Some of the history that follows was learned well after the events described had occurred.
Part I (during my childhood)
I was born in 1954 at the beginning of summer in Los Angeles, California. World War II was over. The Korean War ended in a ceasefire, and brighter days were ahead.
In 1962, I had an older sister, along with friends and cousins whom I regularly played with. I watched Soupy Sales after school while doing my homework, I read the funny papers every evening, played baseball in the summer, and rode my bike everywhere. In other words, I was a normal, eight-year-old American boy, who didn’t worry about life.
One of the few connections to the world beyond my neighborhood was the air raid siren test. These sirens were installed up and down the West Coast, including in Los Angeles during World War II and continued well into the Cold War. Their purpose was to warn us of a possible attack. During World War II they were supposed to warn us if the Japanese were about to commence an air attack. Later, they were there to warn us if nuclear missiles were incoming and about to destroy our world.
The sirens were tested at 10 AM on the last Friday of each month. The sound of these otherwise silent sentries, with their elongated rising and falling tones, struck me as painful wailing. Their only purpose: to notify us of approaching devastation. For many, their wailing would be one of the last things they ever heard.
When the sirens were tested during the school year, we students got under our desks and practiced “Duck and Cover.” This practice came from a civil defense film that used a cartoon character named Bert the Turtle, who would retreat into his shell at the first sign of trouble. The film explained how going to ground and covering your body could save you from a nuclear explosion.
As kids, we appreciated this break from the normal school routine, but the teachers, while not conveying global devastation, never allowed us to think the drill wasn’t serious.
Part II (1962 up to October 21, 1962)
Every morning, my father listened to the news on his transistor radio, which sat in an unobtrusive place on the kitchen table. Dad, an early riser, had this little radio as his sole companion in the quiet of the morning, giving him the news. Often, after Dad got home in the evening, he would listen to either the news or country music until dinner. Then he would turn the radio off, so we could eat and talk as a family.
During dinner, Mom and Dad often discussed the news of the day. I usually didn’t listen too closely since all I wanted was to eat fast, so I could go out and play. Even so, I was at least in a small way, up on the news. However, when it came to international news, I was never sure what they were talking about, but it reinforced what I already knew: the world is a big place.
One night during dinner, Dad talked about a man named Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion. Dad, a patriotic American, had fought in World War II. Dad said that Castro had turned the island nation of Cuba into a communist country. This made Dad suspicious of him. Dad also said this incident was no doubt related to what he had heard about the United States closing its embassy in Havana. He said that he didn’t think we were being told the whole story.
I knew nothing about the politics of Cuba. I knew where Cuba was from the globe on my desk, and could see how close it was to Florida, a mere 103 miles away. This geographical fact intrigued me to wonder who these people were. What were Cuban kids like? Did they enjoy school? Did they play baseball? Did their family sit down to dinner? But my wondering only lasted until I went out to play.
In the weeks and months following the Bay of Pigs invasion, the discussions of Castro and Cuba took a back seat with Mom and Dad. We went on with our lives, thinking that the Bay of Pigs invasion was behind us, and regarded it as nothing more than a small hiccup in the history of our country.
What none of us knew was that in the darker recesses of international relationships, things were beginning to rot. A little over a year after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Fidel Castro asked the Soviet Union’s leader, Nikita Khrushchev, for protection from the United States. Khrushchev agreed, but only if Castro would allow the installation of the USSR’s nuclear missile launch sites on Cuban soil. Castro agreed. Sometime after that, a US spy plane discovered Soviet missile sites under construction in Cuba.
As an eight-year-old American school kid who played baseball and rode my bike everywhere I went, I was aware of none of this, until…
Part III (October 22, 1962 to October 28, 1962)
On Monday, October 22, 1962, the school year was in full swing. Fall colors sprinkled our neighborhood, and Halloween was on its way. Life felt normal. Following dinner, at 7:00 PM, my sister, mother, and I were watching the news on television when the screen changed to a photo of the Seal of the President of the United States. This startled us. I thought this was probably an error at the station, not an uncommon occurrence back then. But there was no error. An announcer, in an anxious voice, said that the president had met with the National Security Council and congressional leaders and that the President’s address was of the “highest national urgency.” Dad remained at the kitchen table with his radio. We all went quiet and waited.
After a few anxious seconds, President Kennedy appeared on the television and there was an immediate and perceptible rise of uncertainty in our home. We listened as he laid it all out. He said that there was unmistakable evidence of Soviet offensive weapon missile sites that were under construction in Cuba. He said the missiles provided a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere. In response, he had ordered a quarantine to prevent military equipment from getting through to Cuba. But the most unsettling part of his message: if any nuclear missiles were launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, it would be regarded as an attack by the Soviets against the United States. This would be answered by a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.
