dxp@pyuxhh.UUCP (11/21/83)
The doctor and his wife were discussing the crisis in germany being "it's cuba all over again". Can any of our netters over the age of 40 or so tell us what the cuban crisis was like to them as young adults ?????? Dave Peak(pyuxhh!dxp)
ken@ihuxq.UUCP (11/22/83)
------ Now lookee here, sonny, you don't have to be over 40 to remember the Cuban Crisis (I'm 35). I was in high school (It was the best of times, it was...) when Kennedy found out that Khrushchev was ferrying missiles to Cuba, so he ordered a naval blockade to intercept Russian ships. There was heated debate at the UN: US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson asks Russian Ambassador Andrei Gromyko when he'll admit Russian missiles are in Cuba. Gromyko sidesteps it by insinuating that Stevenson doesn't know the difference between the Russian SFSR and the whole USSR. Stevenson: "Then I'll wait for Hell to freeze over if that's your reply." Pretty sharp talk in those days. We were glued to our little B&W vaccuum tube TVs watching it. & it scared me, anyway, although I took some misguided solace in the fact that the 2 ambassadors had, outside of politics, become good friends. We didn't know what Khrushchev would do--he had previously thrown a tantrum at the UN where he took off a shoe and pounded it on the table. The Russian mottoes at that time were "Reach out and surpass America" and "We will bury you". The Berlin Wall was new. I lived in New York & thought we'd get bombed. A friend of mine got pulled out of school when his family abruptly moved in with relatives in Omaha, which they considered safer. We had air-raid drills at school, & a lot of our neighbors talked about building fallout shelters (though none did). The whole thing was over REAL FAST. Khrushchev backed off in a matter of days. So, what's different now? The US was an international oil EXPORTER back then, economically healthy & self-sufficient. "Made in Japan" was a metaphor meaning "of poor quality". Somehow, the politicians had a lot more class. That UN exchange above is FROM MEMORY. Remember anything that Jeanne Kirkpatrick ever said? Or Shirley Temple Black? (Her movies don't count.) We were cops of the world then & got away with it, the Bay of Pigs notwithstanding. But that's another story. -- ken perlow ..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken bell labs @ naperville, IL