K. What do you recall about the Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs? How did you and others react to these events? C. At the time of the Bay of Pigs, I believe that I was a student in High School, and all of us felt it would be just a matter of time before the Us. took care of Fidel Castro, that we would not permit him to take over or confiscate American property, and we would go in there and so-called "Clean his plow." As it turned out, we got our plow cleaned. And so, it was a little of a disappointment. If fact, a big disappointment. Castro's still in power, so we never really did clean his plow. The other issue was the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I was in college at this time. I can still remember the "saber rattling," and some of the comments of the people in the dorms, saying "Well, pack your bags because its going to be marching time for Uncle Sam's army for all of us," because everyone thought the world had come to the edge of potential destruction. K. Which events of the Cold War frightened you the most? Why?
C. I think to me, the most compelling event was the Cuban Missile Crisis, because I was old enough to be directly impacted by it, and the thought of going to war with the Soviet Union in a nuclear exchange was as close as I would ever want to get to Armageddon.
K. What do you remember hearing about the East/West Germany separation during this time?
C. I recall the construction of the wall, and everyone saw this as a symbol for the Cold War. It was very difficult for us to do very much, because Berlin was inside communist territory - it was a little island of freedom inside a sea of communism. Symbolically, I think it was a very powerful image, and it really showed the failure of Communism. They had to build walls to keep the people in.
K. What did the Us. government do during this time that, in your opinion, was not a good action or judgement?
C. I feel that Vietnam was a mistake from day one. The government never really leveled with the American people. They used euphemisms where they should have been more direct, they said they were sending advisors, where they were already sending soldiers. Johnson, when he ran, said that we really weren't at war, but we really were. I think there was a whole series of things that the politicians never really leveled with.
K. What names seemed to pop up in the news most often regarding the Cold War?
C. I can remember Robert Mcnamara and how he came onto television with charts and graphs, saying that we had dropped so many bombs on North Vietnam, and therefore had taken out 10,000 enemies because we had saturated the area; but there was no proof for those statistics; it was all estimates on the part of the military and Pentagon. Of course, the enemies built tunnels, and the bombs didn't get to them.
K. What outside events were influenced by the Cold War? Which events influenced the Cold War?
C. There was a great economic competition between the United States and Soviet Union; it wasn't just military. It was a contest between economies; which economy was better, communism or capitalism? I think this was a major event that drove the Cold War.
K. The Cold War was a war of words, although several times many people were killed. Despite these casualties, do you believe that a Cold War is any better than a real war? Why do you believe this?
C. I think a cold war is a psychological war. It's a war of nerves. It's a dangerous type of war, because you never know when you'll cross the boundary and it becomes a hot war.
K. Were there times during the Cold War that it looked like a hopeless situation? Did the Soviet Union ever seem to be winning? If so, which events around the United States seemed to be proof of a lack of hope and pride?
C. I think there were times that the Soviets seemed to gain the upper hand. When they launched Sputnik in 1957, that was a great symbolic defeat for the United States, because we thought that we were technologically advanced and had the upper hand on the Soviet Union, only to find out that they had really caught us off guard. I think that was a great moment of peril for the United States. We caught our second win, so to speak, and put a man on the moon.
K. What weapons were developed during the Arms Race between the United States and Soviet Union?
C. I'm no military expert, but I think that the greatest advancements were from the hydrogen bomb and the neutron bomb, and the missile systems to deliver these terrifying weapons. Nuclear submarines; There were a whole host of things that "came online" because of the Cold War. All those things were being driven by competition.
K. Was there ever defection in the United States? Did some people here seem to believe that communism was better than capitalism?
C. I'm sure there were. There were people on college campuses, professors, not a lot, but at least some, that thought that communism was a better way to go, that it was fairer; there was never any doubt that there were some Americans who were sympathetic to the communist cause.
