OralHistory+questions+&+answers

How old were you when you first heard of the cold war? Where were you living at the time? In my late teens during the pinnacleCold War and we were living in Massachusetts.

Did you have to practice any air raid drills anytime during the Cold War? Did you have access to a fall-out shelter? Yes, we did. We had to practice. We used to have to get under furniture at home and the kids had to do the same thing at school to hide in case there was a bomb going off. We had to get away from all the windows and hide to protect ourselves in case. People were building air raid shelters and they were stalking them with food and water. They were built out of cement so in case a bomb came then they could run in there and hide. Air raid shelters were the thing to have back then.

What do you recall about the assassination of JFK? I was in my house and I was serving lunch to my kids and it came onto the tv set. It said that he was shot and it showed everything on tv that was going on. The police were chasing the man who assassinated Kennedy and I remember when he ran in to a movie theatre. I remember seeing Jackie Kennedy on tv after her husband was shot. It was awful.

What was it like to watch the first man on the moon? I had all my kids lined up in front of the tv, like in a movie theatre. I told them, "You're not going to remember seeing this but watch it anyway." I remember hearing Armstrong saying "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." They put the flag in and it was waving and it was just incredible. Who would have thought that they would walk on the moon? It was a great time for Americans.

What do you remember about the McCarthy hearings? I remember them well. They were accusing all these movie stars. It was an awful time. The ones who were accused could not get jobs because they were blacklisted.

How did you feel about the events of the Cold War? Were you ever afraid? No, the only thing I was scared was that the communists were going to drop a bomb on us.

Is there any specific event that stands out? Crushav came to the UN in America. He was a short little guy and he took off his shoe and he said, "I'm going to bury America." He pounded his shoe on the table and went on, "If I don't make all of you communists, all your children will all be communists." I also remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. The end of the Cold war was when Reagan said to Crushav "bring down the wall." The symbol of the end was really the falling of the wall.