The anxiety over potential new terrorist attacks and fears about bioterrorism summon images of the last time Americans felt so vulnerable — October 1962.

        The United States and the Soviet Union stood at the brink of nuclear war over “the missiles of October” — offensive nuclear missiles placed on the island of Cuba, 90 miles from U.S. shores.

David Mann served on the USS English, which was part of the blockade of Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis. He recalls “three days of abject fear and 30 days of boredom.” (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        Across the Tristate, people were struck with fear. They felt vulnerable to the worst kind of attack.

        They asked what buildings they could take refuge in once the attack began. They anxiously tried to decide what were the best escape routes out of the city.

        A map depicted Cincinnati within a “Death Circle.”

        “It scared the bejeebers out of everybody,” said Dr. Zane Miller, a retired University of Cincinnati history professor. “That was really scary. Nuclear war would have done us all in.”

        The Cuban Missile Crisis came at the height of the Cold War, the last time the United States felt so vulnerable to attack.

        “I think a lot of people were edgy because they didn't know,” said John Wolber, a World War II veteran who lives in Green Township. “Those were scary times because you didn't know the mind-set of the communists.”

        When President Kennedy addressed the nation on Oct. 22, saying the U.S. was setting up a naval blockade of Cuba to turn back any Soviet ships heading for Cuba, the country held its breath.

        Newspaper stories and headlines warned that Soviet ships failing to halt would be sunk; the Soviet Union was told that any missiles fired from Cuba would mean a retaliatory U.S. strike directly against the Soviet Union.

        Between Oct. 22, 1962, and Sept. 11, 2001, the geopolitics is entirely different, but the psychology of fear is similar.

        Yet, there are no indelible images from the missile crisis; there are practically no lasting images at all. No planes slicing into buildings, no bloom of flame. No mass of humanity scurrying for cover. Just the imagined hot, white flash of a nuclear strike.

        “The qualitative difference, of course, is we knew who the threat was in 1962,” said Dr. Richard Harknett, a University of Cincinnati political science professor whose expertise includes international relations and nuclear weapons issues.

        “The nuclear element created a disincentive for war. We were engaged in a strategy of deterrence, and an assumption the Soviets were as aware of the consequences of war as we were. The possibility of nuclear war molded, shaped and constrained both Kennedy and Khrushchev.”

        No missiles were fired. No one died. The Cuban Missile Crisis was short-lived — just six days from the time President Kennedy announced the quarantine to the Soviets agreeing to dismantle the weapons.

        David Mann, former Cincinnati mayor and U.S. congressman, recalls three of those days. He was 23, serving on the USS English, a destroyer in the blockade.

        “It was three days of abject fear and 30 days of boredom,” recalled Mr. Mann. “There's excitement and a sense of anxiety. But there's also a sense of adventure. So my experience was quite different from the experience of those back home. We were occupied with our mission and with what we were doing.”        

Pervasive threats

        As mind-boggling as the thought of nuclear war, what happened Sept. 11 and after may be even more pernicious. The enemy is not a country. Dr. Miller said this stretches out the anxiety.

        “It's insidious in the sense that you don't know where it's going to happen,” said Dr. Miller, who was on his way from Chicago to Cincinnati in October 1962 to research his book Boss Cox's Cincinnati and had stopped in St. Mary's, Ohio, on Oct. 22.

        “So it's kind of haunting. The missile crisis was a shock and a deep fear that lasted until it was suddenly over. Then there was enormous relief. It was over.”

        Some, Dr. Harknett among them, believe the threat now is more pervasive. Regardless of the U.S. military might, “it could happen anywhere at any time,” said Dr. Harknett.

        Don Maccarone, director of the Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency, was only 12 years old in 1962. His late father, Liore Maccarone, was then head of the county Civil Defense agency, the forerunner of EMA.

        “The emphasis back then was preparing the nation for a potential nuclear attack,” Mr. Maccarone said. “But not until what happened Sept. 11 do I think the public had a heightened sense that the mainland was potentially vulnerable to some type of attack.

        “Since you couldn't necessarily prevent the delivery of those types of weapons, the whole creation of the civil defense program was to provide shelter and protection for the entire country. The best you could do was be in a react mode.”

        More than 1,300 buildings in Hamilton County were identified as possible shelters from attack; 720 met minimum requirements. Those buildings could accommodate 570,000 people.

        They would have 10 square feet each. Engineering firms estimated the capacity of several buildings. Carew Tower and Netherland Hilton Hotel could take 50,000. More than 44,000 could squeeze into the Courthouse. Cincinnati City Hall, a dozen city firehouses, a police station, the Workhouse, the city's prison, and even the city's abandoned subway system were identified as shelters.

        Civil Defense compiled a list of 25 contractors who could build private fallout shelters. Those who did kept it to themselves; their shelters were built for families, not whole neighborhoods looking for refuge.

        Dr. Norman Barry, a psychology professor at Xavier University, said the missile crisis “caused anxiety because it was one of the few times that this country has ever been physically threatened. The threat of nuclear holocaust was there.”

        But now the fear seems more pervasive, Dr. Barry suggested. The thought of a water supply being tampered with, or food, or mail, the avoidance of some travel and large events. Even something as benign as crop dusters begin to look menacing.

        “Now, for a lot of people, they're looking over their shoulder,” said Dr. Barry. “What's going to happen next? What can happen? There's anxiety, and it's realistic anxiety.”
       

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