Cold War Blues
The Cold War seemed to provoke philosophical thoughts among civilians, as well as military people. One very pretty girl in our 1961 A-level maths class, at the height of public awareness of Fylingdales, BMEWS etc., said “if we have one of these Four Minute Warnings and it turns out to be a false alarm, some of us girls are going to look pretty stupid, aren’t we?”
For me it was one of the most profound statements of the Cold War. Perhaps it explains the rest of the swinging 1960s and a few other changes that seem to have started from about that time.