weeks.
We never did "duck and cover" drills. In fact, we received no instruction of any kind on what to do if attacked. I'm sure they understood it was pointless.

[b322da]

...I'm sure they understood it was pointless.

I'm sure that was the case, Rex. That knowledge was the only thing that calmed me down as I left my family for a "place of safety." I knew well that I was not really safe, we were fooling ourselves when we relocated, and that I was in the same boat my family was in.

Jim

[ScooterSissy]

I was in the 1st grade, so I remember only a little of what went on; however, my stepfather went away sometime in August or September (he was a Chief Warrant Officer in the Army). I didn't know it at the time, but he was an engineer on the anti-missle crews, specifically on the Nike-Herc (some time when I was in the 3rd grade, he actually took us into a silo and showed us some of the missles). I don't know for sure where he went but I do remember he was gone for about 3 months total. When he came back, he told us (I think, but my memory from being a five year old might be hazy) that he had been in Arizona. It was only 3 months, but it seemed like a long time back then. He made it back home shortly before my birthday in December. Obviously, things were tense at our house, but not much was said about the crisis itself (probably my mother trying to keep things calm).

In the school though, we practiced the drills several times. I don't remember much discussion about the crisis at school either, but I went to a school that was mostly Army brats, so that may have been deliberate. It may just be me having poor memory too ;)

[ScooterSissy]

In school band class in San Fransisco, we could clearly see the aircraft carriers through the big picture windows looking at Alameda NAS. Our band teacher said that would be where the flash would come from.

We were to not look at the flash, but to hurry to the solid wall below the big windows and duck and cover.

I remember being worried about it really happening.

Little did I know Russia probably could not hit Alameda and it probably would have landed right on us.

Interesting. We were almost neighbors. My family lived in Fort Barry, right across the bay. I was younger, and don't remember much about it from school, but as I said previously, it might just be my memory. I was only 5 at the time, almost 6.

[ScooterSissy]

...Your mention of SF and Alameda reminds me of an unpleasant sea story, Philip.

I was in the service at the time, stationed in San Francisco on a flag staff assignment, living in Alameda, enjoying my first tour of duty ever on the beach and home with my family in the evening. I was actually able to take a week's leave, and I and the family went camping in northern California -- no newspapers, no TV, no radio -- a very happy moment. One day I had to run in to the nearest town to get some groceries, and there I saw a newspaper saying all military leaves had been cancelled the day before, and all military personnel were to report to their duty station ASAP. I found myself to be AWOL. I was for some unknown reason categorized as being "essential," and was one of a few members of a flag staff required to relocate to "an undisclosed location" when intel suggested a nuclear attack appeared to be possible. So I had the wife load up the house with groceries and gas up the car, and I disappeared into a relocation site (a hole in the ground) well away from SF, for several days.

I was no longer a happy camper, and it was a difficult few days, knowing my family was out there in a prime target area.

Jim

Wow!! Another near-neighbor. When you were at your "undisclosed location", you didn't run into a CW3 named Czuprewicz (pronounced Chipperwitz) by any chance?

Small world.

[b322da]

...Your mention of SF and Alameda reminds me of an unpleasant sea story, Philip.

I was in the service at the time, stationed in San Francisco on a flag staff assignment, living in Alameda, enjoying my first tour of duty ever on the beach and home with my family in the evening. I was actually able to take a week's leave, and I and the family went camping in northern California -- no newspapers, no TV, no radio -- a very happy moment. One day I had to run in to the nearest town to get some groceries, and there I saw a newspaper saying all military leaves had been cancelled the day before, and all military personnel were to report to their duty station ASAP. I found myself to be AWOL. I was for some unknown reason categorized as being "essential," and was one of a few members of a flag staff required to relocate to "an undisclosed location" when intel suggested a nuclear attack appeared to be possible. So I had the wife load up the house with groceries and gas up the car, and I disappeared into a relocation site (a hole in the ground) well away from SF, for several days.

I was no longer a happy camper, and it was a difficult few days, knowing my family was out there in a prime target area.

Jim

Wow!! Another near-neighbor. When you were at your "undisclosed location", you didn't run into a CW3 named Czuprewicz (pronounced Chipperwitz) by any chance?

Small world.

Sorry, but I didn't. We had a rather small hole, only room for sailors, no Army. :)

It was on the other side of the Bay Bridge, though, well up north of SF.

Jim