Running head: COLD WAR AND COMMUNISM

Cold War and Communism

Jamie Erwin
HIS/135
December 6, 2015
Professor Sheri Manley

COLD WAR AND COMMUNISM

Cold War and Communism

I cannot nor do I ever want to be in a situation where I have to worry about being in a
nuclear war. With the issues we face today such as bombing and mass shootings, I am already in
fear for myself and my children every day. Not knowing what could happen by simply sending
them to school for the day. I believe back when the threat of nuclear war was so real it must have
been hell for people daily. After reading so different materials on the Cold War and Communism
I wanted to talk to someone who actually lived through it, so I called my grandfather, who fought
in WWII. I was amazing the things I learned.
In the late 1940s, the Soviets tested their first atom bomb, China became a Communist
country and Americans began to fear that nuclear war and Communist taking over the United
States were genuine possibilities. Schoolchildren practiced exercises like the "duck and cover"
and air raid drills. Civil Defense signs were affixed to buildings designated as fallout shelters.
Television programs were interrupted by tests of the Emergency Broadcast System, reminding
viewers that in the event of an actual emergency they would be instructed where to go. Families
dug out bomb shelters in their backyards and filled them with non-perishable foods. I know some
people who are in fear of an upcoming WWIII, so they are prepping that same way.
I know the reality of any nuclear detonation or act of terrorism in a conflict between
countries would be a horrific cataclysm, in nuclear war there is always great loss of life. In the
current war of narcissism and terrorism lives are lost, but nothing like the vast number that
would be lost in a nuclear bomb.