There was a time in our recent history when Americans continually expected and prepared to die in cataclysmic radioactive fire — and accepted that shadow over their lives as the price of freedom. Duck-and-cover drills. Bomb shelters. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Doctor Strangelove. Able Archer 83. War Games. Whether in real or imagined settings, humanity spent much of the Cold War contemplating the use of nuclear weapons, stepping far too close at times to the end of the world. It was a terrifying way to live.