Cristina Castro

Kennedy states that citizens who weren’t hit by a bomb or fire would probably live. Even if a nuclear bomb or fire didn’t hit directly at a certain city or state, would there still be a ripple effect going through the untouched cities or would those cities be totally safe? Does this go in hand with what Harold Urey noted, “atomic bombs don’t land in the next block, leaving survivors to thank their lucky stars and…to hope the next bomb will also miss them?” and Val Patterson’s “the best way to be alive when an atomic bomb goes off in your neighborhood is not to be there. Was nobody safe because the whole world was in fact a battle field and civilians were also becoming a major part of the war?

Nuclear age brought about a type of apocalyptic writing. Civilians were considering taking several precautions such as building fallout shelters, stocking up on food for their families, and were even thinking of whether they had to go against their neighbors just to protect their own and some were speaking of the possible end of mankind. Is the scare of the new millennium when people thought that come the year 2000 the world was going to end similar to this and is the same thing going to happen because some peoples belief that the end will be in 2012? Could this be an ongoing thing where people begin to panic in the beginning because they believe that the world is going to come to an en end without notice, but then go on with their lives as the scare wears off and everything settles down?

Why were spectators allowed at the site when the silos were being destroyed, and why did the author have to ask for permission to go to the site of the Missile Site Radar (Nixon’s Pyramid) and the Cavalier Air Force Base? Weren’t the silos more dangerous because they let out different fumes when they were destroyed? Or was there something different going on in the pyramid and trapezoid building that had to be closely monitored? And why were some of the Cold War sites preserved or turned into tourist sites and others left forgotten to be used by anyone without knowing that the site was a part of history?