“Fail Safe”, the movie, was not a creation of Hollywood, but a best-selling novel, made into the movie, and was also a play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail-Safe_%28novel%29
The book was serialized in three parts, and published in NY newspapers, DURING THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS!!!
And, yes, the author wrote the ‘blood for blood’, or ‘bomb for bomb’, scenario as you saw it in the movie.
And to think, as a GI’s kid, living on the airbase, the 6 by 6 general that visited the schools during that crisis told us not to pay any mind to the duck and cover, because it wouldn’t do us any good, being a defensive airbase. Just turn to the light, and it will be over in a flash.
“Go toward the light.”
Seriously, what else could you do? I remember seeing one of those duck-and-cover films, and I laughed. The one I remember, the one with some turtle, basically said that when The Bomb goes off a couple of house down, duck and cover and you’ll be fine.
Riiiiight.
My husband was a first grader in SC in the early 60’s and was told to get under the desk, do not look at the light. If strange people came in, took away the teacher and the flag, just do what the replacement teacher said. Funny thing, he lived in the center of a 100 mile diameter area that included Charleston nuclear sub base, the Atomic Energy Commission Savannah River site (where they made the bombs), Fort Jackson military training base, Shaw airforce base (Shaw took the photos of Cuba), and McEntire national guard base. He found out years later that the Russian bombs were so inaccurate that they sent numerous ones at each target. He still wonders where the strange people and the new teacher would have come from! LOL