When the president’s address ended, my parents looked at each other as if to say, “What do we do now?” Seeing them at a loss disoriented me. They always knew what to do. The look they shared told me that I should be afraid.
As a veteran, Dad knew more than the rest of us about war, its ugliness, its brutality. But he also knew weaponry had changed since then. This war might have no protracted battles. This war could be over as soon as the missiles were launched. We were defenseless against them. Ours was an unseen, powerful enemy. At my age, I could not comprehend fully what was happening.
October 23, 1962. The day after Kennedy’s announcement, kids went to school, fathers went to work, and moms stayed home and managed the households. Though it appeared to be just another beautiful fall day in Los Angeles, that was a facade. Just below the surface, foundations were crumbling. We did our tasks and searched the sky for the missiles that were sure to come. At school, kids talked about nothing other than Russia, Kennedy, Khrushchev, World War III, bomb shelters, and the deaths by the millions. Most of us went into a state of denial. It just didn’t seem real.
After school, after Soupy Sales, after homework, after Dad got home, and after dinner, we turned on Huntley-Brinkley to get the news, which was no better than the previous evening. The quarantine was being put into place, as numerous Russian ships headed for Cuba. Kennedy warned that all of these vessels would either stop and allow the United States Navy to board them for inspection or the ships would be fired upon.
Mom said, “My God, what is happening?” We like to believe we have a say in matters that affect us. We analyze the facts and plot the best course to take. But this time the facts were too monstrous, too insane to know where to begin. Mom and Dad turned to each other. They hugged a little more and for longer than normal.
October 24, 1962. The shock was wearing off. Maybe this was a simple resignation that we had to put our lives in the hands of two men, Kennedy and Khrushchev. We were counting on them to exercise good judgment. That evening, the President made another address to the nation. He explained that the quarantine was in place and that missile launch pads had been discovered on the island. While the shock wore off, fear remained.
Not long after the President’s address ended, neighbors began to knock at our door. Mom asked me to help her bring chairs into the living room. Eventually all our guests plus my mother sat, while others knelt. Many pulled out their rosaries. Everyone prayed. Nothing could have spoken louder about the gravity of what was happening.
October 25, 1962. The following day I don’t recall any news. The nation didn’t know until much later that at this point, some of the missiles were operational. Whether we knew it or not, we assumed the missiles were poised and ready.
We sat for dinner and ate in silence. Tension weighed on us, the only sound was the occasional knocking and scraping of silverware against ceramic plates, loud while the world was quiet. Then, amid our silence, at a moment when Mom and Dad both loaded their forks for another bite, the air raid siren sounded.
Our parents froze, forks in hands and looked at each other, each wearing a similar expression that said: Well, this is it. As many times as I heard that siren scream, it was never more profound than at that moment.
I was glued to my chair with indescribable fear. My sister stayed seated as well. I called out, “Mom? Dad?” My body felt like a live wire thrumming with electricity. The siren kept wailing.
Did I start to cry? Maybe. Did my sister? We sat and waited for it to happen. But then, when I thought it would never stop, the siren wound down, as if it too was exhausted. Silence again.
We all took a breath or two before Dad turned on his radio and found the news station. Eventually, the newscaster reported that for those of us who heard the siren, it was an accidental activation.
During the next few days, we heard a report of a Soviet freighter stopped at the quarantine line and searched for contraband. None was found. It was allowed to pass. A United States low-altitude reconnaissance plane was shot down with a Soviet missile. The pilot was killed. Cooler heads prevailed, and there was no retaliation.
October 28, 1962. The last day of the crisis. The newscaster reported that all the Soviet ships elected to respect the quarantine. All turned away. The crisis was over, but the naval quarantine continued until the Soviets agreed to remove their bombers and missiles from Cuba. On November 20, 1962, the United States ended its quarantine.
Part IV (the aftermath)
Life is a funny thing. You just never know when your world will be turned upside down. At eight years old, I thought the Russians were a mysterious people who used a strange alphabet and lived in a huge, cold country that was far enough away that I never had to think about them very much. But on October 22, 1962, at 7:00 PM, I learned that some of these people hated us and wished us dead. On that day, I became aware that my safe little world of bike riding, Soupy Sales, and baseball was gone, and in its place loomed a dangerous new world. A darkly colored world full of primal fear and mistrust, and sadly, that fear and wariness has never left me.
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Jon Beight lives and works in South Carolina. Over the last 12 years, his fiction and photography have been published in Literally Stories, Typehouse, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Fiction on the Web, and other fine magazines.
© 2024, Jon Beight
Halfway Down the Stairs 