A few weeks ago, I had a highly unsettling memory. I had been reading about Mr. Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons if the war in Ukraine escalated.
In my memory, I am a five-year-old child in first grade at Jackson Elementary School in Oak Park Michigan. I hear the voice of the principal, Mr. Street, coming over the PA. He announces that we are about to have a test. He says, “don’t be worried, this is only a test.” Next, we hear a loud siren. The teacher, Mrs. Lancaster, orders us to duck under our desks. She explains that the Russians might attack us with nuclear weapons and we need to learn to protect ourselves.
For many years afterward, the sound of a siren or airplane engine overhead stirred a feeling in the pit of my stomach. In my head, I knew there was nothing to be afraid of, but l still could sense that old familiar feeling of anxiety. Eventually, with time, the fear abated.
That is until 10 years later. In 1962, it was not Mr. Street on the PA, but it was President Kennedy, who, on television, warned the nation that there was a clear and imminent danger of a nuclear war. The US was engaged in a standoff with the Russians who were discovered to be secretly transporting missiles to Cuba. The president said this would not be allowed because it would be a threat to the USA to have missiles so close to our country.
For a tense month, the Russians and the United States remained at a standoff. Daily, we would hear reports about how we were edging toward a nuclear war. Kennedy even issued an order that placed the US Strategic Air Command on DEFCON 2 for the first time in history.
As the crisis went on for days, we all grew more tense. Only at the last minute were the Russian and US leaders able to reach an agreement that narrowly avoided the war.
In the last few years we have learned how close we came to an all-out war. Actually, a Russian submarine had come close to firing a ballistic missile. The Russian protocol required that the two leading officers on the submarine had to agree to fire the missile. One was in favor; thank God, the other one said no. If he had been convinced, World War III would’ve been launched and none of us would probably be here to be talking about this.
Fifty years after the crisis, Graham T. Allison wrote in the New York Times:
Fifty years ago, the Cuban missile crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. During the standoff, US President John F. Kennedy thought the chance of escalation to war was “between 1 in 3 and even”, and what we have learned in later decades has done nothing to lengthen those odds. We now know, for example, that in addition to nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union had deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and the local Soviet commander there could have launched these weapons without additional codes or commands from Moscow. The US airstrike and invasion that were scheduled for the third week of the confrontation would likely have triggered a nuclear response against American ships and troops, and perhaps even Miami. The resulting war might have led to the deaths of over 100 million Americans and over 100 million Russians
At 50, the Cuban Missile Crisis as Guide
For the next 60 years, from 1962 until 2022, we have heard less about the threat of nuclear devastation. Yet now, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin is once again raising the threat of using nuclear weapons. For the older generation, the fear is now back.
Suddenly, the younger generation of the world’s population is now learning what it means to have the threat of nuclear war in our collective minds. We face many challenging questions. How will the US respond? From a historical perspective, will we react like Prime Minister Chamberlain did in the late 30s and opt for appeasement like he did with Germany? How will we ever be able to trust Putin? Will we take on the threat head-on like President Kennedy did against Prime Minister Kruschev and hope that Mr. Putin backs down? Will a brave commander refuse to launch a missile that could set off a worldwide catastrophe?
These are the stakes we face today.
Those of us who have lived through the 50s and 60s understand how pervasive the threat of nuclear war has been in our lives. How it has shaped our thinking, feeling, and actions.
We hope and pray our leaders find the right course to avert disaster and yet, at the same time, find a solution that prevents an authoritarian dictator from conquering much of the world.