The Theat of Nuclear Annihilation in 1980s Britain

[Beach Hut]

Nuclear war was only fuelled by Reaganomics, as stated IRA were the main threat

 

[dougdeep]

Was the OP alive at this time?

 

[daveinprague]

I live round the corner from a former Soviet bunker at the moment haha.
http://www.dw.de/the-czech-republic-clubbing-in-a-nuclear-bunker-in-prague/a-2796745

There was some false alert incident in 1979 which could have ended badly
for the world.

http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2012...-nuclear-missile-attack-on-the-united-states/

 

[Buzzer]

How strange. I was only thinking about this today. I was listening to the Eurythmics soundtrack to the film: 1984 and its bleakness reminded me of those times. There was a TV play set in Wales post-apocalypse and because of natural geography the area had escaped poisoning. It was memorable because some bloke showed his willy.

Neun und neunzig luftballon and armpit hair on women. It was a very odd time to grow up in.

 

[Hillian1]

The film The Day After shit the life out of me.

 

[Paskman]

I think that there was a general background fear of nuclear annihilation from the 1950s through to the end of the 1980s when the wall came down. Your age is key to your perception of when we were most in danger, it is when you are a teenager that you first become aware of such things and that first awareness creates a deep impression. History will show, that the early 60s were probably the most dangerous, but the 50s had their moments (the Russians threatened Armageddon over Suez) and there were concerns over the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. There was also the ever present dangers of accidents, of which we were not aware at the times they occurred. A good pointer to all the fears are movies; through the alien (read Russian) invasion films of the 50s - Invasion of the Body Snatchers etc, to Threads in the 1980s the fear was always there- though I have to say I preferred the 50s films! I expect the teenagers of the 00s will discuss the fears of Islamic extremist terrorism in the same terms 20 years from now.........

 

[somerset]

I think the peak of 'nuclear' paranoia was definitely the early 60's, the Cuban crisis, the Bay of pigs, the Berlin Wall. The only real potential escalation in the 80's was Reagan's 'Star Wars' project and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, neither led to any major threat of global conflict over and above what was the general simmering of the East/West divide in central Europe, the IRA and the Falklands were dominating during that 80's period, in this country at least.

 

[WATFORD zero]

The early 80s threat was from the IRA and in 82, from the Argentinians, although that was dealt with within 6 weeks.

The Argentinians were going to nuke us and cause Armageddon ?

 

[somerset]

In London, in October 1983, more than 300,000 people assembled in Hyde Park as part of the largest protest against nuclear weapons in British history.

Yes, but that only illustrates a more informed and empowered society taking every chance to voice concerns over the existence of nuclear weapons, there was no real incidence of actual escalation to the point they might be used, at least nothing that was in the public domain of the time. CND was very active through the 70's and 80's.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

Nuclear war was only fuelled by Reaganomics, as stated IRA were the main threat

About as historically inaccurate as anything I've seen on here.

East-West relations deteriorated towards the end of the 1970s and reached its nadir between the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the accession of Gorbachev in 1985, with September 1983 being the closest the world got to nuclear war since the Cuban Crisis of 1962 - the difference this time was it was all played out behind closed doors. The British had agreed to store cruise missiles at bases for the Americans in 1979 (They arrived in 1983) which automatically made the country a target should war ever break out - they certainly weren't going to be used to blow Ireland out of the water. You should also remember that the Soviet regime was increasingly paranoid due to a succession of geriatric and short lived leaders whilst the newly elected Reagan administration set off on a course away from the detente of the early 1970s which only caused to exacerbate the Soviet paranoia - hence their penchant for blowing Korean airliners out of the sky.

 

[vegster]

I was in my car at 2 am off fishing the other day and 5Live were talking to an American author of a book detailing close shaves with their own missiles. It seems that one of the main U.S. strike bombers was regarded as unsafe to carry nuclear bombs over the U.S. However, it was regarded as ok by the authorities to fly them in and out of the UK. The author told some horrifying tales of maintenance errors and rank stupidity. Frankly, we were often closer to blowing ourselves up and starting the apocalypse than the Russians.

