“DROP!”
If our teacher said this word, we were to immediately get
under our desks, crouch down on our knees, lower our heads, and cover the back of our necks
with our hands. Every generation has school fire drills but in the early 1960s we
also had “drop drills.” Teachers in Los Angeles were instructed to say “Drop!”
at any unexpected moment and students were obliged to respond accordingly.
Looking back now, this seems ludicrous — as if a school desk
would adequately shelter a child from the devastation of a nuclear blast. But
it made us feel better that there might be a possibility of survival in this
scary Cold War.
Make no mistake. The constant use of the word “war” in Cold
War was traumatic for a grade school student of the Sixties. Every now and
then, we would walk by a newspaper rack and see a front-page photo of an atomic
bomb test, it’s mushroom cloud searing into our youthful imaginations. In
Southern California, on the first Friday of every month, the Civil Defense
sirens did a 10:00am test, their mournful wails piercing our young hearts like a
dagger.
So when President Kennedy made a television appearance on
the evening of October 22, 1962 to discuss “matters of national urgency,”
Americans stopped what they were doing and paid attention.
I have a distinct memory of watching Kennedy’s announcement on
TV with my father. The President’s Boston-nuanced tone was grim. There was a
lot of jargon that went over my 4th grade head, and I asked my dad
what was happening. He explained that the Russians had nuclear missiles in Cuba
and, if they were launched, the United States would do the same against the
Soviet Union.
Boom!
The next day at Stoner Avenue School, my 4th
grade teacher pulled down a map of the United States. She pointed to Cuba and
then to the Pacific Northwest. She said every place in America could be potentially hit by a
Russian missile except Seattle. I realize now that she was trying to keep us
informed but back then we kids were terrified by the possibility that a nuclear
missile could rain down on Southern California at any time.
Later that day, the school assistant custodian came into our
classroom to check the venetian blinds.
She pulled them up, then down, then loudly closed them shut, causing
several kids to yelp. That’s how on-edge we were. It didn’t help that our
teacher kept the blinds closed for the rest of the day — as if those little
plastic slats would protect us from a nuclear blast.
Those fateful Thirteen Days of October unfolded at a
torturous snail’s pace. I was scared out of my wits because I thought we might
die at any moment. That was a frightening thought for a 9-year-old.
Our teacher Mrs. Holzer kept assuring us that President
Kennedy would see the country through this crisis safely. The mere mention of
the President’s name was a soothing balm. We kids had a deep respect for John
Kennedy. He was our country’s leader. We trusted him.
The Cuban Missile Crisis has been well documented in books,
essays and popular movies. President Kennedy showed admirable restraint against
the gung-ho proposals of his hawkish military advisors. If not for Kennedy’s
cautious coolness, I firmly believe we would not be here today. We were THAT
close! Nuclear Armageddon might have been unleashed and the world destroyed.
But that was not what Kennedy or Khrushchev wanted. Thank God!
As children, we heard that President Kennedy saved the
country and the world from annihilation. That’s what the adults in our life told
us. Kennedy was our hero. Can you blame my generation for our outpouring of
grief on the day that he died?
Next blog: President Kennedy and Superman
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