uban Missile Crisis, the Soviets were positioned to launch a first strike with little or no warning? If the subs were as silent and deadly as they seemed, then at the very least, the Soviets would have matched the United States in creating a second-strike capability, a way to punch back if all their land missiles and bombers were destroyed (Sontag, 173) There were many other things that Naval Intelligence was able to find out about the Soviets, driving the fear of Soviet attack even deeper into Americas heart. For instance, they found that the Soviets had placed their Delta ballistic missiles out of reach of the U.S., but just a straight shot away from Washington D.C. (Sontag, 295) When this occurred, naval leaders began to be confused as to what the Soviets were planning. American planners had believed that the Soviet Navy was bent on challenging the United States on the high seasNow it seemed that the Soviets might be doing a strategic about-face and, in the process, knocking over a cornerstone of U.S. nuclear strategy. (Sontag, 296) And of course, lack of knowledge often causes immense fear.Weve looked at just how scared the Americans were of the Soviets. But one must take pause to look at what we were doing to combat that fear. One must look at what the Soviets might have been feeling in order to understand their actions. When the Cold War began, it was the fear of communism that swept the U.S. as opposed to the fear of Russia. It wasnt until Russia started attacking neighboring countries and instilling Soviet governments that American fear of Russia itself came about. Russia felt justified in these takeovers because they needed to feel protected from the ruthless capitalism of the west. The first thing America did was to try and infiltrate Russian intelligence with spies. Russia combated that with sending her own spies. America had to find a way to infiltrate Russian intelligence in a way never before used. It was that need for ste...