 

[Flex Your Head]

The film The Day After shit the life out of me.

Jeez, yeah; me too.

The attack scene from Threads was pretty scary too:



I'm not saying that the nation as a whole ran around as if the world was about to end, but for quite a long time, it felt like a question of 'when', not 'if'.
Maybe that was down to my active teenage imagination and a diet of Crass, hardcore punk and going on protest marches about everything from vivisection and whaling to anti-racism and anti-nukes.
Pretty much every band I listened to had a song called Protest and Survive and a nuclear mushroom cloud somehere in their artwork

think we felt it was more likely than not that a nuclear missile would be fired

Exactly that. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan in the run up to Christmas 1979, there were several jokes made on the TV about it being 'our last christmas', and 'New year's resolutions... assuming we're still all here' - that sort of thing.

 

[DumLum]

Yes, but that only illustrates a more informed and empowered society taking every chance to voice concerns over the existence of nuclear weapons, there was no real incidence of actual escalation to the point they might be used, at least nothing that was in the public domain of the time. CND was very active through the 70's and 80's.

As a schoolboy during this time I paid a lot of attention to the news as I didn't really want to be melted down to a shadow (Thank you messing up my head public information adverts).

How do you know there was no escalation? Do you not remember the USSR shooting down a South-Korean Passenger flight? That must have moved the U.S up a "defcon"?

The scariest moments of my childhood were when Hove tested their Air-raid sirens. I pretty much couldn't breath for four minutes and just watched the clock, willing the minute hand to make it.

 

[daveinprague]

The incident in 1979, where the US national defence computer reacted to mistakenly placed execise scenario on the commputer, and the USA thought it was within a few minutes of destructon with over 2200 soviet missiles on the way is a bit disturbing. We could have been annhilated with no idea why.

 

[Paskman]

About as historically inaccurate as anything I've seen on here.

East-West relations deteriorated towards the end of the 1970s and reached its nadir between the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the accession of Gorbachev in 1985, with September 1983 being the closest the world got to nuclear war since the Cuban Crisis of 1962 - the difference this time was it was all played out behind closed doors. The British had agreed to store cruise missiles at bases for the Americans in 1979 (They arrived in 1983) which automatically made the country a target should war ever break out - they certainly weren't going to be used to blow Ireland out of the water. You should also remember that the Soviet regime was increasingly paranoid due to a succession of geriatric and short lived leaders whilst the newly elected Reagan administration set off on a course away from the detente of the early 1970s which only caused to exacerbate the Soviet paranoia - hence their penchant for blowing Korean airliners out of the sky.

So we weren't a target before the cruise missiles arrived? Get real!

 

[somerset]

How do you know there was no escalation?

.... try and read the next bit of my post,.... "at least nothing that was in the public domain of the time.".... better now?, your post is dealing in ifs and maybes,..... the early 60's was a reality, there for the world to see.

 

[Flex Your Head]

As a schoolboy during this time I paid a lot of attention to the news as I didn't really want to be melted down to a shadow (Thank you messing up my head public information adverts).

Ha! And I was critically aware that I should never look at the blast of a nuclear explosion as my eyes would instantly melt!

 

[DumLum]

Somerset:.... try and read the next bit of my post,.... "at least nothing that was in the public domain of the time.".... better now?, your post is dealing in ifs and maybes,..... the early 60's was a reality, there for the world to see.


The south Korean passenger plane getting shot down wasn't in the public domain? I was a schoolboy and could work out it would do nothing positive for east-west relations.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

So we weren't a target before the cruise missiles arrived? Get real!

Well done for the misinterpretation. I never said we weren't, having missiles on our shores removed any doubts that we were going to be a target

 

[daveinprague]

I knew in the 70s when in the RN, that ports along the southcoast, Newhaven, Shoreham, Portsmouth, Southampton etc, were all on the Soviet target list.