The Fire of the Gods: Oppenheimer's Legacy - The Evolutionary History of Nuclear Age - Part II - 1960 to 1970 - The Dangerous Decade / The Fire of the Gods (ePub)

Part 2 of this series analyses as to how, after the transition from nuclear to the thermonuclear weapons, the focus across superpowers shifted towards miniaturization of nuclear warheads and development of novel and difficult to detect & track strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (SNDVs), which witnessed the emergence of ICBMs and SLBMs, after nuclear-tipped torpedoes, thereby, further increasing the risks of nuclear warfare manifold while also reducing the reaction times considerably. The same was underscored by the 1962's Cuba Missile Crisis with the world having almost, nearly reached a nuclear apocalypse with the end of civilization being just seconds away. The recently declassified documents unravel as to how dangerously close the world had come to the verge of that. However, it paved the way for realization of the need for mutual cooperation and multiple treaties to check dangerous nuclear escalations, atmospheric testing & further proliferation.

The detonation of a nuclear weapon by China, a developing nation, in 1964 marked the onset of the nuclear weapons age in Asia, further underscoring the need to check nuclear proliferation which ultimately led to the creation of the NPT regime. However, unabated development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems across both sides had ensured, by the end of the highly dangerous decade of 1960s, that thousands of megatons-worth of thermonuclear warheads were deployed atop ICBMs and SLBMs by the two superpowers, capable of and just a single misudgement & miscalculation away from annihilating each other , as well as Earth, many times over in just a matter of minutes...the critical minutes to midnight which were critical and were to make the ultimate difference between the continued sustenance of life and the end of civilization on Planet Earth forever...

In hindsight, it's purely a miracle that mankind survived that Nuclear Sword of Damocles for decades..