This happened before I was born - anybody here old enough to remember it and what it was like at the time ?

I was 4 but I remember the after effects, But I know that we have some old people out there. LOL j/k

i cant really help you on this one drew

Yes I was a youngster in those days,I remember well how my father came home from work and we were to all sit right in front of the T.V. and watch President Kennedy address the nation. It was scarey let me tell you .We had Bomb drills in school were we would all lay on the floor with our hands over our heads face down. A lot of our neighbors put in bomb sheilters in there basements and stocked them with water and can foods.I remember my father telling us we weren't going to do that becouse it was a waste of time if they the Russians sent a Nuke at us those bomb sheilters weren't going to help. Kinda scared us all. When I think back now thank God President Kennedy was level headed and steady as she goes type leader or we all just might not be here today !! I know now a days people like to trash the Kennedy brothers John and Bobby but believe it or not those two people most likely saved all of our lifes. Level headed steady leadership, gosh we need another John F. Kennedy.Back in those days we ,this country were proud of our President.He was really the last great leader we have had !!

I've been reading a Kennedy biography - the cuban missile crisis is very interesting. The Joint Chiefs were gung ho to invade cuba to destroy the missile sites & Kennedy resisted fearing that the Russians would take west Berlin as a reprisal and trigger a nuclear war.

Kennedy has a tough learning curve on foreign affairs - it was lucky that he did have the bag of pigs mess and the tough meeting in Vienna with Kruschev and the Berlin crisis - if the Cuba missle crisis had happened earlier in his term it might not have turned out so well.

I mainly remember the fear factor.
The general belief among many that they could pretty well do as they wanted because there was no tomorrow.
This feeling of no tomorrow led to many of the beliefs the baby boomers have. Fear is a hard thing to live with. The feeling of unable to control ones own destiny.

My ship was front line on this one as a member of DesRon 36 (DesDiv 362) the baddest-ass Hunter Killer/ASW Group to ever roam the Atlantic. I was 21 years old. Like it was mentioned above, the biggest thing was the fear factor.

For the younger generation it's probably very difficult to grasp just how fearful it was during this crisis and I'm saying that only because so much has changed since '62 and '04. It really is 2 distinct worlds and along with that goes 2 distinct philosophies, mind sets and life styles. I think on this one -- if you didn't live it, you can't imagine it. You just had to be there to get the feeling.

Back in '62 (wasn't that a Seger tune? -- oh yeah that was back in '72 -- LOL) americans were thoroughly convinced the USSR was the boogey man and on the other side of the coin the Russians were convinced the americans were the boogey man. This was intentionally done by both sides to create the illusion that you won't be safe unless you let your government tell you how to manage every aspect of your life. The government will protect you if you're good little sheep. Otherwise we will throw you to the big bad wolfs of Russia and you know what that means.

Actually I didn't know what that means other than guessing gulags and such and that was only because I was force fed that notion. IOW -- we (I) were a pretty dumbed-down america at that time -- with no taste for protest or any kind of dissent. Basically, if our government said so, that's the was it is -- no questions. Most people even went as far as working at the same factory as their dads and grand dads and living in houses with white picket fences and wearing wing-tipped cordovan shoes. All the signs of being successful and obedient. I really can't say I miss those times -- other than the music -- the best rock-n-roll ever - done by the real rockers.

The Cuban missle crisis fit nicely into the times. It was shortly after the Bay of Pigs and the Gary Powers spy shootdown -- all the stuff that cold war movies are made from. Yes the cold war -- the good old days when we knew where we stood. Thinking back now, I would rephrase that to "Thinking we knew where we stood".

The Kennedy brothers came through just fine but my gut has always told me it was the cool head of Kruschev that brought this crisis to an end without nuking the world and everyone on it.

As side note -- when my ship was finally relieved from station on the blockade -- next stop was Puerto Rico -- party time. LMAO.

Dop

Americans were pretty freaked out during the missle crisis. I was about 11 then, and do remember that much. The evening news was done by Huntley / Brinkley or Uncle Walter Croncite with blurry black & white aerial intelligence photos & a very young POTUS explaining things. All we could do was sit & watch this drama unfold before our eyes. The adults had gone from one scary event to another - WWII wasn't forgotten, Korea a more recent nightmare, and the U.S.S.R. the biggest scariest thing facing us yet.