Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Charlatan
sure we were closer during the cuban missle crisis but given that i wasn't around then it would be like me describing living in the 80s to a 20-year-old.
my point wasn't that we were *that* close to nuclear holocaust but rather that nuclear warfare *seemed* inevitable. the programs on tv, the books i read, the conversations at school, the rhetoric coming from politicians, the list goes on... it all lead to a heightened sense of tension. the cold war reached its peak at that time.
it really seemed inevitable.
I can remember having length discussions about whether it would be better to survive or just die in the blast (I voted for wanting to be at ground zero... preferably having sex at the time... i was 15, sue me).
It was a much different time from now. Sure there is conflict but it smaller states and decentralized powers. back then it was two super powers putting unconscionable portions of their budgets into the arms race. it seemed to be just waiting to happen.
|
No.
The rhetoric coming from the politicians was very much one-sided and was very mild, compared to some of the stuff that Khruschev said in the 1960's.
Yes, Reagan did a bit of saber rattling but it was little more then going to Berlin and giving his, "
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!!! speech. You obviously don't recall this, but the Soviet leaders before Gorbachev, Brezhnes, Chernencko & Andropov were all quite ill while Reagan was President and thus had little to say to him. In fact Reagan made a horrible joke when asked by a reporter why he had never met with a Soviet leader, "
They keep dying on me."
Yeah, that's classy.
The Cold war was at it's zenith and it's hottest as I said in my previous post, during the Cuban Missle Crisis.
The 1980's can't begin to comapre.