'...and the other guy just blinked'

Saturday, Oct. 27, 1962 is described by James Hershberg, a professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University, as "...the most dangerous day in human history." (http://www.theworld.org/2012/10/cuban-missile-crisis/) And, as a 17-year-old high school senior at the time, I felt I had something of a front-row seat to the history-making events of that day.<br /> <br /> You see, that is the day, 50 years ago today, that the Cuban Missile Crisis came to a head.<br /> <br /> I had been working my first ever radio job at WMTM in my hometown of Moultrie, Georgia, for some time, and in the days leading up to that late autumn day, I, like most Americans and the rest of the world, had been closely following the building tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. At issue was the discovery by a U.S. spy plane of Russian missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the tip of Florida.<br /> <br /> As tensions grew, the management of WMTM began briefing those of us who worked on-the-air shifts on the procedures to follow should the inevitable happen - the launch by either side or both of nuclear missiles. At the time, key radio stations broadcasting on the 640 and 1240 AM frequencies were designated to handle emergency broadcasts in time of a national emergency. Other stations, such as WMTM whose dial location was 1300, were - if word of a national emergency came - to instruct their listeners to tune to either 640 or 1240 for for further information and go off the air. Television stations were under the same orders as were all FM stations.<br /> <br /> So, I reported to work about noon that Saturday just as I had been doing for several months but this time with a sense of foreboding - having left home not knowing what the next few hours would bring but sensing that a nuclear holocaust and, perhaps, the end of mankind was not out of the question.<br /> <br /> I don't recall the timeline but the crisis eased considerably sometime that day or night and within days some semblance of order was restored to the world and we all breathed a sigh of relief.<br /> <br /> As Secretary of State Dean Rusk had said a few days earlier when several Soviet ships were stopped en route to Cuba by the U.S. Naval blockade that had been imposed by President John F. Kennedy: "We were eyeball to eyeball and the other guy just blinked." (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090507170256AA0B9Gz)<br /> <br /> <I>(Ken Stanford is a Contributing Editor and the retired longtime News Director for WDUN, WDUN-FM, 1240 ESPN Radio and AccessNorthGa.com.<I/>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2012/10/254558