October 1962. On the American radios passes the last hit of Elvis, Return your sender. Meanwhile, at the White House, John Kennedy has other concerns: the Soviet missiles destined for Cuba must also return to the sender. The young American president gave an ultimatum to Soviet number 1 Nikita Khrushchev to give up installing his missiles. The strategic forces are on alert. The whole world fears the nuclear apocalypse.
For the United States, the psychosis has been going on for years. Some TV ads even offer American families: “Build your own fallout shelter yourself!” It is true that if Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba, they are only 300 km from Miami in Florida. Suffice to say that they are at the end of the garden! Finally, the confrontation is avoided since the Soviets give up their project.
Two decades later, in the early 1980s, Europe was shaking. On French television, there is talk of another crisis: that of the “euromissiles” which is causing major demonstrations, particularly in West Germany. “It is in the Federal Republic of Germany, incontestably, that the peace movement has gained the most momentum”, we announced in the JT at the time. The USSR deployed SS20 missiles to the west of its territory. Within minutes, they can hit France, Great Britain, Spain… and first and foremost, West Germany.
To retaliate, NATO wants to implant American Pershing missiles in Europe, particularly in the FRG. In the German pacifist demonstrations, there are even young soldiers. “More and more soldiers think like me, I believe that soldiers are afraid of atomic war”, even confides one of them in the media. Faced with the nuclear threat, some young Germans chant: “Rather red than dead!” It is the appearance of a vast German anti-nuclear movement, which will last. In 1983, the singer Nena captured this anxiety-provoking climate in her most famous song, 99 Luftballoons.
The Euromissile crisis ended in 1987 with a treaty between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to dismantle intermediate-range weapons. Two years later, the Berlin Wall fell. Many in the West forget the nuclear threat…until today.