My Dad, who did electronics for the USN, had just finished TDY at Gitmo before the crisis, and he told me before he died that all the necessary preparations for nuclear war were in place and he was on 24hr call to go back to Gitmo to be a part of the opening salvo operations, knowing he would die and hoping we would not.
Other statements here about how close we were to nuke war are not exaggerated. I was in New London, CT across the New London River from the Navy sub base. The nuke boats were lined up inbound out twenty miles and exiting same after unloading their dummy Polaris’ and loading on the real deal. This was no show. It was for real. Long story short.