The Eve of Destruction, Then and Now

By Bruce Handy/Glynis Sweeny

Was it only 40 years ago that the world hovered on the brink of nuclear war? As the Cuban missile crisis came to a head during the last week of October 1962, TIME reported that housewives were stockpiling groceries in anticipation of Armageddon...

Scary? You bet! But at the same time, many U.S. citizens thought a confrontation with Cuba and its Soviet allies was long overdue. Some even relished it.

It didn't take long for people to find silver linings in the threat of imminent global holocaust.

With midterm elections only two weeks away, politicians tried to spin the crisis. The G.O.P. "charged that the timing was political and aimed at preventing a Democratic debacle," according to TIME, while in New York the Democratic candidate for Governor attacked the incumbent as soft on fallout-shelter building.

Civilization may have hung in the balance, but you couldn't stifle the American spirit. As TIME noted, "Even the Cubancrisis ... hardly diminished the excitement of the 44thNational Automobile Show."

Today America faces new challenges but with the same determination to find the upside in anxiety.