10. The aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis included a lengthy arms race
The US nuclear arsenal contained a vastly larger collection of tactical and strategic weapons in 1962. The Soviets used the following years to catch up, triggering an arms race, a feature of the Cold War. In the United States, personal fallout shelters became popular consumer items. In 1961, a letter from President Kennedy advising the use of personal fallout shelters appeared in Life Magazine. The Cuban Missile Crisis sparked a boost in the sales of personal fallout shelters in the United States, which surpassed the sales rates of the preceding decade, when they first appeared. The idea of surviving nuclear war to emerge in a greatly changed society at first appealed to thousands.
By 1964, the idea of surviving nuclear war began to subside, as did the appeal of doing so to many. Post-apocalyptic novels, films, and television programs presented a society fraught with perils and suffering. More and more Americans came to believe that a nuclear war meant the end of life on earth, as other nations joined the list of nations stockpiling nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to targets around the world. In 1960 France joined the nuclear weapons club, followed by Communist China in 1964. India detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1974; Pakistan in 1998, and it became widely believed Israel held nuclear weapons, though the exact date of procurement is unknown. By the mid-1970s, nuclear war was considered the greatest threat to humanity’s survival.