October Fright

It was the scary part of the year, when ghosts and goblins, witches and spirits roamed the evenings of October. We’d spend the last half of the month trying to decide what we would be on All Hallow’s Eve. The girls might be witches or princesses, or Barbie, or a prima ballerina all dressed in white. Boys would be vampires or Frankenstein’s monster, or ghosts or soldiers all clad in green.
Would we fool the neighbors when we visited their homes? Would they identify us, or would we trick as well as treat? Would they see through our bluff as we stood facing them in their living rooms and hallways, and would we frighten them when we came knocking at their door?
Just a few days before Halloween in 1961, on October 27, the Communists in East Germany would play a guessing game of their own. They were stopping our diplomats and searching their papers, checking for their identities and making a scene. That real-life goblin, Nikita Kruschev, was still threatening to blow us all up with H-bombs, all the while talking about peaceful co-existence with the non-communist world.
There was a lot of tension in Berlin, and American troops were on the alert, waiting for something to happen. Russian tanks appeared at Checkpoint Charlie, just yards away from the border line between East and West Berlin. American tanks were rushed to the scene, and a face off began and the world would begin to wonder if this was the beginning of the end.
The tanks would sit and we all worried. Would some nervous young soldier accidentally pull the trigger and set off World War III? Would H-bombs and missiles fall just because some government officials were insulted by being asked who they were?
The hours ticked by and the diplomats talked and the tanks stood ready to answer the call to war. Somehow Halloween didn’t seem all that important right now; running around like ghosts and ghouls didn’t hold the same appeal.
On October 28th, the tanks began to back up a few feet at a time, until they were all back at their bases, and the crisis was over. The world had missed a bullet one more time.
We could go back to planning our night of fun, hoping to haul in the biggest bags of candy ever.
The Russians weren’t finished; they had one more trick up their sleeve. On the morning of October 30th, they set off a 50 megaton hydrogen bomb, the biggest nuclear weapon ever built. It contained more power than all of the explosives used in World War II. They called it the King of Bombs, or Tsar Bomba. Krushev told us that this bomb would show the world who was boss. The Tsar Bomba was so powerful that its fireball touched the earth and almost reached the plane it was dropped from. It would destroy everything in its path, and there was a fear that it would destroy the Russian bomber and its crew along with it. What of the fallout? How much nuclear radiation would be spread all over the world from just one bomb? Duck and cover? You’ve got to be kidding!
Did Krushev know about Mischief Night? Was this his way of t-papering the world? Soaping windows and “egging” cars; flaming bags of dog-poo and ringing doorbells couldn’t stand up to bombs that could destroy everything.
So what to choose for Halloween in 1961?
What to wear and what to be?
How can you scare your neighbors and friends,
When the end of the world can be seen?