It was like corona virus but instead of a flu killing you, you were expected to be terrified that at any moment you would be nuked. A scared populace is an obedient populace.

Basically , we backed the wrong side in WW2 and spent the next 45 years dealing with the consequences

Getting under your desk in school to protect you from nuclear blasts. Krushchev banging his shoe on the podium at the U.N. on tv telling us they will bury us. Berlin Wall. 100’s of thousands of troops stationed in Europe. Patrolling the East-West German border flipping off GDR troops and them flipping you off. Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction. Chicoms supplying North Korea and North Viet Nam. American high school and college students running around with Mao’s Little Red Book. There’s more but I ran out of room. Oh yeah…the old fuckers running your government now were the ones back then trying to overthrow the the government. I think they won.

It was fabricated. An old BBC documentary showed the US side ("kill the commies") and the USSR side ("we love America!"). The Soviets interview in the street were normal nice people and wished Americans peace and prosperity, while the yanks reacted like hypnotised, violent freaks. So, it was entirely (edit: mostly) one-sided, and another psy-op to keep US citizens under control. And, yes, the BBC used to be decent.

edit: as an aside, you only have to watch Russian politics in action. Putin is thoughtful and reflective when he speaks, and even offers congratulations to the Americans when they make an achievement, or wishes them luck. American politicians (mostly) rave on like lunatics, or , like Obama, talk in circles without saying anything substantial at all.

After the massive industrial build up to supply the Allies for WW2 they had to find a way to keep the money train running thru the pentagon to the big corporations. Gotta build more bombers than the commies, gotta build better and more tanks, don't forget all the nuclear missiles and bombs. Build bases all over the world as staging points in case of war. Shit, don't forget we have to give all our 'allies' lots of weapons and training so the can help keep the commies at bay. The US tax payers don't mind.

During Vietnam it was common to see troops with "Kill a Commie for Christ" written on their helmets or body armor.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns-of-military-industrial-complex

Indeed.

We had these things on the rooftops of certain buildings all over town:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bPAjQYCAUw

One late afternoon, they all went off. It was not a test. Tests were always just one siren at a time. This was all of them.

The sound is unmistakable. You can feel the vibration in your bones inside your house.

We all knew we were to run for cover - but we all also if knew if a nuke was inbound, there would be no survivors.

People did not take cover. They came out on their porches and stood around staring at the neighbors.

It was like, oh well, I guess the party is over now.

15 minutes to the end of the world.

It can be summed up by something the US CIA Director William Colby observed. He was in Russia's Red Square when the Cold War officially ended. Their military presence and checkpoints disappeared and people just went about their business as if nothing ever happened. He couldn't believe he had devoted so much of his career fighting this thing that was basically an invented mirage.