Growing up in the 1970s and 80s there were those from the generations before who still were genuinely traumatised by how close they thought the world had got to nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

It seemed distant to us younger ones, but now I can sense exactly how they felt.

April 10, 2026 - 06:26 UTC

27
7
551
As someone born post-USSR, I wonder a lot about how this current period must compare to the cold war in terms of 'will-they, won't-they'
0
0
0
I am very glad that teenage me in 1983 had no idea at the time about the two potentially catastrophic events (Able Archer 83 and the Petrov Incident) going on in the background on the other side of the "Curtain"
0
0
3
I remember the Cuban crisis! It was scary but we had news reporters who did their job: Cronkite, Brinkley & Huntley!
0
0
4
I, in my mid 80s, often think of that and how it felt. One striking memory is the Cuba crisis few days. I sat in the office thinking “Why don’t I ring my husband (of only a couple of months) and say”let’s go out into the Chilterns and enjoy our last few hours together”I didn’t, of course.
0
0
2
Did you not have the same thing through the entire 80s? I did.
6
0
28
Living through the IRA bombing campaign as a schoolboy in central London was weird. On one level you could lie awake at night (with windows taped up) listening for random explosions, and on a different level you factored increased risk in and soon went around London pretty much as normal…
1
0
2
Yes indeed, those years when optimism was working out you were close enough to a high-value first-strike target that you'd be vapourised before you heard the sirens...
2
0
19
Absolutely.

I remember it as a viscerally present thing.
0
0
0
I feel grateful that I was largely oblivious to the wider world during the 80s.
1
0
0
Me too
0
0
0
Mid eighties in Leeds I was woken by a load thunder clap. My waking thought was “Bradford’s gone”
That’s how close it was to the surface of my feelings
1
0
2
My dad use to talk about the Cuban missile crisis.
But to my teenage years when he told us it sounded like something where dissenting adults had an argument that lasted a week and that was it.

The Gaza-Iran-Lebanon-Trump thing soulds like something that has only just started with no adult in sight.
0
0
1
During the 70s and early 80s I used to be aware of jets and would wonder whether they were bombers
0
0
1
I still remember it vividly … especially my parents getting emotional as Sophie Tucker sang ‘So much to do and so little time’ on Sunday Night at the London Palladium.
0
0
0
As a kid in the 70's, my parents let me watch the film of 'On The Beach'. Absolutely terrified me.
0
0
0
We spent the dangerous hour of the Cuban Missile Crisis hiding under our desks in a geography lesson. It made it real.
0
0
1
You know how some conversations from your parents cut through when you are little and you don't quite know why? Them talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis was one of those conversations and the tension in the air now reminds me of how they spoke then.
1
0
4
I don’t remember anyone talking about Cuba but I vividly remember a nightmare I had as a child of planes raining down a firestorm. Later worked out that it must have been around that time.
0
0
1
My mum grew up in a small town near Bremen. She never forgot about her teacher telling the class on the Friday "hopefully I'll see you all on Monday". She would have been 13.

That's stuck with me. While not really comparable, Tuesday was the most uneasy I'd felt for a good while.
0
0
9
Even closer than that was this (though not realised till later and it was a Soviet officer who saved the day):

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24280831
0
0
1
The Greenham Common protests, and multiple films, kept the fear of nukes front and centre for a new generation in the '80s, up to the fall of the Wall. "Threads" had real shock value.
1
0
9
I know: I was there!
2
0
6
The only time my late grandmother was seen to cry when WW2 was declared
My memories of Cuban crisis
My now adult children being shown Threads in school …traumatic.
The Four Minute Warning siren dread .
Now my granddaughter and friends fear WW3 .
0
0
0
I was born in 1963 and my parents never forgot it or how it made them feel. They spoke about it often.
0
0
2
gong to bed in October 1962 and wondering whether there was going to be a nuclear conflagration overnight.

I was 10 years old. So yes, it was scary.
0
0
0
I was a child in the usa in the 60s and 70s. As well as fire alarm tests at school we had nuclear tests - different bell - during the latter we were instructed to hide under our desks!
0
0
0
I still remember coming out if the cinema having watched The day after.

We've lived in the shadows of missiles controlled by old men all our lives.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
1
0
2
And the war game is in the iplayer even now.
0
0
0
Prof Julie Gottlieb of the University of Sheffield has done research into people’s reactions to the event of 1938 and the impact of a ‘permacrisis’ and a spate of subsequent suicides. Looking at the diary kept by the academic F L Lucas. I came across it through a teaching project. It’s interesting.
1
0
1
(events)
0
0
0
And it was very close, but as both sides had nuclear weapons the escalation the risk then was a retaliatory spiral.

Harder to see that happening this week even if Trump and Hesgeth decided to use a nuclear weapon for a few social media likes.
1
0
0
Really don’t need a reply explaining back the Cuban missile crisis.

Please look at the wording of my post for the actual point I am seeking to convey. Thank you!
0
0
1
Imagine being stuck on one of the tankers in the Persian Gulf.

www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/09/mental-breakdown-oil-tanker-workers-stuck-in-gulf-for-six-weeks-are-reaching-their-limit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
0
0
17
It was the time of the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). when the threat to wipe out an entire civilisation was only made as a defensive posture in order to ward off a potential attack. It was not spoken as a first-strike threat by America, until Trump.
0
0
0
The 'a whole civilisation will die' statement was the first time since the Berlin Wall came down that I had felt that same level of dread that I experienced growing up in the 1980's. The Bomb and Aids were pretty heavy things to carry through your teenage years.
0
0
10
Thanks for making me feel old but, yes, I have felt exactly the same in the last few weeks as I did back then
0
0
1
The thing with trump, is that, he could just decide to do it tomorrow anyway, so there is only a fraction of the relief and the anxiety remains.
1
0
10
The anxiety remained then, until the fall of the Berlin Wall. The relief then was palpable.
Now it’s back.
0
0
7
Largely because people also had no idea how close we came a couple of times in the ‘80s.
0
0
0