As I read Kathy Westra Stephens’ Maine Voices column (“On political brinksmanship, childhood terrors and real dangers,” Oct. 19, Page A4), I recalled the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the effect it had on my family of five.

An Allied war correspondent stands amid the ruins of Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, just weeks after the city was leveled by an atomic bomb. Associated Press, File

I was an impressionable 12-year-old and listened to the news, as well as my parents’ reactions to this news. My dad, in his wish to protect his family, had a bomb shelter built. I remember tiptoeing down the stairs to the basement (why did I need to be so quiet?) and seeing all the canned goods and counting a three-bed bunk. A family of five? Three bunks? What was the plan? I scanned the skies for bombers. I remember, too, Kathy.

But wait a minute. “Historians believe this is the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. So far.” is not accurate. Let’s not forget that the United States is the only country to have launched a nuclear strike on Hiroshima (80,000 killed) and Nagasaki (40,000 killed), ending World War II with the Japanese surrender. And, yes, it did save many Allied soldiers’ lives, but it can be argued that it was also President Harry S. Truman’s wish to use the N-bomb to show the Soviets we had developed this powerful weapon and we would use it if “necessary.”

Richard Kaye-Schiess
Shapleigh