Imagine a world where Fidel Castro was able to fire the Russian nuclear missiles based on Cuba which is only 90 miles off America’s coast. Suppose 40 missiles struck America, destroying many of the country’s greatest cities. New York City, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Dallas and Miami are destroyed by 2 megaton warheads. The surprise attack caught America by surprise. Imagine the world if the 1960s as we knew it didn’t happen. The attack on America caused a short nuclear Third World War, one that nearly destroyed Europe. The young charismatic President Kennedy’s promise of Camlet was vaporized with the destruction of America’s capital.
America’s financial and transportation centers disappeared under the nuclear mushroom clouds. President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade faded as the task of rebuilding the cities took priority over everything else.
Lyndon Johnson’s social programs disappeared in the nuclear flashes. The ‘pill’ wasn’t developed, meaning the sexual revolution didn’t happen. The Vietnam War didn’t lead to campus protests and tens of thousands of anti-government protests.
Most of Europe was destroyed in the brief nuclear war between West and East. Hence the change in the music industry known as the “British Invasion†never happened. The Space race and moon landing didn’t happen; the technological spin offs were delayed for many years. The resulting technology was delayed for many years, in cases decades. The internet was delayed for decades, as was the development of the personal computer. Millions of people died in the third world war, the shortest war in history which lasted only two days, October 23~24, 1962. A war that changed the face of the world.
The following story begins with the events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis and then veers into what might have been had the missiles on Cuba been launched. It covers the time from October 1962 to November 1964.