As the Cold War reached new levels of tension, the thought persisted that eventually the shooting was going to start. And with the possibility of shooting also came the possibility of some kind of nuclear reprisal. The ring of fear was all-encompassing with the U.S. convinced the Soviet Union, knee-deep in treachery, would stop at nothing to achieve world domination. And the Soviet Union, no doubt fearful that the U.S., having exploded one Atomic Bomb over a city, could be easily capable of doing it again. And so came the Thousand Yard Stare, with two adversaries, poised unflinching at the trigger.
Pres. Eisenhower: On July 16th 1945 the United States set off the worlds first Atomic explosion. Since that date in 1945 the United State of America has conducted 42 test explosions. Atomic bombs today are more than twenty-five times as powerful as the weapons with which the Atomic Age dawned. While Hydrogen weapons are in the range of millions of tons of TNT equivalent. Today the United States stockpile of Atomic weapons, which of course increases daily, exceeds by many times the total equivalent of the total of all bombs and all shells that came from every plane and every gun in every theater of war in all of the years of World War 2.”
It was this sort of information we grew to be all too familiar with, throughout the Cold War period. That constant state of fear that somehow, somewhere the annihilation would start.
And you wonder why the 60's were so wacko?
