text: @steveketola
  No, the difference between the 1950s & the 1980s were that in the 80s both sides (USSR & USA) were speaking to each other (START & SALT treaties),  & neither was eager to push the button.  The actors on each side understood how vast the devastation would be if thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles were launched.  In the 1950s, I would say instead that people were more afraid of it actually happening, & were therefore trying to figure out how to survive.  I might have had a chance of dying in any 20-minute period in the 1980s, but it was a very, very small chance.  Why make preparations for a highly unlikely event?  People on the west coast don't just say when the big one (earthquake) hits, I'll just calmly die, they prepare as they know it is likely to happen & desire to survive.  As for the Greenham Common & similar groups, their stance was unilateral nuclear disarmament as the only strategy for survival.  I'm still here so they were wrong.  My contempt for them remains.