OH+Interview

How was being raised during the cold war different than it is now? Not much different in many ways because there was always the potential of war with the Communists in the Soviet Union just like there is worry today about being attacked by disgruntled people from the Middle East. Not long after WWII, America went into an extended defensive mode that impacted most everyone. Even in small towns people volunteered time to sit in watchtowers usually located up on the roof of a taller building to watch for enemy planes. This happened because radar wasn’t completely effective yet and there was concern by our government that the Russians might try to attack. Life went on pretty normally but there was always talk of the potential of conflict with the Russians. Eventually radar became more sophisticated and the watchtower thing was abandoned. The news media always kept people aware that we were in a cold war. On a daily basis however, like today, we went about life in a normal manner.

How was the competition with the Soviets portrayed in the media? They were always the bad guys trying to overtake America and the West. It caused the government to sponsor education programs that gave emphasis to science and math to compete with the Soviet Union. The National Defense Education Act was one of those programs. The goal was to always push us to stay ahead of the Soviets on all fronts. Space was a big thing as they had the first satellite and we needed to catch up. The first year I taught (1957) I took a group of students to Kansas City for a Future Farmers of America convention in October and we stayed in Chicago for a couple of days. We heard the beeping of the new Soviet satellite Sputnik as it orbited when we visited the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

Do you have any specific recollections of events relating to the Cold War? Military bases were in operation all over the state of Michigan to support our countries’ efforts to defend America. Concern existed that the Soviets would attack from over the North Pole so a number of northern states had big military bases. Michigan had a big B-52 bomber base near Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Peninsula. I visited that base. Many of my friends were drafted into the military service during the Cold War period. Military service was not voluntary. I had a deferment because I was in college and then taught school, which was given special treatment due to the shortage of teachers. I took Air Force ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) in college, which was mandatory for all men at Michigan State University for the first two years of college. They always talked a lot about competition with the Soviet Union in ROTC. I remember the Russian Premier Khrushchev coming to the United Nations in New York and pounding his shoe on the podium to make a point during a speech. It got lots of media attention.

How did feel when the Berlin Wall came down? It was a fitting end to a long period of strained relations between the Soviet Union and the entire Western world. Everyone was glad to have the entire thing behind us. It was a big victory as freedom and democracy had won over a totalitarian regime. While the cold war wasn’t very personal on an every day basis toward the end and life went on as usual, it was always there to contend with much like we live from day to day now wondering if extremists will strike America again. Most of my life has been lived this way due to one hot war after another (WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War), the long stretch of cold war followed now by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will humans ever be able to live together peacefully? If history is any help in predicting, it doesn’t look too promising.
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